Even as we enter our 16th month in the Shenandoah Valley, I still expect Western Washington to grow. Slowly, I am adapting and learning. One area is fall planting. Last year, the garden was only partly built at this time point. Because of that, I planted some crops very late – to even have anything in the ground.
This year I ran the numbers, looking at the length of time and when the right time was. On the island, I would have had to seed green peas no later than mid-July.
Here in zip code 25442, grow zone 7a, that time comes later. But I didn’t know how much later, because you need to include your microclimate as well.
We were traveling to Florida for 9 days, so I seeded before we left 4 kinds of green peas and an entire row of green beans. The peas were 3 types dwarf peas and 1 bush.
Those next 10 days were very warm, in the low to mid 90s and in the upper 70s at night. It rained/thunderstorms 7 of the days. My oldest son only needed to water anything twice.
When I came home I was shocked at how big the seeds were 10 days out.
It was almost still too warm, I realized. The night temperatures were very warm. This was August 10th.
On August 27th, we had many peas coming on.
Temperatures stayed in the mid to high 80s, with a couple of days in the low to mid 90s. We had a couple days where the night cooled off, but in general the night was still mid 60s to mid 70s.
Not being used to this, I was not prepared for how fast a “fall” crop could grow.
By this past weekend, on the 6th of September, I knew I needed to harvest and pull the dwarf plants.
39 days, and this was done for the season. Before even fall showed up. I did it with 10 to 20 days to spare, based on the suggested time the crop takes.
The bush peas take longer (I want to say 60 to 70 days). They are done growing and have had flowers for the past 5 or so days. They will be ready as fall settles in.
Now, to see how it would go, I planted another half bed with more peas after I got back from Florida, around mid-August. This way I can figure out when to seed next year. My feeling is the first week of August will be the best, by the 7th. Any later and you run the risk of the weather getting cold at night. But you also by early September go under 13 hours of daylight.
Those chillier nighttime temps come fast. This past week had some nice temps.
And since this day happened this month, we are already down to 12:46 tonight. As we lose light, the plants know it is time to roll up.
But I digress; the harvest was good. The peas are a tasty treat. As an experiment, it was a success. But with lessons included.
~Sarah