After tasting fresh peas, a new outlook on homegrown vegetables

I'm not a vegetable gardener. I come from a long line of Southern farmers whose crops were tobacco and cotton, whose womenfolk tended kitchen gardens of tomatoes, onions, okra and mustard, but I don't raise food. I grow flowers to feed my soul and herbs to feed swallowtail caterpillars.

Since February, however, I've been following freelance writer Rebecca Perry's instructions for the reconsidered Victory Garden (next week's installment is 11th in the series). I know from partaking in meals of just-picked, seasonal fruits and vegetables how delicious local food can be, and nothing's more local than your own property.

I'm trying to grow enough potatoes for at least one meal – my long list of gardening failures teaches me to have low expectations – and I have tomato plants waiting for this crazy weather to stop hopscotching between the low 40s and the upper 80s to put them in the ground.

For the first time in my life I planted peas, following Perry's instructions in early March. From my myriad choices among English pea, snow pea and sugar snap pea hybrids, I chose the 'Sugar Ann' snap pea, because that's what I happened across at a Wal-Mart in East Texas. I wasn't even plant shopping, but I can't resist a garden aisle. 

Grown by Bonnie Plants, a wholesaler based in Alabama who owns a greenhouse operation south of Tyler and who stocks the vegetable starts in North Texas Home Depots, the young transplants were in small six-packs. 

Peas are an ideal crop to grow with children, Perry noted in her story, and I could have followed her simplified steps for planting a seed packet instead of transplants. But the transplants were inexpensive and already 4 inches tall.

I had trouble with squirrels digging holes in my pea patch (a big terra-cotta container filled with brushy sticks for the peas' delicate tendrils to cling to and pull themselves up by), but the transplants started to grow anyway. 

The chickens scratched up a few sprouts I planted along a fence. The others did not thrive, probably because they did not receive enough sun or they got crowded out by the poppy plants that began their growth acceleration about that time. 

The pea vines in the container are not rampant growers. That's because they were bred to be compact. The variety won the All-America Selections award in 1984 and is still popular, according to Bonnie Plants.

A few weeks ago, I noticed small white flowers on the vines. Now, to my surprise, I have 3-inch peapods. I pinched a pod off the vine (it's better to use flower snips) and popped it into my mouth. First sensation: a pleasing crunchiness. Next: an incredible sweetness I have never in my life encountered in a green vegetable. It was wondrous.

Peas are a cool-weather crop, so you cannot duplicate my experience until next March, when it's time to plant peas again. Based on my beginner's success and that unprecedented flavor, you should plan for a pea patch of your own in 2010. You can serve them boiled or stir-fried, but you'll eat them before you reach the kitchen.