The wonders of the tiny pea ~ August, 1990

David Heiller

Our garden has turned into a Dairy Queen, thanks to the sweet peas. It’s a miracle, I tell you, a miracle!

Of course it all starts with planting the peas.
A perfect job for little Collin hands!

They started ripening about two weeks ago. At first we found only half a dozen at a time, small in the pod, and growing much too slow for our impatient tastes.

But is there anything more worth waiting for, sweeter, more delicious, than that first, fresh sweet pea?

We didn’t think so. Noah would joke after supper, “Let’s go have dessert, Dad,” and Mollie would think we were heading into the Dairy Queen. He would lead us to the garden and the sweet peas, and we would start picking and eating.

Mollie at first was disappointed. Sweet peas are NOT ice cream to a five-year-old. Plus she has trouble cracking open the pods. But after we handed her a few, she realized that the dessert joke wasn^’t far from the truth.

The pea patch is a haven of sorts. When I get up in the morning and stretch my legs, they seem to carry me there for a snack.

Pea shelling time.

When my brother came for a visit last week, we ended up in the pea patch, grazing like a couple of old Angus bulls.

When we sent Noah out to pick peas for a hot-dish on Sunday, he came back with one empty pod. He confessed that he had eaten them all on the way to the house.

Noah with a rare nine-pea pod.
Where is the picture with the TEN-pea pod?
I swear Noah had one of those too!

The whole family can pick them together, and shell them together. There’s no better way to visit than while doing such a simple job together.

Plus we have the quest for the elusive 10-pea pod. We found a lot with eight, and a rare nine, but a 10-pea pod is rare. Noah found one last year and I took a picture. We compare it to a .400 hitter in baseball. Another Ted Williams pea? Highly doubtful, but we keep looking.

Now WE are the ones who can’t keep up. The peas are filling mixing bowls, bigger, harder, serious about fulfilling their lot in life. Some are even bitter, and we have to throw them away. Soon they will be done altogether.

That’s all right. They had their day, and we are glad. They’ve made all that toil back in May and June worthwhile. Made it fun.

And they’ve taken the edge off the garden, the pressure that starts to loom this time of year as vegetables start to ripen all at once and the garden seems more like work than we remem­bered, and we start to wonder, bone tired, whether this is all worth it.

All that from a little pea. Now that’s a miracle.