I'm running planting workshops this spring as part of the build up to the St Giles Seven Dials In Bloom competition. Most of them are going to be food based and this, the first, was to plant up pots of peas and pot marigolds.
Advertising for the day had been minimal, the posters and leaflet drop had not happened and posters had only gone up in three housing blocks and on the garden railings. Seven people turned up to do pots.
The peas came in two variations, the first to grow traditionally for peas in pods with ten seeds in a ten inch pot (Kelvedon Wonder variety - dwarf and early), the other had the peas sown really densely in smaller pots to give a crop of pea shoots for salads - these should 'cut and come again'. The idea had been to sow some pot marigolds - calendula - in the same pots as the peas but instead they went into their own pots. They're called pot marigolds because they are good for the pot/edible, they were used to colour food before saffron, turmeric and the rest of the expensive yellows were introduced and being so easily grown were available for everyone (dont mix them up with Tagetes marigolds, the African and French ones - these are repellent smelling, tasting - and looking!).
They are good companions plants for veg attracting aphid predators like hoverflies.
I'll keep the leftover seed for the next workshops and peas and marigolds can still be on the menu next month.
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