Garden from Scratch #7: Peas and Harmony

Peas ready to be planted out

The Garden from Scratch is starting to look more like a garden and less like a bare soil museum. Two of the veg beds are edged with garlic, which is looking very proud of itself at the moment, and the third is holding our Charlotte potatoes. We chitted these indoors and stuck them in the ground, then waited with bated breath.

Just as I had decided (as I do with every plant I stick in the ground, every year) that I had done something awful and the potatoes had rotted in the soil, small fists of leaves appeared. These didn’t hang about long: they became stalks and mounds of potato plants. And every day they are racing towards the sky. Which means it is only a matter of time before I’ll be earthing them up. Once the plants have reached about eight inches tall, spread a mound of well-rotted compost around the base. This prevents the tubers from turning green as they are pushed up.

Charlotte potatoes poking their heads up

I’ve already planted out two sets of peas in the garden. Some people like to sow their peas in drainpipes and then slide the plants, soil and all, into their final growing place. But I didn’t have any drainpipes going spare, funnily enough, so I used egg boxes. If you want a continuous supply of peas, sow them every three weeks until the start of June.

‘Queen of the Night’ tulips blooming next to Allium ‘Purple Sensation’.

I spent this afternoon crawling around on my hands and knees with a pair of scissors, cutting the lawn edges. I know you can do this with proper edging shears, and used to do this in my old garden, but there’s something quite fun about getting this close to the soil. Once I’d given the edges a good haircut, I sharpened them up with a half-moon spade and a plank, and my obsessive desire for neat right-angled harmony was sated.