The peas are alive

The peas that I sowed on March 19th (because I read somewhere that peas are traditionally sown right after St. Patrick's Day; also, it was a nice warm-ish day on March 19th) have finally germinated after nearly two weeks.  I took this picture last Saturday (4/2/11).

I recently read on other garden blogs about some of the more experienced gardeners soaking their peas in either plain water or Vitamin C water before sowing them.  I didn't know about any of this, so I sowed dry peas straight out of the seed envelope.  Fortunately, I had really good germination - over 95%, I think.  Yes, it did take almost two weeks for these peas to germinate, but I think that had more to do with the cold freezing temperatures right after my sowing day, and less to do with the fact that the peas were dry.  I do remember from last year that the dry peas germinated relatively quickly (3-5 days) under "normal cool" temperatures.

I did not have much luck growing peas in Indiana last year (on the other hand, the peas I sowed in my mom's California garden thrived all fall/winter/spring long).  The spring peas were planted too late to have enough cool weather to grow, and the fall peas were obliterated by cutworms.  This year, I have high expectations for these peas.  I'm growing a few different varieties of sugar snap peas and snow peas.  I planted two rows of them across one of my raised beds - that's two 12-foot rows of sugar snap and snow peas.  Hopefully they will all grow well and give me more than a handful of peas.