One day, without no warnin', things start jumpin' up from the ground...

Before I left for a trade show and conference last week, I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of a few little green leaflets making their way up and out of our pea plots. Technically, these are referred to as the cotyledons. I read on another garden blog a very interesting analogy-how these leaves can be thought of as the yolk or placenta for the baby plant, providing food while the plantlet gets going with photosynthesizing. Just this week, I noticed the radish seeds had begun their own eruptions. Here's a look at a radish cotyledon:

This little guy should be harvestable in 25 days, according to the seed packet. I chose "French Breakfast" radishes because they are a milder variety. My nearly 4 year old son says he doesn't like radishes because "they are toooo spicey". Now-I have never told him this, and I don't think he has had any radishes yet, but maybe in a salad somewhere along the line he did. Now this fact seems to stick in his rapidly developing brain. I hope to change his mind in, oh- 25 days or so. By getting our kids involved in gardening and growing food, they are more likely to try new things.

As for the peas, here are some shots I took, they are a week along and have formed their first true leaves:

Germination rate is looking pretty good on these so far. Looks like I may have some pea sprout salad after all.