I'm watching TWC and it is almost painful to watch when you think about the people and animals in the path of these horrific storms. This storm that has run from Edmond to Arcadia to Luther to Fallis just won't stop---it is producing either one long-track tornado or many sort-track ones.I am watching the TV and Chris is watching it on his laptop on TVN where two chasers are live streaming from opposite sides of the storm.

Now, peas....

When I soak, I just soak a couple of hours or maybe overnight if I am absent-minded and leave them in the water too long. Then, I roll them around in innoculant, wrap them in paper towels (some years) and wait for them to sprout OR I take them from the innoculant and plant them in 3 oz. bathroom sized cups filled with soil-less mix. I keep the cups inside in average room temperatures and the peas sprout in just a few days. I plant the cups in the ground as soon as a leaf or two appears. If I am going from sprouted peas to the ground, as soon as the little sprout appears coming out of the pea, I put them in the ground. If the ground is wet, I dust them with sulphur as I put them in the ground, although I have wondered if that counteracts the innoculant. So, if you held them inside for days, particularly in the friedge, I suspect that the problem. If you left them in the water to sprout, they likely absorbed too much water and rotted. It only takes 2 or 3 hours for them to absorb enough water to induce sprouting. Putting them in the fridge might not have hurt them had they not been in the water for a while. The reason we sprout indoors is that when the ground is cold and wet in mid-winter and early spring, they rot.

If your climate is similar enough to Farmerdill's that you think a December planting would work for you, then why not try it? Is he the same zone as you? Since he is in Georgia,I guess I always have assumed he is zone 8. I have planted flowering sweet peas in late fall or early winter for spring bloom here in zone 7b.. I think that it would be harder here with sugar snaps because we tend to drop into the single digits every winter (sometimes as low as 0 or 1, but this winter I think only to 8 or 9 degrees), and temperatures that low might kill the plants. I might try it anyway just to see what happens. Very small plants will tolerate more cold than taller ones. Even when peas freeze back to the ground, they often resprout, but if they freeze repeatedly it can sap their strength. You have nothing to lose by trying it. If they freeze back, you can just plant a spring crop as always.

We go from too cold to too hot here for peas in the blink of an eye. I just pulled my sugar snap pea plants but we had harvested for 3 or 4 weeks and, while I didn't weigh and keep track of the harvest, I know I harvested at least 15-17 gallons of sugar snaps. I'm still working on processing the excess since the last picking a couple of days ago was a smidgen under 10 gallons. I actually have about 15 plants I left in the ground because they had a lot of half-mature ones and I wanted to let them grow a couple more days. At this point, I am pretty sick of sugar snap peas and have begun the harvest of cauliflower.

Oh Dawn, I just came in the house, weather channel on, showing tornado near Shawnee. It's huge.

Pete trying to get TVN. Hard to think about what may be happening on the ground.

I'm glad peas are fleeting - they are treats, not a burden. 15-17 gallons?? Jeez, you've put in the time and labor. I see why you are sick of sugar snaps.

Re: Farmerdill - I did sow peas in December (photos). Small patch about 8' x 2'. By end of Feb, they looked ragged and ratty. By May, they were producing like crazy. I ate an embarrassing amount raw, we had several meals from the little patch, and I froze 4 pints. They are winding down now but picking gave them a second wind - they are flowering again. Amazing little pea patch.
Thanks for describing how you pre-sprout - I messed up by leaving them in moist paper towels until they sprouted, then trying to hold them over for several days in the fridge. I'll plant sugar snaps in December.

Just heard about softball size hail.

Pam, Congrats on the peas you got. Yes, some overwintered plants go through a ratty period, and who can blame them. Winter can be tough on them.

I also eat a shocking amount of raw peas in the garden (and no one would believe how many raw cherry tomatoes never make it to the house). That is one of the perks of being the gardener.

The Shawnee storm was incredibly strong. The damage being shown from the Trailer Park near the Shawnee Reservoir is astounding. There are unconfirmed reports of fatalities. That storm cell first became warned when it was near Blanchard and then moved towards Norman and the Lake Thunderbird area, where it dropped baseball-sized to softball-sized hail in many places, including at Paula (P-Mac) and Ken's house. They rode out the storm in the shelter and their row cover was shredded but plants are okay. Her power is out and her phone is dying so she cannot communicate much more than that at this time. I'm just relieved she and her family are okay. It is a bonus that the plants are okay too. Wait until she has power back and can see what the storm did after it made it to Shawnee. WU has incredible video, etc. up in the comment section of Jeff's blog. Chris had TVN up for quite a while and they they seemed to start having problems. Not sure if too many people are bringing down the servers by trying to watch or what.

Paula sent me a photo on my phone showing her hand holding a large piece of hail that was roughly baseball sized.

What an awful day. It isn't over yet, and some of us still have our worst day of the tornado outbreak expected on tomorrow, unless the forecast changes. Apparently we were too far south today (and I'm glad) to have storms. I didn't think anything would happen here and watered the new garden area. The soil crusts over when it dries out and I think that is keeping some seeds from breaking through the surface of the soil. We have a Tornado Watch until 11 pm but our skies here at the southern end of the state are not at all menacing.

You also can Google KOCO, KFOR or NEWSOK and find lots of photos of storm damage.

Paula just texted another hail photo and to me it does look softball sized. Hard to imagine the damage that hail can do.

Dawn

If Paula had softball sized hail, it's hard to imagine that her garden is okay but we can hope for a miracle. I'm glad she has enough power to send texts.

We saw videos from Shawnee - very scary stuff. I'm thinking what it must have been like in one of those trailers when the storm hit. I'll check out WU.

Hope you get some rest tonight. Tomorrow is shaping up to be another eventful day.

Take care,
Pam