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Q. Gardening friends and I have been discussing the best times for planting certain flowers and vegetables. One of us planted nasturtium seeds outdoors around a month ago. Do you seed nasturtiums indoors or directly into the garden? What is your preferred timing?
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A. Though nasturtiums can be seeded indoors, I find it easier to plant the seeds out in the garden when the soil has begun to warm up. This usually happens around mid-April, though a cold spring will delay the warming.
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In gardens where faded flowers have been left on nasturtium plants to form seeds, those seeds will fall to the ground for the winter. Some will germinate in spring. Every April, I watch for patches of nasturtium seedlings sprouting. Their arrival points to perfect timing for sowing.
Though self-sown nasturtiums most often appear around mid-April, the timing will vary with each year’s spring weather.
I always grow some nasturtiums. I find them useful for creating patches of colour in vegetable plots and for edging beds. They are ideal for children to plant. The seeds are large and easily handled and planted with a simple poking into the soil and a pat-down of soil over the planted seeds.
Q. One of the first outdoor seedings I make each year is snow peas, which I love to munch on in the garden. The vines always grow well and produce prolifically, and that’s my issue:
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Too many crunchy pods all at once. They don’t seem like the sort of vegetable that would preserve well. Is there a way?
A. Snow peas do tend to produce a super-abundance of pods. Keeping them picked and eaten is one way of “controlling” their numbers.
I’ve heard that freezing preserves the pods’ flavour and crunch, I’ll be trying it this year by steam-blanching some of them for one or two minutes and cooling them quickly over ice packs before packaging and freezing them. Always something new to learn.
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