farewell my peas

Last week I finally said farewell to my peas. They never became very prolific, I never picked more than 3 pods in one go, but I still enjoyed eating them fresh from the pods. But they go to the point that between a bush on one side and the pumpkin on the other, they were very shaded and ended up getting a bad case of white, powdery mildew. I didn't want it to spread to the pumpkins, so off they went to the compost heap.

I kept the roots in the ground though. Legumes take nitrogen from the air and store it in their roots, so they enrich the soil for other plants. The roots will break down and make their spot even nice for the next plant that grows there.

It's a shame they had to go. It's pure luck that the summer has been so cool that the peas have thrived when they should have died off long ago from heat. But I suppose it was pretty well-timed: apparently next week it's going to reach 37 on Tuesday (that's 99F to you northerners). Oh the joys of Melbourne weather.