Planting out some Peas

This year we will be growing a few different varieties of peas on the plot. Mostly mange tout and sugar snaps as these are my favourite types,  I will be trying others too.
My plan is to make sowings every few weeks to have a constant supply until June/July.  Here is a list of my chosen varieties and some information about each one:

Havel
An early, short pea that grows to about 3ft, it is an old heirloom that is apparently productive, the peas hold well and they stay sweet for a long time on the plant if you don't get round to picking them.

Rosakrone
A very unusual heirloom from Sweden, this has beautiful red/pink flowers borne in 'crowns' above the foliage. It grows to around 4 - 5 foot tall, and looks stunning grown on a wigwam or traditional peasticks for a decorative feature that also produces lots of tasty peas.

Golden Sweet- Yellow-Podded Mange-tout pea
This is a rare, beautiful yellow podded pea that is very sweet eaten fresh or cooked.  It has, tall productive vines, and apparantly a delicious crisp flavour.

Bijou' Giant Sugar Pea-huge edible-pods.
A real old fashioned Giant Sugar Peas with 7 inch edible pods - used to be very popular but are now almost completely extinct.  The huge pods are apparently sweet and juicy.

It is part of a 5 year project from RealSeeds starting with a handful of peas found in a jar in a cellar, this is their own reintroduction of a proper Giant Sugar Pea as used to be grown in the 1880’s.

According to their website it matches the original description and engravings perfectly, even down to the pattern on the seeds and the number of seeds per gram.

Boddingtons Soup Pea - very rare. From RealSeeds website:
This is a vigorous and productive soup pea that performs very well for us.

This variety was first given to us by neigbours in the Clydach valley here in west Wales. We haven't been able to trace much of its history, but we've been impressed with its performance in the last few seasons, particularly the extremely difficult summer of 2012.

Let's be clear - 'soup peas' are - not surprisingly - designed to be eaten dried, in soup. They are not good fresh (far too starchy!) so you'll need to grow some normal peas too. But they do make a fantastic ingredient in soups, stews, curries and other pulse dishes. If you want a high-protein crop that can be easily grown and dried in UK conditions, then this is the one for you. This variety has smooth greeny-grey seeds, that make a traditional UK style pea soup or tasty mushy peas (if you prefer a darker coloured pea, look at the Latvian variety below).

I also took part in a charity fund raiser with on the blog 'mudandgluts' and will be growing Kent Blue and Magnolia Blossom tendril Pea, but I will give them a blog post of their own. (Here http://strawberriesandcreamplot.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/charity- seeds.html )

I started sowing about 3 weeks ago and these sowing came to the allotment today to get planted out. I git in a bit of a muddle following my 'pea plan' but managed to sort it out. Paronoid that the lot would get munced by the fat pigeons that happily patrol our site, we covered them with some chicken wire 'cages' we inherited with the plot. These aren't quite the right size leading to a discussion on making our own, watch this space! All the peas grow at different hights, so I will sort out supports on my next plot visit.
We akso transplanted the Wizard beans that I sowed back in January and after looking at the sorry state of the ones that have over wintered, decided they also needed some pidgeon protection for now.

The grass paths got a good mowing and the bed edges are now nice and tidy after a strim and a bit of cutting in too. The strawberry plants are looking very healthy after Sundays tlc and the sweet peas are still alive so far! Yay!
We came home with a tub full of Purple Sprouting Broccoli which is doing fantasticly, with the promise of a few more tubs worth to come, such a different experience to last spring.