What Not to Do - No.236 (May 1st)

- put your peas (Mangetout Golden Sweet, in this case) out on the beds in their tray, ready to plant them up, and then forget about them for a few days in the warm sunshine. Result - rather yellow, barely-surviving pea plants. Oops.

The very beginning of May, this was. I was in two minds - junk them, or plant them out anyway and see how they do. I did the latter, and now, having seen how they did, I think the former would have been wiser. (I did however then plant some more, direct into the soil, amongst the feeble ones, so all is not lost.)

It didn't help though, that the weather was then warm and dry for weeks, and although I watered, it probably wasn't enough for them to catch up after that bad start. Though, I think they were probably too far gone, anyway...

Here they are, hopefully planted out. To add to their troubles - this bed really needs improving. The two beds nearest the cherry tree are rather dusty; I must add some 'organic matter'. The strawberry plants don't seem to find it a challenge, though.

Don't worry - I did add some string for them to climb up. They are now producing the odd pea, though the plants haven't climbed very high - nothing compared to the luxuriant wigwam they achieved last year.