Sorry to hear about the seed failure, Dorothy.

I don't know if any of the other sources would ship faster than Park, but several of the seed companies I regularly patronize have it. Burpee's had it this year, and Johnny's Selected Seeds, and I know I saw it somewhere else. Now that we have arrived at March, I don't know if anyone can ship faster than the 7-10 days you're expecting from Park's. All the companies are just so swamped with business at this time of the year.

The last couple of years I've found Super Sugar Snap on the Burpee Seed Rack at one of the big box home center stores---either Lowe's or Home Depot and at Tractor Supply Company as well, so if any of those stores are in your area and you're near them, you might drop in to check and see if you can find any.

Remy (a Garden Web member herself) has it at Sample Seed Shop and she usually ships fast, but there's no guaranteed. I'll link her page below. She runs a small operation and, as far as I know, she does it all herself, so you may be swamped with orders this year, but I'll say this--she excells at customer service so if there's any way she can get the seeds to you more quickly than Park, she will. You might drop her an email to ask if she can rush the peas to you. I've been very please with how quickly she ships and with the quality of her seeds.

Sugar Snap Peas at Sample Seed Shop

WIth this early warm-up, I'm hoping we don't get too hot too fast for our beloved edible podded peas. Today, while weeding the onion bed, I reached out to pluck a newly sprouted weed out of the soil and stopped myself just in time---it was a volunteer pink eye purple hull pea plant. The sad thing? It had to have sprouted either yesterday or last night and it was huge already---almost as tall as my super sugar snaps that have been in the ground since mid-February. That is sort of aggravating. I am pretty sure I've never seen a southern pea sprout in our soil by March 1st, and I'm sure if I planted some of them on purpose today to see what would happen, it probably would rain and turn back cold and they'd rot in the ground.

Good luck finding replacement seed. If I had a packet in my seed box, I'd send it to you myself, but I don't have any leftover or extra sugar snaps this year.

Dawn

Thanks for the info. I have to go to Tahlequah on Friday. There is both Lowe's and Tractor Supply there. I will look.

Dorothy, I don't have Super Sugar Snap this year but I am planting out of a bag of Sugar Snap from 2013 and I still have a few left. I also have snow peas and a pack of Cascadia and I think Oregon Sugar Pod. If any of those would help you I can mail them out today.

Thanks, Carol, but I have Sugar Snap and I have them started. The favorite pea around here is Super Sugar Snap so that is the one I hope to get if the time and weather permits. I shouldn't be completely out of peas for the year.

These people are in Hulbert. My order came quickly. Clear Creek

Thanks, Amy. I didn't see Super Sugar Snap though and I have Sugar Snap.

Dorothy, I planted both a few times and I think Super Sugar Snap does a 'little' better for me, but the regular Sugar Snap does OK also and I bought the largest bag they had from Baker Creek for 2013 and I didn't use them all. My normal gardening routine was interrupted for a couple of years, so I am trying to use left-over seed. My tomato germination rate was down a little in a few of the older seed and I have lots of things that I haven't even started yet. I need to get my pepper seed started today and I am about 2 weeks behind my normal schedule on that. Wish I had a greenhouse like yours this year.

Hey Mark, I remember you posting here as countrysmiths. I am glad to hear you're feeling better and back in the garden again. Welcome home!

Dawn

Thankfully the Sugar Snap Seed I saved last year germinated well and I have about 150 of those and the Super Sugar Snap seed arrived and I have 150 of it sprouting on the counter. It's later and warmer than I like to start, but I hope to get something anyway.

I came here to this thread tonight to ask if your seed had arrived, and I see that it has. Sure, you're later than usual and the warmth is a little early, but I still think you have plenty of time.

I sure hope so. I'll let you know in a couple months.

It looks like all of my snowpeas germinated after I became concerned about my seeds, particularly because I forgot to presoak them. That .8 inches we got in Lincoln County did the trick. As I was leaving the farm this afternoon I saw more birds, primarily robins, on the front 40 than I've ever seen out there. It's a flat area and they were rising up in front of my car, etc. I truly believe there were in excess of 100 just robins. Migrating? Where to?

We have a few snow peas coming up. We planted them in raised rows. The higher parts of those rows are already dry.

Cochise, Robins don't migrate, but they do spend the winter here in large flocks, usually deep in wooded areas. Then this time of the year they come out to feed in lawns and pastures before pairing up to breed.

I only planted Sugar Snap this year and directed seeded them in the ground. Today I can see them beginning to come up. These rainy days will probably bring a lot of things up. I can see growth on my onions. Well except for the bunch I still haven't planted. LOL

I noticed that the goldfinches that were overwintering here and eating tons of thistle seeds have moved on, so their migration northward may be occurring already. We always have a huge population of them in winter, but then they clear out in March, and we have a much lower population the rest of the year. Or, I see them a lot less because I stop filling the finch feeder in March. Some years we have a huge flock of robins overwintering in our woodland, and I see them pretty often and some years I don't see them much at all. This year has been the 'not much at all' type of year.

My Super Sugar Snap peas are 3-4" tall and starting to climb the trellis a bit more. It likely helps that we aren't having rip-roaring wind like we had in February and even in early March before this rain system arrived. I had done my best to keep them watered, but with strong wind and hot days, they really hadn't looked very happy every since they sprouted. They have loved the weather this week and look much better. I'm relieved we are having cooler, wetter weather for their sake. The last thing I want is for too much heat to stick around permanently too early because some years we get too hot for the peas down here before they even have had much time to set a crop.

All sorts of warm-season stuff is sprouting in my garden, mostly weeds but also some self-sown herbs, veggies and flowers. I still feel like the plants here in southern OK are rushing headlong into spring with reckless abandon and hope this week's weather will slow them down a bit. I don't feel like we've had our last cold weather yet even though it is abnormally warm overall.

So in the fall I threw some snap peas in the ground in my covered garden bed. The plants (maybe 4? All tangled up together?) grew all winter and did a big, fat, nothing and then this spring I got blooms! Two days ago I harvested my first pea pods!

Cool. I bet this would have been the year I could have been picking peas from my greenhouse if I'd planted some in there last fall. Next fall......

I went out to the back garden today to assess. I will put peppers and tomatoes out there in a few weeks, but had some peas there last fall. I have peas growing now! None have been planted since August/September...and they died during the winter. What in the world? Was it seeds that didn't sprout in the fall? Or did the elves plant them?

It could be seeds that didn't sprout in the fall. It could be peas that formed on the vines and you missed them when harvesting and they fell to the ground, overwintered and just sprouted recently. Could it be vines from the fall that died back to the ground but remained alive underground and then regrew? I am not sure. I've never had that happen, but I only grow peas in the spring and yank out all the vines when they are done. I think it might happen in a mild winter if the soil drains well enough that the plant roots didn't rot in cold, wet ground while they were dormant. A friend of mine sowed brussels sprouts seeds last spring that never germinated. Despite our area receiving a little over 78" of rain last year, his seeds didn't rot in his red clay soil. Instead, they germinated back in the fall, grew just fine and began producing a brussel sprouts harvest in December that lasted for many weeks.

I'm not sure how they grew---but it was a pleasant surprise. So...peas help with nitrogen in the soil. Should I leave the dead plants there over the winter or did they do are their "nitrogen fixing" work while alive.

How cool to have brussels sprouts in December!

They do their nitrogen fixing while alive, but in order for the soil to then obtain the nitrogen from the dead plants, you should cut down the plants and work them into the soil.....or, since the pea plants likely will be finished up by June and you will want to replace them with something else, you can compost the pea plants and recapture their nitrogen in your compost. Or, you can cut off the plants at ground level, compost the above-ground portion, let the roots stay in the ground and decompose there and plant something else in that space. I generally take out my pea plants in May or June (depending on when we start getting the wrong combination of heat/humidity that causes powdery mildew to hit the plants) and replace them with something else that will grow on the pea trellis---generally I alternate each year, planting cucumbers, icebox melons or muskmelons (commonly called canteloupes in the USA even though they aren't true canteloupes) one year and pole type southern peas the next.

My friend was very pleased to have brussels sprouts long after he'd given up hope of his seeds sprouting and I was pleased for him. However, he and his dad were eating them raw because they weren't sure how to cook them. (His mom passed away a couple of years ago and they're still sometimes muddling their way through how to cook some things since she did most all of the cooking.) I gave him a few suggestions about how to cook them. It is not unusual to have brussels sprouts in production here at that time of the year if you plant them in the late summer for a fall and winter harvest. We get so hot so early in spring that a person is more likely to have success with brussels sprouts in fall/winter than in spring/summer. However, it does seem odd to have them germinate in fall from a spring planting. It all worked out in the end, though.

I am finding volunteers in the oddest places. There is a 5 gal bucket with I think brussels sprouts in it that bolted but continues to grow. It's just a bucket I never reused, never water. It is from fall of 2014. I never got sprouts though. Cilantro is growing next to the patio along with a lettuce plant. Spinach is coming up in the onions from probably year old seeds. Mustard type greens have become a weed in my yard. That and tomatoes. Sometimes I think we should just throw the seeds out the back door and see what comes up.

That's so true, but volunteer seedlings never come up exactly where I want them. I leave them where they sprouted until they have a couple of true leaves and then I transplant them to an area where they can grow. An astonishing number of my flowers and herbs each year are from volunteers. Southern peas pop up everywhere and chamomile has become a weed here. Some years there are so many poppies in places where they don't belong that they become weedy. This year it looks like the weed of the year is dill, but we love dill so I'll find a place to move these volunteer plants to. They currently are popping up all over the asparagus bed, along with some aspargus volunteers, likely from the purple asparagus because my green asparagus is one of the male Jersey hybrids.

I saw a new weed yesterday and now that I think of it I believe it was tomatoes. It's in an area surrounded by black plastic and water bottles trying to warm the ground. I don't need volunteer unknowns. I have over134 thanks to Dawn of most desirable varieties and a lot of sungolds originally from Dawn and my porters. I am scrambling to find places to pit them all plus everything else.

I have pulled up some pepper weeds, tomato weeds and dill weeds already, and then when I realized I was pulling up dill, I was horrified and stopped. Now I have a lot of dill to transplant. Today it rained, was windy, was cool and cloudy so I stayed out of the garden, which just about killed me. More rain is in the forecast for today, tonight, tomorrow and I believe tomorrow night as well. (It just figures because the worst of the mud from last week's rain was finally starting to dry up.) We were lucky though, as the hail that pounded parts of the D-FW metro area (mostly pea to golf ball sized but some up to tennis ball sized according to news reports) missed us. I have a full non-gardening schedule beginning tomorrow morning and running until at least Saturday late afternoon, so may not step foot in the garden again until Saturday evening to cover up plants (and hoping to get home in time to do that in daylight instead of by flashlight).

Kim, I put tomato plants everywhere. Everywhere. Any 2 square feet of unoccupied space may find a tomato plant being plopped down into it. It is a peculiar affliction from which we suffer---the need to have far too many tomato plants crammed into too small of a space. If there is a cure for this affliction, I don't want it or need it. I'm making a concerted effort this year to grow fewer tomatoes and more flowers. You know what this means, right? I am eyeing the big border bed set aside for tons of flowers and trying to figure out how many tomato and pepper plants I can squeeze in there with the flowers before it becomes obvious that the bed is more for tomatoes and peppers than for flowers.

Dawn

I know it is a really strange affliction for because I don't eat tomatoes. Even if I liked them I can't eat them. But I have even tried to speak them by my son. I told him I was only planting 100 regular and 10 cherry types. But now so many sungolde are doing so well and they are kinda like part of the family I would hate to not plant them. And the porters too. I so carefully saved seed from last year and ......well you know. So somewhere in this acre I will be sneaking in at least 30 more plants than planned. Shhhhhhh

Sungold is a hybrid. Are you saying your saved seed from those tomatoes that you grew, or just kept seed from a bought package of seed?

Both. I did not know it was hybrid. So wonder what I will get?

Porter is all saved seed but this was 3rd year I have saved from them.

If you grow out plants from saved Sungold F-1 fruits, you will get the F-2 generation, which has high variability as the genes recombine randomly. With SunGold F-2s, people who've grown them have reported a wide range of results with fruit ranging from red to orange to gold or golden yellow, and some fruit that is bi-color. The sizes and shapes have had quite a bit of variability as well, ranging from large round cherries about an inch in diameter to grape shaped tomatoes. The important question, of course, is the flavor. Almost everyone who's grown out F-2 SunGolds and written about them has found the flavor highly variable as well, and not necessarily in a good way. Some people have gotten sweet fruit, some have gotten sour. Most feel the flavor is not nearly as good as SunGold, but a few thought it was good enough---or at least their friends and family liked it even though it wasn't the well-known SunGold flavor.

Many tomato afficianadoes, and some well-known private breeders, have tried to dehybridize SunGold to get a stable O-P version of it. None have gotten an exact replica of SunGold, though Reinhard Kraft of Germany probably has come closest with SunGold Select II, seeds of which likely are available commercially from some seed company. Some people find SunGold Select II a reasonable substitute for SunGold (though not exactly the same as the F-1 SunGold) and others don't. Most people who have tried to dehybridize SunGold have taken their attempts out to 4 or 5 generations, represented as F-4 and F-5 and I've seen some reports of F-8, and then finally have dropped the effort, realizing they'd rather grow and eat SunGold F-1 than an inferior O-P descendant.

You should know that the variability is not just in the fruit either. Some folks have gotten very short dwarf plants in the F-2 generation, some have gotten plants that have poor disease tolerance. So, since you are growing for market, assuming you want to grow as many fruit to sell as possible, growing out your F-2 SunGold plants is a risk because you could end up with largely dwarf plants that have poor disease resistance and produce red cherry fruit with flavor that might be great (rare in the info I have found online), mediocre or poor. To me, that makes growing out SunGold F-2 very risky and possibly a waste of resources (especially space).

Dehybridizing SunGold into a stable open-pollinated variety is sort of the Holy Grail among tomato afficianadoes, and I've never seen one report of someone saying that their F-2 plants have given them an exact replica of SunGold. If you have the time and space to experiment and are willing to dedicate several years of effort to growing out SunGold generations, you are likely to find that the F-2 generation was the most unstable, and you may get less variability as you go forward with each new generation of plants. From that point forward, you save seed each plant generation only from the plants that gave you the closest version of what you're seeking, and which each generation, you may come closer to getting a reasonable facsimile of SunGold. Or, you may not. However, since Reinhard Kraft already has done all that to produce SunGold Select II, you'd just be duplicating his efforts with no guarantee you'd get his same results. It seems easier to me to track down and buy SunGold Select II seeds, and as far as I can remember though I don't know if I saw them in this year's catalog, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has SunGold Select II.

Finally, be very careful not to call the tomatoes you are selling from saved seed "SunGold" because they are not, legally speaking, SunGold. You'll have to call them something else to avoid getting into legal trouble with the seed company that holds the legal rights to SunGold.

By the way, with Porter the reason you have had good results from saved seed is because it is a long-stable (for decades now) open-pollinated tomato from the old and now-defunct Gene Porter & Sons Seed Company once based in Stephenville, TX, so saved seed (assuming it wasn't cross-pollinated by an insect and that you don't get a sport or mutation) will give you stable Porter tomato plants. That's the difference between open-pollinated varieties and hybrids, and it is a very huge difference. To get the original SunGold F-1, you'd have to cross the original parents used to breed it (a closely held, trade secret, so no one knows what they are), which is how the wholesale producer who has the rights to SunGold produces new seed for it.

I've tried some open-pollinated versions of several different hybrid tomato varieties, and for the most part found them inferior (sometimes very inferior) and went back to growing the hybrid version.

I will give my sungold plants from saved seed away. I have friends that do not care at all what kind of tomato it is if i grew it they will take it. I gave them some of the mystery plants from last year and they LOVED it waiting to see what they were going to get.

And I will pay attention to that next time I save seeds for sure. Kinda silly assuming they were heirloom. Oh well they are the healthiest biggest plants in the lot. I may have to keep 1 or 2 just to see for myself.

I grew a supposedly open pollinated sun gold last year. I spit it out and immediately pulled up the plant. That might have been premature, since the weather had been so odd and it might have improved in the heat, but I was looking for more space, so that was that.