Category Archives: PEAS

2026 VEGETABLE LIST

Here is my list of vegetables I’ll be growing this year

TOMATOES
I organized the tomatoes by how many days to harvest from the day they are transplanted outside. Of course this is just an estimate depending on where you are growing them and other conditions. In the past, I’ve organized by color only, but wanted to get a better representation of early, mid, and late tomatoes. In the past, I’ve grown too many late tomatoes forcing me to wait all season. All are Heirlooms or Open-Pollinated (OP) except for a few hybrids which are listed. as such. I always try a few new ones-keeps my interest up!

CHERRY TOMATOES

—Black Cherry-dark purple-65-70 days to harvest
––Super Sweet 100s -red-cherry-65 days to harvest-very sweet and very prolific
—Moby-yellow-dwarf plant-65 days to harvest-slightly larger cherry tomato
NEW! California Sungold-supposedly a little bigger and crack resistant than original Sungold

EARLY SEASON

—Goliath Pio-HYBRID-red-65 days to harvest-excellent old fashion tomato flavor
NEW! Matina-red- 65-70 days to harvest-prolific early tomato
NEW! Prudens Purple-67 days to harvest-New to me!

MID-SEASON
—Black Krim-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
—Cherokee Carbon-Black/purple-75 days to harvest
—Cherokee Chocolate-brick color-70-75 days to harvest
—Jaune Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest-super prolific-super tasty
—Black Prince-70-75 days to harvest?
—Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest

LATE SEASON
NEW! Black Beauty-black-75-80 days to harvest
-I grew this years ago
NEW! Striped German-yellow with pink blush inside-big-78 days to harvest
—Virginia Sweets-yellow bi-color-80 days to harvest
______________________________________________________

OTHER VEGGIES

BEANS-William Woys Weaver-TBD-He sends rare bean seeds for me to grow out for his 501c3 every year

GREEN BEAN-Fresh eating
—Rattlesnake-fresh eating green/purple splashes on pods-good in heat/droughts

SUMMER SQUASH
—Friulana -Does not attract squash bugs as much as other varieties of summer squash in my garden. These produce an abundance of light yellow, “bumpy” fruit. They aren’t beautiful, but they taste great. Doesn’t get watery when cooked. This is the most common zucchini in the markets of Venice in summer.

WINTER SQUASH
—Waltham Butternut-Does not attract squash bugs as much as other varieties in my garden.

PEPPERS
-the last few years I’ve been trying different sweet peppers from around the world.
—Lava Red-from Italy-70-80 days to harvest-a variety of Corno D’ Toro/sweet-thick wall
—Jimmy Nardello- from Italy/80-90 days to harvest/sweet-thin wall
—Calabrian Caviar-from Italy/75-95 days to harvest/sweet-thick wall
—Piquillo Lodosa-from Spain/Basque/75 days to harvest/sweet-thin wall
—Poblano-from Mexico//65-80 days to harvest/mild heat-thick wall
—Criolla de Cocina-from Nicaragua-78 days to harvest-sweet-thin wall
—Doux D’ Espagne-from Spain/75 days to harvest/sweet-thick wall
—Shishitos-from Japan-small tapas green pepper
—Habanada-like Habanero but no heat-mall orange pepper
NEW! Bridge to Paris-from Italy-prolific red 8-9” thick skin
NEW! Giant Aconcagua– from Argentina huge red pepper
NEW! Marconi-from Italy-huge 8-12” peppers from Italy

CUCUMBERS-FRESH EATING
—Poona Kheera-our favorite fresh eating cuke to eat-never bitter

CUCUMBERS-PICKLING
—Bothsby Blonde-good for Bread n butter pickles/sweet pickle relish

CAULIFLOWER
—Freedom-white variety
—Cheddar-orange variety

WINTER/SPRING LETTUCES

—Santoro–butterhead
—Yugoslavian Red-butterhead
—Speckles Troutback-butterhead
—Italienischer-oakleaf

ARUGULA
—Rocket

SPINACH
—Bloomsdale-early
—Space-early

ONION
NEW! Purple Bunching onion (scallion)

SUMMER/FALL LETTUCES-Batavians or Summer Crisp lettuce (plant seeds in June)
—Salanova-Batavia-red and green
—Jester-Batavia
—Joker-Batavia

CHARD
—Ruby chard

—Argentata-white stems-most cold hardy
—Orange chard

KALE
NEW! Red Russian

OKRA
NEW! Jing Orange

RADISHES
—Pusa Gulabi and Pusa Jamuni-beautiful tasty radishes
—Watermelon radish

PEAS
Super Sugar Snap-grows 5’ tall

CARROTS
—Dragon purple
—Kyoto Red
—Black Nebula
—Scarlet Red

BEETS

—Cylindra
—Badger Flame
—Chiogga

ASPARAGUS
NEW! Jersey Knight-plants will be delivered in March

Fall Vegetable Planting Schedule

Fall harvest. We only wish our gardens were this GREEN! Photo courtesy of http://gardening.ktsa.com

Ok, so now since it is time to plant my fall veggie garden, here is my planting schedule

FIRST-WHAT TO PLANT AND WHEN

Depends a lot on what you like to eat. Below is MY list of what I want to plant for a fall garden. Some of these are already growing in the summer garden and will be ready to harvest soon like the carrots and beets so I must decide if I want more in the fall.  All of these planting dates are estimates depending on the variety you grow and are based on planting outside, not in a greenhouse. Look on your package of seeds or on the plant label for seedlings for accurate harvest times and go backwards from Oct 3 for Santa F+ add 14 days.

JUNE

Fennel (Finnochio-bulb type)-Sow seeds mid June. OPPS! Missed this. The short cool days of fall are even better for fennel than spring. You can still plant this (IN JULY) as it likes cool nights although the bulbs may be smaller since we missed it’s prime planting date.

JULY-AUGUST


Asian Greens/Bok Choi- Sow seeds mid July. Can handle light frosts. Harvest days depends on variety. Look on seed package.

Beets- Sow seeds in mid July-early August. Can handle freezes but must mulch with thick straw or row cover. 45-65 days to harvest.

Broccoli- Sow seeds early July-mid July. Can handle light frosts. 55 days to harvest.

Broccoli raab- Sow seeds in early July-mid July. Can handle light frosts. 45 days to harvest.

Carrots- Sow seeds in early July-mid August. Can handle freezes but must mulch with thick straw or row cover. 70-80 days to harvest.

Chard- Sow seeds late July-. Can handle some light frosts. Cover with row cover when it gets cold to extend season. 50-60 days to harvest

.

Kale- Sow seeds early July. The short cool days of fall are even better for kale than spring. Kale that is established will last well into winter and can survive below freezing temperatures down into the 20s.

Lettuces- Lettuce baby- Sow seeds in early-August. Seedlings will need consistent moisture and shade from the afternoon sun on hot days. Cover when it gets cold to extend season but it will not survive freezing temps. 45 days to harvest depending on type and variety.



Peas- Sow seeds in early-July-mid-July. Likes cool but not freezing weather. 60-75 days

.

Radish- Sow seeds late July. 30 days to harvest.

AUGUST


Spinach- Sow seeds early-August. The short cool days of fall are even better for spinach than spring. Spinach that is established will last well into winter and can survive below freezing temperatures down into the 20s although it will stop growing. Why doesn’t it freeze? It produces an alcohol inside-alcohol won’t freeze! 45 days to maturity.

Endive, Escarole-Sow seeds early August. The short cool days of fall are even better for these than spring.



Lettuces- Lettuce head – Sow seeds in anytime August. Seedlings will need consistent moisture and shade from the afternoon sun on hot days. Cover when it gets cold to extend season but it will not survive freezing temps. 45 to 60 days to harvest depending on type and variety.



Mesclun mixes- Sow seeds in early-August. Seedlings will need consistent moisture and shade from the afternoon sun on hot days. Cover when it gets cold to extend season but it will not survive freezing temps. 45 to 60 days to harvest depending on type and variety.



Arugula- Sow seeds in mid-August-late August. Fast growing. Can handle some light frosts. 
30-40 days to harvest.



Kale- Sow more seeds mid August. The short cool days of fall are even better for kale than spring. Kale that is established will last well into winter and can survive below freezing temperatures down into the 20s

OCTOBER


Garlic-Sow largest cloves anytime in October after the first frost. Harvest in late-June-July

Shallots-Sow largest bulbs anytime in October after the first frost. Harvest in late-June-July.

I’m 

not a big fan of kale, endive, escarole and collards, but went ahead and listed them as I know many of you like them. Cabbage and cauliflower take too long to grow for me. Forgetaboutit!

SECOND-WHERE TO PLANT


Do you have garden space close to your house for easy watering and harvesting as it gets colder? This is important to consider if your main garden is far away from your home. I have two places to plant them now. My cold frame and my raised beds up by the house. If I ever get my greenhouse done, I’ll have another great place for veggies but for now I’ll plant in my two spaces.

Cold frame in previous year

My first space is my cold frame up by the house. Since it is too hot now, I think I will have to put some shade cloth over it to keep plants cooler inside. Also I want to get one of those automatic vent openers that will open the lid if the temps get too hot and close it when it gets too cold.

The shallots will soon be done in this raised bed and I will use it for fall planting

My second space is the raised beds also up by the house. Raised beds are great as they keep the soil warmer in the fall when it is getting cooler. Since I already pulled all the garlic in these raised beds, I will plant a few cold hardy vegetables in them and then plant garlic and shallots between them come October. The beauty of having some garden space close to the house is when it does get cold, I won’t have to walk down to the main garden to water and harvest. I can just get a watering can and go right outside the house. Also I can replace the light row cover that I keep my cool season crops under (keeps the critters and bugs away) with a heavy row cover on the beds if a sudden frost comes up. The cool season crops will be picked by the time winter hits and the garlic and shallots will sleep till spring!

Seed starting INSIDE

I’ve been planting seeds INSIDE for a couple of weeks now. Here is my update on my seed starting endeavors this spring so far.

PEAS-Not everything is successful-My pea seeds I planted inside have NOT done well as I had hoped. They are barely coming up now inside so I planted more outside and if these make it, I will add to the other seeds that I planted outside on Saturday. I think the heating mat was too hot for them so I put them on a table under the lights but with no heat. We will see..

FAVA BEANS-I’m so excited-I’ve never grown fava beans before but are trying them this year. I sprouted fava beans that I got from that Homegrown seed swap and bought some more that I got from Spanish Table Market here in Santa Fe. The companies would like to say that the ones they sell you to eat are different then the ones they sell you to grow.  If they are treated then that would be true but so far I have not found that to be the case. They are both sprouting just fine. Today I saw three of them breaking ground in their little pots on the heat mat under the lights. Once up I will transplant them outside as they like the cold. I’ll talk about them later.

CHARD, BOK CHOY seeds planted-MAR 13-The chard and bok choy germinated in 2 days!

BORAGE seeds planted-MAR 13-Germinated in 3 days!

MORE LETTUCE-seeds planted-MAR 13-just starting to come up

SPINACH seeds planted inside as well as outside -MAR 13-Not up yet

TOMATOES-seeds planted today-Sunday, MAR 18-planted 27 different varieties! Hope to put them out 8 weeks from now-mid May or sooner. Last year I planted tomato seeds inside on Mar 21.

POTATOES-I’ve been chitting them for a week now. Chitting is getting the potato eyes to sprout.

The next major inside seed starting will be in 2 weeks-Basil, oregano, marjoram, zinnias and probably a lot more.

Plant peas, spinach, and arugula on St. Patrick’s Day

Today is ST. PATRICK’S DAY- TIME TO PLANT PEAS, SPINACH AND ARUGULA. I always plant them right around now and use the holiday as a reminder. I stayed home today to recoup after putting Butch down. Getting my hands in the soil is always grounding for me. Lots of things to do right now regarding gardening. Here are some of the things I did today.

COLDFRAME-I inspected the rabbit damage to see if the spinach seedlings are salvageable. All but one of them are starting to grow back from the crown which were undamaged. I planted seeds of the following in the coldframe:

SPINACH-Bloomsdale-45 days in the other half of the coldframe.

CHARD-I didn’t know (or remember) that chard is a biennial (meaning two years) but spends it’s second year mostly growing to produce seed which is why they never seem to produce as big of leaves the second year. I will pull them and plant more chard seeds-white variety.

OUTSIDE RAISED BED-Checked the outside raised beds by the house. Last fall I I dug some old horse manure into one of them and it looks great. I planted the following seeds and covered them with row cover to keep the rabbits from them:

PEAS-Dwarf Grey peas and Oregon Sugar Pod II-60 days

SPINACH-Bloomsdale-45 days and a giant variety of spinach (there I go again!) called Monstrueux de Viroflay-50 days

BUTTERHEAD LETTUCE-Yugoslavian Red-40 days

MESCLUN-Provencal mix-40 days

CILANTRO

CUTTING LETTUCE-a new super red variety of  called Sea of Red-40 days

ROMAINE-Paris Island Cos-68 days

ARUGULA-Apollo-30 days

IN THE SECOND RAISED BED- Took out the last of the carrots from fall that overwintered. They should be extra sweet! The garlic I bought at SF Farmers Market last fall is coming up in it. Lightly dug in some Yum-Yum Mix in the remainder of the bed as I’m going to plant more carrots, beets and shallots which are heavy feeders and need some extra fertilizer especially if you are putting them back in the same area. I will plant:

CARROTS- Purple Haze and Danvers

BEETS-Detroit Dark Red-60 days, Bulls Red Beet-50 days and Early Wonder beet-48 days

DUTCH SHALLOTS-picked up some Dutch Red Shallots while I wait for the French shallots to arrive. Should be a good taste test at harvest time.

MAIN GARDEN-I hooked up the hose and watered the strawberries and the asparagus. Underneath the layer of dried leaves in the strawberry bed I see new leaves starting to grow from the crowns. The asparagus is either dead from our very cold winter or they haven’t started growing yet, we will see..