Even though the badger enjoyed pea supper a couple of nights in a row, the plants weren’t totally destroyed and have continued to produce pods. It was lucky that I didn’t just pull up the lot after the badger’s visit, especially considering the kind of damage they do (see photo). These peas haven’t been plain sailing at all: in their youth many of the seedlings disappeared (likely due to pea and bean weevil I understand, and not mice as I suspected at the time) and because of that I sowed extra seeds in the gaps as well as on either side of the rows. The badger pulled down the outside rows but those extra seeds I planted are now doing their thing, the damaged rows of peas are acting as a shield and so far the badger hasn’t returned – except to finish off the last of our carrots, but that’s another story.
What’s especially great about growing peas is they're very child friendly. The boys enjoy helping themselves and eat the raw peas then and there - they do the same with other things too like the mange tout and herbs and Aaron even likes to eat the beetroot tops. I feel very satisfied about how many vitamins they must be consuming in just one visit to the allotment. It also feels very 'house on the prairie' sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas and broadbeans.
Last year Chris who has one of the other allotments decided that we didn’t know what we were missing and very sneakily planted a single broadbean plant in one of our beds. Seeing as I wasn’t given much choice - and I didn’t want to be rude by ripping the thing out with a how dare you! - I unenthusiastically prepared to give them a go. And I have to say that they are not as bad as I thought. I don’t love them, I don’t find that they really taste of much, but I don’t despise them either. So this year we put in ten plants (sounds a lot until you see how many broadbeans everyone else has) and they are producing about a handful of pods every few days. I like them tossed into a bowl of pasta and home-made pesto. We are also getting a couple of portions of mange tout every few days and I’m going to try and freeze some of them and see how they do.
Meanwhile, up in that neglected part of the allotment under a sheet of enviromesh, I was shocked to discover that the summer Hispin cabbages are well and truly ready to eat. As with the broadbeans, cabbage is not on the favourites list. I only planted six of them to ‘give them a go’ but all six require eating – like now! Oh well, having a glut is what it’s all about.
Stuart and Lindsey's damaged peas
