Peas are pulled, more leezard signs and ::LIGHTBULB!::

 Feeling better by a percentage or two than yesterday so am enjoying the weather. Warm in the high 70's today, clear and sunny but very breezy so wonderful weather. Felt good enough to tackle the peas which was easier than I thought. 

The other lady watered before I got there. She doesn't have a nozzle so she just leaves it off to the side to run as she goes to turn it off. Sigh. The one pepper plant is almost as tall as the marigolds now! I keep apologizing to them for the lack of food and mulch, I hope they appreciate the sacrifices. Marigolds don't care apparently.

Peas apparently aren't as sturdy as a tomato or pepper, at least these aren't. I remembered to bring a trash bag and my basket with gloves and everything down with me because it was covered in mildew I wasn't going to put that in the compost pile.

 I opened up the bag and then looked around...pretty windy and without anything in it, was likely to blow around. I then spied something to use and ::LIGHTBULB::

Tomato cage turned trashbag holder without having to bend down! I am so brilliant sometimes it's scary, other times I'm frightened about how I forget things.

Knowing the pea vines weren't that heavy this wasn't an issue, still jammed the cage into the ground firmly so it didn't fall over. This is a smaller cage and a kitchen garbage bag and it was a perfect fit. I pulled up one of the smaller vines and it separated at ground level with very few roots. Maybe I should have watered first to soften the ground but the roots weren't going to be a problem anyway so wasn't worried.

Two more things about the pruners. These are Fiskars pruners, not sure exact model but they're the ones I used at HD because I wasn't doing heavy pruning so my Felcos are somewhere in the cupboards here or in storage. Anyway, I was fumbling with trying to use my phone for pictures, pull peas off the vine and again... ::LIGHTBULB:: There are notches in the handle space for stripping leaves and thorns... open the pruners, close it over the tomato cage wire and lock shut...voila! Not on the ground, not in my pocket, right there. 

The second thing these come with (and some other types of pruners as well) are wire cutters right there at the back of the blade. I  used that to cut the green wire because it got too long and tangled to handle easily. I now have three small coils of the wire with some still criss crossed on the cage in the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And after vine was out, chopped up the soil with the shovel. There is a definite color difference but that is considered dry soil in this weather. Not enough moisture to hold the dirt together so everything got watered.

Sigh... the potato bed looking like a desert other than the purslane still trying to take over. I just might dig that one and the one in the south bed out and think of something else. Just too damn long to take for them to grow and it's not really the right soil to do well.

Dirt, not soil sorry.

After looking up lizards again those are indeed lizard holes the females use for nesting and hiding. I'm looking forward to seeing baby lizards around the garden. On my way to the trash I saw a lizard scurry ahead of me at the parking lot, I paused, put my stuff down and got out my phone. Discovered a second slightly larger lizard as the other one had scurried under the car in the shade.

That is a defensive posture from what I've read so there may have been some territory things going on before I intervened.

Now, on to my 'bumper harvest' of peas. ::snerk:: 

 

Stupid formatting went bonkers again oh well. That is the totality of the tall vine harvest, that's a sandwich size bag, enough for one serving of peas. Varying sizes but only one or two pods were what would be considered 'full size' peas. Not going to bank on the flavor being top quality but nothing butter, salt and sugar can't improve.

Hopefully.