YOUR LOCAL PEA SANATORIUM

Peas are not difficult to grow. They shoot up determinedly as spring struggles to make up her mind, asking for no more than a kind word and a scoop of dirt. They are cold weather hardy, admirably resilient, and nearly impossible to screw up. All of this to say: our garden of peas under mason jar cloches is an absurdity all of my own making.

The wild hair to start peas indoors was born as many ridiculous homestead explorations are: I saw someone on the internet do it. Pair that with a feeling that every year heat knocks out our pea patch before it really takes off and you have a woman who: knows better, does worse. It is worth noting that simply getting the peas in the ground earlier would solve the premature pea death of seasons past but I am a woman of new ideas! Yes. That. Ok. But then to complicate matters I sowed them in a flat with decidedly picky seeds who thrive only in the sunny and warm climes of June, July, August, etc., which thusly created peas adjusted to a mild and windless 60 degree house, peas that could not journey out to the porch to harden off if the safety of their neighbors was at all a priority.

The at risk pea shoots, the mason jar cloches, the absurdity of my own making.

Bless the flaxen-haired hero of the homestead who worked his way through his mother's pea sanatorium, gingerly planting peas between jars, By the Book and Just in Case.