Planting Peas

This year I am planting peas along the short side of the garden in the bed that was occupied by the tomatoes last year.  I made sure to turn over the bed last fall after pulling the tomato plants so it would be ready for planting early in the spring.  I wanted to do several plantings of peas this year so I can have a longer harvest of them, but haven't figured out how to accomplish this when I only have one fence for the peas to climb on in this area.  So my first planting went in on the 11th and it was only one row of peas spaced only one inch apart.  I planted them so close together because I figure that not all of the seeds will sprout and I want to thin them a bit anyways.  I know it sounds wasteful, but it is easier than trying to replant more seeds once the first batch has started. 

To plant the peas I just used a hoe to make a trench along the fence and dropped the seeds in.  Then I covered them so that they were about 1/2 inch deep and patted the soil down firmly over the seeds.  Over that I put down about an inch of straw mulch to help keep the moisture in and then watered them well.  Now all I can do is wait. 

Once I see how well these come up I may decide to plant a second row in front of the first one.  My hope is that by the time the first row is dying back, they will leave something for the second row to climb up on.  It will just be hard to harvest the peas if they get all overgrown on each other.  I know, it's a terrible dilemma - having too much to harvest!  I can only hope to be so lucky.