A "Lucky" Experiment- Planting Peas

I used to visit with a lovely, elderly neighbor in my old neighborhood named Carol. She and her husband lived across from the church, and in the late spring time, just as things were warming up, bees were buzzing, and you could walk to church without a coat on, you could see Carol's garden in perfect little rows with green veggies ready for the picking. It perplexed me because where we live (zone 5), we are advised not to plant anything before Memorial Day, for fear of frost or snow!  

So, one day I asked Carol what her advice was. She told me that she and her husband always planted their peas on St. Patrick's Day, and other cold-weather crops. She said it was good luck.  She let me know that she has lived in this area all her life, and they have never had a problem planting in March. I trusted her. And I have always wanted to try planting on St. Patrick's Day.  Her garden certainly benefited from the good luck!

In years past, the weather wasn't nice enough, and honestly, I was not ready mid-March. But this year is different. We have had a uniquely warm winter, and it was a gorgeous 70 something degrees outside. So, the tame dame trio got to work on a garden bed and planted our peas on St. Patrick's Day! We sure hope the old saying runs true and that our garden will have good luck because of it. We also put down a few other cold-weather crops just as an experiment. Since I have plenty of seeds, I think that if anything dies off, we will just replant.  It's early enough, after all!  

Here is a list of what we planted (A bit of everything!):

• Beets
• Swiss Chard
• Paris Island Cos. Romaine Lettuce
• Buttercrunch Lettuce
• Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach
• Champion Radish
• Parsley
• Chives
• Black seeded Simposon Lettuce
• Iceberg Lettuce
• Corenta Hybrid Spinach
• Watermelon Radish
• Lincoln Peas
• and Nantes Carrots!

We'll let you know in the coming weeks what happens with our lucky experiment.

When we were cleaning out the garden bed, we had a few surprises. An old decrepit radish (a.k.a. something to dissect for a science project), a little orange carrot...

...as well as blades of garlic breaking ground (we thought it all died and failed us last year)!

Here's to good luck!  Hoping to see sprouts in the coming weeks!

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