 Vic Amps Vic Amps form one of the staples in our diet here on Bluestone Farm. Technically, Amplissimo Victoria (Pisum sativum) names a variety of climbing peas that taste great fresh, but which we dry for use through the winter. We grew them for the first time three or four years ago, and liked their flexible use in stews, soups, and even in making humus. At the end of that first winter, I was cooking soup in the kitchen and Sister Helena Marie was upstairs ordering seeds for the coming spring. I had the last quart jar of dried Vic Amps next to the stove, ready to add. Meanwhile, upstairs, Sister was discovering that all the seed companies selling Vic Amps had had crop failures ----- no new seed was available. She ran to the kitchen just in time to save our last precious quart jar of seed from the soup pot. Those seeds, and seeds newly saved each year since, have kept us in Vic Amps for all the subsequent winters.  We also grow a wonderful variety of dry beans with exotic names like Jacob's Cattle, Vermont Cranberry, Hutterite, and Calypso. Unfortunately Mexican Bean Beetles have become an increasingly severe problem each year, so this year we decided not to grow any dry beans at all in an attempt to limit their population. The Bean Beetles don't bother the Vic Amps, so our crop this year is doubly important since it will also be replacing our dried beans.
 Happily thus far the Vic Amps appear to be a bumper crop. The pods are filling with firm round peas which by fall will be rattling around in brittle pods. One of the jobs I find most satisfying, perhaps because it represents the culmination of a season's soil preparation, planting, staking, care, and harvesting, is the shelling of the dry Vic Amps.
----- Bill Consiglio |
