Accidental Seed Saver {Saving Pea Seeds}

I had big hopes for my peas this year.  It was my first year to try growing them and despite all the belly-aching I'd heard about them being a pain to shell, I was looking forward to it.  Frozen peas go into our grocery cart way too often.  I'd love for them to come out of the garden instead of off the grocery store shelf.

I ordered Champion of England seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.  The packet said it contained 50, but it really contained 53.  I like to count things.  Hubz made me a beautiful pea trellis out of limbs he'd collected while cleaning up the woods. 

He loves me.  :)

Those babies were in the ground; I was ready to go.  It seemed like the peas were coming into their own when, as my regular readers know, we got a hail storm that beat the heck out of my garden.  It was like a TKO.  The peas were knocked down and didn't recover. 

I was upset about it, but held hope I might be able to plant peas in the fall and still get a 2012 pea harvest.  Sooooo...I picked off all the fully developed pods and brought them into the house to dry.  They laid on tissue paper for about 3 weeks before I shelled them.  They were good and crispy-dry.



I ended up with about 3 times the amount of seeds I originally planted.  There were a few pods that had molded and some you could tell didn't fully develop so I filtered those out and ended up with a nice little pile of pea seeds.  Stored in an envelope in a dry place they should be fine for a year or two, but with any luck mine will find their way into the dirt in just a week or two.



I planned to be an intentional seed saver this year with my green beans and cucumbers, but I'd planned on eating my peas.  Things don't always go as planned so I had to roll with it.  Hopefully I'll get some homegrown peas in the freezer yet!

Anyone out there planted peas in their fall garden?  How well did they do?

Linking up with Rural Thursday

-->