Sure, it’s nothing special to be picking sugar snap peas in September, but still picking from my spring planted crop? It continues to be a bizarre year in my new garden!
Sugar Snap Pea Blossom
In fact, we are now experiencing a heat wave with temperatures surpassing 30 degrees for the first time this summer. This weather will, I’m sure, make short work of the peas, so I’m eating them as fast as I can.
The fall crop of raspberries is ripening under the hot sun, sweet and delicious. Both Autumn Bliss and the yellow-fruited Anne have set exceptionally heavy fall crops. My very unscientific experiment with the Autumn Bliss raspberries seems to indicate that double cropping doesn’t reduce the fall crop as far as I can see, so I guess I will double crop the entire row next year.
Autumn Bliss Raspberries
My thornless blackberries have set a bumper crop too, so my breakfast cereal has lately been topped with a delicious layer of raspberries, blackberries and the last few blueberries.
Triple Crown thornless blackberries
The peas really have me stumped though; I’ve never had them behave this way before. They began late due to the cold spring, but gave me a good crop over several weeks. They seemed to go on longer than usual, but of course we really didn’t get any hot weather to speak of, so that would explain why they didn’t burn out.
New sugar snap peas, note the old dying vines in the background
Eventually, by the middle of August or so, they began to peter out, the vines slowly turning brown, so one day I went out to the vegetable garden planning to rip them out. I was surprised, on closer inspection, to see fresh green growth and white blossoms. So I spared their little leguminous lives, and now I’m harvesting a second crop of sweet and juicy sugar snaps. Maybe they saw the raspberries across the way going for a twofer and thought they should too!
Raspberries and Sugar Snap Peas
Whatever the case, I’m not going to complain, I made a tasty homemade chicken chow mein for supper tonight, with fresh sugar snap peas, as well as carrots and onion from the garden, and it was scrumptious!
Sugar Snap Peas and Raspberries
I just ripped my peas out this weekend, they went on forever!! Awesome…