Fresh Peas Please!



Our Pea Patch: Garden goodness at its finest!

 Fresh peas. Need I say more? Although I would love to write about my children and the fun we are having this summer, I first must write about the peas. We have a pretty large garden and yet we never seem to have enough peas to eat. This year we tried to plant enough to satisfy our growing family. I planted about 75 peas. Not all of them came up, but a lot did. Everyone thought we would have enough. Little did they know that my love of peas goes way back!


Picking peas when we were little.
Very few made it into the house.



Showing off my treasure.













I don't remember a time when I didn't love peas. I could seriously eat them all day. Sugar snap peas are my favorite. When we were little, our favorite way to eat them was to let the pods get really fat and then eat the peas inside. It still is my favorite way to eat them!

We try very hard to eat local and organic foods as much as possible. Most of  our vegetable eating during the summer is from our garden (except carrots and onions-we can't grow enough of them!). Throughout the rest of the year we try to eat what we have preserved or what we can get from our local food co-op from local farmers. 

In the past, I would often purchase those ever-so-tempting bags of peas at the grocery store. They always look so appealing in the market and then I'd get them home and they are just not quite right. Anyone who has ever eaten a fresh pea knows what the deal is. You just can't replicate fresh peas. They even don't taste as great an hour after picking, let alone sealed in a bag pumped up with who knows what type of chemicals. So, just like I vowed not to purchase out of season strawberries, I haven't been purchasing out of season peas.

You would think 75 pea plants would be enough. My dad thought for sure I would have enough to freeze for the winter. Our last peas are hanging on the vines as I type. Not one frozen. Almost all of them were eaten fresh or grilled.

Grilled peas and onions--yum!

Have you tried grilled peas? So many people I have talked to haven't tried them. Other than fresh, they are my favorite.  I just add an onion, olive oil, thyme and salt and onto the grill they go (or oven or campfire as we found out this year).

Jasper finally learned this year how to pick peas without pulling up the whole plant. He loves them almost as much as I do. Tabitha had her fair share too. Poor Eric was the only one who didn't get very many.  Next year we will definitely have to double our pea patch. As I picked our last fresh one of the year I asked Eric if it was too late to start another crop. I think it is a chance I am willing to take in order to get more of that sweet goodness.


That's Jasper hidden among our pea patch.