i tried Sugar Sprint this year which is smaller and not as delicious as Super Sugar Snap but is only about 2 or 3 feet tall and stringless. i like to let SSS get really fat before harvest, is it just me or do they seem to get sweeter that way? The pods must be strung at any age but it is so much easier to string a fresh pea. queenofthemountain, did you get to taste any of the Sugar Snaps to compare to Super Sugar Snap? i have heard others say the taste is better? But also what your experience confirms, no resistance to PM. i was suprised to discover that snap peas come in yellow and purple. i know Sylvia grew some Golden Sweet snow peas recently and i just received some Opal Creek and Sugar Magnolia seeds. Anyone else trying any of the colored podded peas?

Hazel, how exciting to hear about your plants! It's a fun and rewarding time of year, isn't it? I have decided not to worry so much about doing every little thing just so, Dawn is right, plants know what to do. SO. . . when did you plant your beans? You planted them from seed? What kind of beans did you plant? I have not planted mine yet but I'm thinking I need to get on the ball and do it. My habit has been to plant later rather than earlier and I think this year I want to go ahead and get my seeds in the ground. It's been a warm and extremely dry season so far. I'm sure the colder temps are behind us. I just want RAIN!! My carrots and beets are still very small but at least they have a start. Everything I started indoors, under the grow light I made, I have been very disappointed with. (I'll do my homework for next year) I started my squash and cukes too early and I'm just going to plant seeds next week. My tomatoes are just pitiful. I think I'll keep trying and transplant next month and have a back up plan with plants from a nursery. Here in Enid, my selection is a joke, BUT actually last year I bought a cherry tomato plant, variety unknown, that just did marvelous and produced till the frost did it's number on it. My peas that I planted from seeds look great, about 3" tall now. Oh how I hope I get a good crop, I do love my peas! My asparagus is doing superb, almost all of the 18 or so plants have sprouted and are now covered with soil and hay. Dawn, you have so much experience and give great advice, so here is a question for you. What kind of Espoma do you use? I had no idea there were so many to choose from! I also have been adding organic material to my soil for the past couple of years and it's looking good, I would like to simplify things and get a basic fertilizer, if that is what can be done. I have had the OSU extension center do soil sample tests on different parts of my garden for a couple of years and my pH is good, just needs a bit of potassium and phosphorus, which I have added. Thanks all!

Dawn, I received a report this evening. I'm puzzled. Not for sure if it was for the first two or all four. She says there is no disease issues and I need to quit spraying copper/daconil. Don't feel she paid attention to the part where I said I had septoria issues and also TSWV but didn't send them in as I can diagnose them. She kept repeating you don't have TSWV. I sent an email stating the plant that has it I didn't send. She says it is stress only and they will recover. I know better than that. When I sent the second plant I debated which one to send. The one I didn't send I pulled last night. It had shriveled up to where it was a foot shorter and the fruit was starting to shrivel. The roots look fine and the soil was very moist. I have left some in the past to try to ripen fruit. If it gets to breaker stage and you pick it and let it ripen inside it will be bitter. I have never seen stress affect plants in this fashion. I also had 3-4 plants that exhibited the same symptoms last fall from mid Sept to frost after the cooldown. So I'm puzzled and not sure what to think. Like I told her in the reply. I will continue to pull them as I've found even if they live 3-4 weeks they never grow again even if it is cool and the fruit from them isn't fit to eat. I yank them and plant squash in their place. At least I get some good from the water I'm using. So basically I don't know anything. I know for sure the last plant had wilt. It was completely wilted at 6 am last Sat morning when it was in the 60's. Again the soil was very moist and it had a great root system. I had the wilt hit two more plants. The one in a container was toast in 3 days. When I pulled it one morning even the stem was limp. Being that I've started I will continue to spray Daconil/copper till at least Sept and maybe for most of the season. I've been trimming leaves. It takes at least 30 minutes a plant. I feel the reason I had septoria was we did have over and inch of rain during that time. Also I had the sweet corn on the south side and our winds quit for several days. And the plants were 6 ft or taller with lots of foliage and canopy. One evening when picking fruit I noticed it was like a sauna in there. I think the combination caused the issue. Being that I've cut the corn down and it hasn't rained and i've been spraying the issue is under control for now. I plan to remove all dead and diseased looking foliage although it is a very slow process. It is just on the caged rows. They were the early plants. I've trimmed up either 4 or 5 plants in 4 evenings. I do everything else first. Will get out early this weekend and try to get several done. Have at least 20 plants to go. This evening I finished up a Prudence Purple from George's seed. It is setting fruit good now. And then moved to the Cowlick''s Brandywine. Knock on wood it has considerable fruit set. One reason I won't quit spraying. I hope I can taste a few this year and save some seeds. I'm guessing maybe 20 or more. From tinies to some around 2-3 ounces. Due to the heat I have some malformed fruits. Mule had some pictures on his site of some he has picked. I have some real oddballs. The one Grandma Suzy's plant that shows heat stress has several with big scars on the bottoms. The other GS's plant so far knock on wood hasn't shown any stress issues. It is at least 2 ft taller and I haven't noticed any problems on the fruit on it. But it is fast proving to be a good setter here. Hopefully both plants will last through the season. Both plants are fairly well loaded. So the fruit set on the Cowlick's was the good news I needed after finding out they didn't find the reason the plants decline and eventaully die. I just never heard of stress causing a change in the color of the top leaves and stems to a light yellow and the blooms all die. Some very small fruit set drops off. The leaves usually never curl till later as the light yellow color works it's way to the bottom of the plant. As it goes down then the stems and leaves curl. She said the one almost looked like herbicide drift. I guess that is possible but why not all the plants in an area and whyt does it continue to happen 1-2 plants a week or so sometimes several feet a part for most of the season? May never know the cause. If it continues I will send plants elsewhere to get a second opinion. Jay

I call it WWD 'warm weather disease' and it affects my spring planted peas every single year, even in new soil. My peas end up looking exactly like yours do where they begin yellowing at the soil line and working upwards. In the past I have been able to keep them around a bit longer by spraying with neem oil (a mild fungicide/inseciticide), but it's really the heat that's the problem. My peas just recently started yielding and that's only because our 80f+ temps dropped. Today the high will be ~60F+ and raining. Anyway, there are a couple things you can do which may or may not help. If you have some miracle grow or other fast acting fertilizer, fertilize them to see if it will prod them into producing. In spring it's always a race for me to get peas to produce before the heat does them in so I usually do give them a couple nitrogen doses even though they technically aren't supposed to need it. Please do plan on a late summer sowing for fall harvest though as many gardeners find fall plantings of peas work out much better than spring plantings. In short, I don't think there is anything wrong with your peas beyond what's normal once the heat sets in.