R.I.Peas

I know you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes but that's a good 'un!

It's a sad day on the balcony as I have just hacked down my pea plants :( I loved my peas - they came from Poundland and they were so easy to grow and to look after. Look how they started - this was only 2 months ago.

I had absolutly no problems germinating them and they grew so quickly.

They had such beautiful flowers.

Best of all they are self pollinators, so they didn't suffer with my bee shortage.

They were the most productive thing I've grown so far, and so tasty.

It's a sad end!

More flowers and other happenings

There are some amazing things happening on my balcony. Here's a couple more flowers you haven't seen yet...

Runner Beans

Tomatoes

Lavender

Look at my pea plants - I find this incredible. It's reaching out to grab onto anything it can, and it's growing up the net nicely. Things like this always brings me back to the question "how do they know how to do this?" I am really enjoying seeing this stuff happen on a daily basis.

This is the most exciting news though, there are real, actual, proper chillies and tomatoes growing. Look!

Note to self: stop taking so many close up photos on new camera, remember to get the bigger picture too!

Ode to peas

In with my Poundland beans were some Early Onward peas. I was doing a bit of research on what to do with them, and I discovered some great pea-related facts:

1. Mendel basically discovered genetics by breeding peas

2. Peas used to be called pease

3. The oldest pea ever found was in Burma, and it was 3000 years old

4. Thick London smog was called pea-soup because it was slightly green in colour

5. On average everyone in Britain eats 9,000 peas a year (I am certainly not pulling my weight)

6. There is an etiquette to eating peas - you are supposed to squash them on the back of a fork. (This cannot be conducive to eating peas very quickly, but could be fun.)

I mainly have to thank peas.org for these amazing facts. The also had a great recipe for ham, cheese and pea muffins. Here's my current effort - rather tiny right now but growing really quickly.