Bill,

I'm also in northern California. I plant snow peas in the spring from
seed and always get a bumper crop. Over the years I've stopped
planting the vegetables that either don't produce heavily, or that no
one really likes to eat, or that have a lot of pest/health issues. The
snow peas are in the rotation!

Susan B.

Sue,
thanks for the encouragement. I'm in a Region 5 here, west of Santa
Rosa. It seems like I've been sticking plants in the ground for a long
time but I guess the last few years the bug has really bitten me. This
year I tried to branch-out into germinating the seeds. I really don't
have much of a place to sprout seedlings and as you know, everybody got
a late start because of the rain. (April had the greatest number of days
with rain of any previous April, here in Sonoma County.)

I've had up and down luck with germinating seeds. My best results were
from putting the under my waterbed where it is about 75F, but even there
the results have been mixed. Germination is worse outside. Out of 54
cells, I only got 3 beans to sprout. Oy. Hopefully, after I run into
enough walls, I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong. But then, that's
everybody's first presumption, "it must be me". My plan is to have a
grow light set up next spring.

Mean while back at the ranch, I struggled with corn, then someone wrote,
they need lots of water! Bim-batta-boom, I have good corn. A little on
the small side but being on the north side of a hill in the forest, I'm
pleased. Now I'm having problems with my peas and I'm told that they
don't like the heat! (Yeah, I am/was growing snow peas. Let's hear it
for the idiot.) The real problem is that my gardening books and the web
sites that I've visited say, "Give lots of water to corn, and don't
plant peas when it is hot. Somehow I just read over those key little
pieces of information. I think I need to back up and reacquaint myself
with all my little friends with cellulose cell walls.

But enough ranting. What kind of production do you get from your peas,
when they aren't being fried by 100F in the shade (and they ain't got
no shade) temperatures. Do yours have a full day's sun? What kind of
soil are they growing in? How many do you plant to fill your needs?

I'm trying to grow for three. I'm not trying to unplug from the
"commercial -food distribution" grid but I like to have those little
complements to a good meal and that means fresh. So, I don't need a lot
of any one thing but dependable and adequate production from as small an
area as possible.

Mulching has really improved my garden by reducing the dimension of my
snail and slug problem. On the other hand, I haven't seen any benefit
from crop rotation. I've grown lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes in the
same place for years with no obvious problems. This has been done in
hard clay that is like concrete if you let it dry-out. The soil is
slowly improving but if I stop amending it, I'm sure in a couple of
years, you would never know that there had been a garden there.

Gad, this note is getting out of hand. OK, OK, I'm growing, tomatoes,
lettuce, peppers (of all kinds), corn, cucumbers, beans, peas (on
occasion), squash, sunflowers, rhubarb, beets, Swiss chard, Brussels
sprouts, parsnips, dwarf citrus, dwarf peaches, parsley, cilantro, sage,
oregano, echinacea, licorice, astragalus. prunnela, stinging nettle,
skullcap, yarrow, clivers, mint, and dandelion. The blackberries are
down the road and through the poison oak.

If you can give me any advice on these plants or related plants, please
post or email me.

Salaam

- Bill