Sugar is sweet
Posted by: TammyI have flurries here this morning. I’m boiling down the remainder of this year’s sap and working the garden. I’m working sweet maple syrup and sweet sugar snap peas! It’s during this time of year that the seasons seem to cross: maple sugaring season and gardening season.
I finished another 7 pints of maple syrup this morning before starting on the new boiling. The temperatures are such that I’ve started pulling some of my taps. It isn’t cold enough at night anymore to encourage the sap to run and I’ve begun to see buds on the maples. The sugar content of the sap will drop and the sap will get an off flavor now.
But, with the warmer temps is my unquenchable desire to stick seeds into the ground. Sugar snaps are always my first. This year, I’m changing things up based on a recommendation from a gardening book. Normally, I grow just regular sugar snap peas that will climb well over 5-6 feet but this book recommended taking advantage of the BOTTOM of my vertical fences by planting a dwarf version like Sugar Anns. The dwarf variety doesn’t require nearly the support (if any, according to the package) and will fill in the bottom, bare area of the vertical fence while the regular sugar snaps reach skyward. The Sugar Anns will also mature more quickly, giving me earlier sweet, snappy snacks while the regular sugar snaps are just getting ready to do their thing.
If you’ve never tried sugar snap peas, they’re incredibly sweet, crunch and versatile. You can eat the pod before the peas inside develop. They can be stir-fried, steamed, and eaten raw in salads. As the peas mature, the pods get a bit thicker and more sweet yet still tender. The entire pea pod is edible. You can always find my boys snapping them off the vines and eating them like candy out in the yard while they’re playing. They are fantastic raw but one of my favorite ways to eat them is by giving them a VERY fast steam (just enough to turn them bright green and still crisp) and then a coating of butter and salt and pepper. YUM!
So, even if you don’t have vertical fencing for regular sugar snaps like those above, then consider the dwarf varieties like Sugar Anns.