Peas in the Gutter!

I love peas! Last year I grew Kelvedon Wonder dwarf peas very successfully in the Patch. We harvested lots and enjoyed their sweetness, delicious both raw  and cooked with mint. Then one day I discovered neat little piles of chewed pods all along the row on the ground. The plants were stripped. I realised that mice had been having a feast from our peas, discarding the pods! They had made themselves a nest under the courgette leaves next to the peas. Safe from the foxes inside the rabbit proof fence and shaded from the gaze of the barn owl by the umbrella-like leaves of the courgettes,  they were living in mouse heaven with a full larder to hand!
This year we have the cats with us and I am hoping that the mouse population is sufficiently low to enable us to harvest lots of peas and will keep my eye on them to make sure they are not stolen. I want to grow three lots of peas this year. Douce de Provence, followed by a maincrop of Hurst Green Longshaft  and then a final crop of the early (and quick to mature) dwarf pea Kelvedon Wonder sown in July to get in just before the frosts. I have started with Douce de Provence, a hardy pea which can be planted in autumn and stand all winter. However, I waited until February before sowing the seeds into guttering in the greenhouse. The most favourite time for the mice to eat peas is when they are at the germinating seed stage so I wanted to avoid this by planting them out when they were a bit further on. Sowing them into guttering is perfect. You just fill the gutter ( I cut mine into one metre lengths) with compost, dampen it down and space the peas in a double staggered row about 2 inches apart. Water them and wait for the shoots to spring up. They germinated quickly and are easy to water and care for. When the shoots are a few inches high you just make a shallow trench in the bed and slide the compost along the gutter with your hand pushing the peas plus compost straight into the bed. I found it easiest to slide about a foot at a time. Firm them in and hey presto you have a beautiful row of peas!

So here's to a summer of rows and rows of wonderful peas !!