As Febuary reaches its mid point, pea planting time arrives, and none too soon, as every gardner in the country is straining at the bit to put something, make that anything, in the ground.
Planting peas represents all things good about the upswing of the farming cycle. The low point of winter is past, the anticipation of newness is in the future, and nothing jump starts that anticipation like putting pea seed in the ground. Snaps, snows, or shellers, it really doesn't matter, just the fact that seed is once again being sown is what fuels your fire.
Switching to plastic mulch, versus seeding directly in the ground, got me searching for ways to be able to plant effectively and quickly. I knew I wouldn't be able to seed as fast as a push or pull seeder, but I would be swapping time up front in seeding for time down the road in weeding and thinning, a bargain trade in my scenario, because "down the road" usually occurs when time becomes precious, when harvesting and market season start.
Last year I found a little tool called the Easy Jab Planter and tried it out on bare ground first. This year I'm seeding through the mulch and made a short demo video here:
A couple of notes about the planter. Like the Hatfield planter, if you're planting through plastic you'll need to sharpen the edge that goes in the ground. Also, the planter leaves an opening around a 1/2" wide, so you may want to backfill with topsoil for good seed contact and to keep birds or varmits from eating the seed.
If you have time and skill (neither of which are in my repertoire) you could probably make a planter that accomplishes the same thing for alot less money. That being said, my attempts at engineering have never gone well, in fact a professor at Georgia once told me if I had been around hundreds of years ago my masterpiece would have been the "Leaning (and Then Fell Over In A Big Heap of Rubble) Tower of Pisa"!
Ciao, and thanks for reading!
Pork & Greens