Round Peas 101

Have you ever planted or picked round peas? Me neither!!!! After moving into the country a couple of months ago we had some help from the pros (Benny and Willa Mae) in planting our first veggie garden. We have been taking care of our little guys and watching them grow everyday- AND yesterday was THE BIG DAY!!! Our first veggies were ready...the Round Pea!Here is the first little guy that was picked...I am such a proud parent of both the pea pod and the little K-Man that is holding it!
We started the picking process. We had to look through each plant and make sure the Pea Pod was holding "large enough" peas inside. Once K. got started it was hard to look at the pod before he picked it! I started bent over picking the peas...then squatting down...finally I decided just crawling on my hands and knees was the easiest on the back! A little dirt never hurt a little lady!

Ok- Here is the process: You find pea pods that look like they are bulging about to pop and you have to pull kinda hard to get them off the plant.
Once you get them all picked (Wow, there are a lot of pea pods in there!)....
you snap the ends. You don't ever wash them off (this goes for any veggie) because you don't want any water on the peas if you are going to freeze them-it will ruin them. With other vegetables you just wipe them down really good with a towel to get all the dirt off. If you are going to eat them right away you can wash them of course! Next, on one end there is a little green string you pull down the spine of the pea pod.

Then you open the pea pod from the spine and LOOK!!!! Little Peas!!!!!
Home-grown peas are MUCH larger then frozen or canned peas!
Here are the cute little guys all together! Let's just say that it took a lot of pea pods! After "snapping" all the peas I put them (divided in 1 Cup servings) in air tight bags for freezing.
This picture proved that I did it!!! With a little sweet tea you can do just about anything. It took me a little over an hour to get the peas "snapped"

It has been a fun process from planting seeds to actually having veggies that we can eat! Another one of my 100 Life Goals has been met- to have a veggie garden. This is only the first of many veggies that will be picked soon from Gordon our Garden!