Sweet Peas
by Patricia Wyker

I love the first signs of spring, the sigh and stretch of the earth after a long winter. Springtime means planting for me, a tradition I learned from my mother who had me help her turn the soil in our farmhouse garden from the time I could walk. Even as a child, the annual ritual of working the earth and tucking seeds into the dark dirt seemed a fitting way to welcome spring’s return.

We grew a varied crop but our first efforts yielded the sweetest rewards – early peas. Even today, the memory of those nutty green legumes makes my mouth water.

There is a beauty to this vegetable. The curling of slender tendrils as the plants climb up the poles, the fragrant blossoms as delicate as tiny orchids, the neat row of peas, like a string of green pearls hidden in each pod.

“Sweet pea” was an endearment used in my family. It was my parents’ pet name for me. There were jokes about this as it was always my job to shell the harvest. I spent afternoons on the porch, popping open the just-picked pods and scooping out the peas with my thumb until I had filled up an old ironstone bowl. I’d always sneak a handful to munch on later, a sweet snack stolen from that night’s dinner.

It is surprising how many people say they don’t like peas. It must be because they never tasted the freshly picked pods right from the garden. To me, the raw peas were like spring candy, a very different creature from the soggy canned variety most people know.

My gardening activity has narrowed considerably these days. I’m down to a small plot on the side of the house and an old barrel filled with dirt by the back door. Even so, I follow my mother’s tradition of organic gardening. There are no hurry-up commercial fertilizers; I use rich compost and dried cow matter, just as she did.

This spring, I’m sharing my garden with a rabbit who lives under a brush pile in my backyard. I used to wrap a protective fence around the peas but now I let the rabbit have a corner. He sneaks in and takes what he wants.

In another month, I’ll introduce him to my granddaughter who’ll be visiting me for a week or so around harvest time. I expect that she and I will pick the peas and shell them together on my front porch. I’ll teach her to scoop the tender green orbs out with her thumb into the same old ironstone bowl my mother used. And even though the pick won’t be as abundant as the harvests of my childhood, I plan to sneak a handful or two out before I start dinner. That way, the newest “sweet pea” in the family will get her first taste of my favorite springtime wonder -- raw and crunchy, garden-fresh from the pod.