Being a big fan of heritage peas and climbing french beans I was very excited to be given a whole raft of heritage pea varieties to trial. Being a Leicester boy, the varieties "Mayor of Leicester" and "Lord Leicester" hold particular interest.
The varieties range from "Carters Battleship" to "Mummy White", a variety that in Victorian times was reputed to have been found in an Egyptian tomb, hence the name. All of these peas will be trialed, photographed, the seeds saved with some returning to the very kind doner, Dave "American Gardener" Thompson at Worldwide Seed Trader., some being kept and some passed on to others.To be honest, I have never been so exited at the begining of a growing season.
5 comments:
Good thing you have plenty of space for growing David. I'd love to do this but I'm fairly restricted (half a plot). I have room for my few hertiage varieties and of course for the crosses I made last year.
I'll watch this space with interest.
Looks like a wonderful way to grow some lesser known varieties. Looking forward to seeing the results! :)
That's wonderful! great to be able to keep all these old varieties alive. But how are you going to be able to stop them cross-pollinating?
what a cracking pea project looking forward to reading how they go be sure to tell us about the taste.
Hi, do you know if American Gardener is still around? It looks like he hasn't been active since 2009, and i'm worried that his collection of rare pea varieties may have been lost.
From what i head, he had some very rare pea varieties that noone else had.
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