Pea Brush

I WALKED down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.

The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flower’s backs.

They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
And lift themselves up off the ground.

Small good to anything growing wild,
They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
And since it was coming up had to come.

- Robert Frost

There is probably just enough time to plant one more crop of snap peas. This spring has been pretty cold for So Cal...perfect! We're on our second planting for the year, but the little guys never even make it into the house...someone (ahem) is always eating them right off the vine.

We have 5' bamboo teepees for our pole pea vines to grow up, but bush peas don't really need to be trellised as they cling to each other by twining their little shoots together and only grow to be about 18 - 24" high. However, you can make a pea brush for them with beautiful black birch branches, which will provide additional structure for the plants:



It's so pretty, and it's free! Go make one and tell me all about it...

XOXO
Yvette

PS. Pea Brush photo courtesy of Margaret Roach's amazing blog: A Way To Garden. The Black birch pea brush revelation was from my Mom, who saw it on Martha Stewart, and is saving her birch twigs for me! Thanks Mom!

PPS. HAPPY EARTH DAY!