Well, my guess is that your peas may have contracted something from the aphids. I planted my Sugaree Snap peas in January and they are only now, just beginning to bear, here in Tahlequah. But, if you've been picking peas for a couple of weeks and they dry down, and it's been hot there, then it's possible that they just petered out.

Can't imagine that it'd be too late to plant beans, either bush or pole. Go for it!

George

I think the heat probably got your peas. When I grow them (and most years I don't), I always lose mine to the heat in May.

Plant your beans. There's plenty of time to get a good crop. I succession plant beans all summer long. You may get fewer beans if it gets unbearably hot, but you'll still get beans. Some years I can't even tell that the heat slows down the beans at all. If you plant bush beans and pole beans this week, you should be harvesting bush beans in July and pole beans in August.

If you have more aphids than the lady bugs can handle, your plants may be getting too much nitrogen. Plants that have excess nitrogen (whether via excess fertilization or just really rich soil) seem to have about 4 times as many aphids as plants that do not have excess nitrogen, at least in my garden. It helps to plant beans and peas in your poorest soil.....not much chance of getting excess nitrogen there! (I know it sounds crazy, but it is true.)

I'm sorry to hear you've been ill, and hope all is going well with the pregnancy and that you are feeling better.

Dawn

Here near STilwell our first planting of Super Sugar Snap peas are just getting started bearing with lots of blooms and the second planting is just starting to bloom, so I think it unlikely that your peas died a natural death. More likely either disease or they weren't kept watered as well as they needed to be. Also the roots need to be kept cool so it is important to get a mulch on early. Sugar Snaps do best presprouted and planted no later than March 1 although last year the hard freeze in April took most of ours out and we started over. Better luck next year

Hmm thanks for the Nitrogen tip sounds like I may need to get my soil tested just to check. I've never used commercial fertilizer, just manure (aged) and this year some partially composted leaf shreds from my mower. The place the peas are in have had a lot of tomatos in that spot for the last two years. I figured I was doing good by planting some beans and peas and letting the area rest from the crowded tomato crop. Thanks for the tip on sucession planting your beans- I will go ahead and plant this weekend. If you get a chance will you tell me how you sucession plant your beans in your biointensive garden? I am wondering what plant would have to be finishing up in order to provide you room? How many weeks do you space the planting? Thanks as always for all the advice everyone!

My first round of beans are interplanted with onions and there are a LOT of plants. I'll count them later and let you know how many. If the timing works out as it should (and, uh oh, it might not because we had late freezes here through the beginning of May and I planted beans about a month late for us), I'll harvest beans before I harvest onions. If the onions are done first, I am not sure if I will go ahead and harvest them then, or wait until the beans are done and then harvest the onions. Why interplant beans with onions? Because bunnies always find their way under or through the fence and eat my bean plants. Louise Riotte interplanted beans and onions to keep the rabbits out of the beans and I figured if it worked for her, I'd try it. So far, so good, no losses to the rabbits.....and we have tons and tons and tons of rabbits. How many? Well, they sit in the driveway and in the grass between the driveway and fenceline and watch me work in the garden. I guess they find it entertaining. Or, perhaps, they are looking to see what is "on the menu" if they sneak into the garden when I'm not around.

The second round of bush beans, which should go into the garden in about a week (I start the second round when the first round starts blooming.)will run right along the west garden fence line. This particular woven wire fencing has chicken wire attached to the bottom two feet to keep the rabbits from reaching through or crawling through. This double row of beans is on the edge of a bed of cantaloupe, but the cantaloupe (being planted today--late like everything else) are going to be planted inside tomatoe cages and growing vertically. By the time these beans are "done", the cantaloupe will have climbed up the cages, down again and will start spreading horizontally into the beans, which are going to be "done" by then, so it won't matter.

So, Round One of the beans (interplanted with onions)should produce at least through the end of June, and perhaps into mid-July. Round Two of the beans should produce at least through the end of July and perhaps into mid-August. Round Three? When the onions and round one of the beans are done, that bed gets a 2" or 3" layer of compost tilled into it and that is where I plant a double row--approximately 24 plants--of fall tomatoes. On either side of that double row will go a single row of bush beans. Round three goes into the ground between late June to mid-July depending on when the onions and round one of the beans are done. Then, there is always a Round Four, but it is pole beans and it goes into the ground in its own location, surrounded by winter squash. I hope to get the winter squash and pole beans into the ground (in their own dedicated area, which has nothing planted in it right now) before next weekend. I plant two or three kinds of pole beans on poles made from bamboo, cedar, or willow--whatever isn't already being used for something else. I try to time the pole beans so I can harvest them in the late August to early September timeframe. Since pole beans mature pretty much all at once, most of them go into the freezer for the winter, but I also will be freezing beans from the other rounds as we go along.

I try to time the planting/harvesting of the beans very carefully. Otherwise, they all mature at once and I don't do anything but pick and put up beans for days and days. : )

Round one of the beans/onions is followed by fall tomatoes and round three of the beans in the same bed.

Round two of the beans, planted with cantaloupe, aren't really followed with another crop IF the cantaloupes are moving into their space. If, by chance, the cantaloupes are staying on their cages and not spreading out, I'll plant mini-pumpkins in the space vacated by the bush beans, usually Jack-B-Little and Baby Boo.

Round three of the beans (plus fall tomatoes) follow round one in the same bed once it is cleared out and has compost added. They keep that bed occupied until the first frost. Then, that bed gets a winter cover crop.

Round four are the pole beans climbing high in their own space while winter squash creep and crawl all over the ground around them. Sometimes I have to be careful picking round four or I step on the winter squash vines....and I have to watch the ground for snakes hiding in the winter squash vines. Once round four is done, the winter squash occupies that space until late fall or even early winter.

You also can succession plant by repeatedly planting beans in the same place. To do that, I start successive rounds in paper cups and plant them, cup and all (with an "x" slashed into the bottom of the paper cup to let roots grow through), the same day I yank out the previous round. I do add compost and Espoma Vegetable-Tone organic fertilizer to the soil in between rounds. I try to have pretty good sized plants in those paper cups by planting time so they take off quickly when I put them in the ground.

Succession planting is part art, part science. Sometimes I run out of space and don't get to plant one of the rounds. This year, repeated late frosts in our low-lying location here by the Red River really, really slowed me down. I kept waiting for "one last frost" before planting anything other than tomatoes (which I had to cover up many, many times to protect from freeze and frosts) so I feel like everything is late. However, crops planted in warmer weather grow faster than those planted in cooler weather, so I am sure it will all work out.

Dawn

Thanks for the explanation- It helps a lot because I've been reading tons of books on succession planting but they are written by yanks or Californians who schedule peas to be planted mid-June! The Oklahoma version helped tremendously!

You're welcome.

And, yes, it is hard to find veggie gardening data that relates to our climate. I've mostly figured it out through trial and error over the years but I feel like I am still learning.

Succession planting would be harder for me if I planted more cool season crops, but I don't. Between the hungry deer and the way our weather here in southern OK goes from "too cold" to "too hot" in about 3 days, cool season crops are just too iffy here. Well, and if I did grow more cool season crops in late winter and spring, I'd need a larger garden so I could start warm season stuff while the cool season stuff was still producing.

Hey BackyardMomma, glad to hear I'm not the only one pregnant & gardening...in this oklahoma heat! I'm wondering if anyone here innoculates their beans before planting? I know I should, but I never get around to it. My other problem with beans (well, bush beans and especially if you are growing soybeans) is that you have to plant A LOT of plants so that when you want to harvest some you have enough plants to make a big enough haul. Otherwise I end up with maybe 10 lovely, perfect beans one day and 8 more the next day, etc. Pole beans on the otherhand seem to be prolific and almost disease free. Also, kudos to me for finally unloading all of my turnips. Why-o-why do I grow turnips? I don't like them, and in a blink of an eye they are as big as a butternut squash.

Sometimes I innoculate and sometimes I don't. I am not sure it makes much of a difference either way. I always get good germination and more beans than we can eat, so I fill up the freezer, so innoculation doesn't seem to be as necessary as we think. I do think inoculation helps more if you are planting really really early though.

And, yes, it takes a lot of bush beans to be able to consistently pick a good mess of beans. I plant tons and tons of beans in each planting. My theory is that you can never have too many beans because you can freeze or can the extras.

Y'all be careful gardening pregnant in our summer heat. We don't want any dehydrated moms-to-be passing out in the garden!

Dawn