Kick Off Your Garden Conversation With a Handful of Peas Plant peas for their pods, for their greens, and to keep your finger on the pulse of your garden Gardening is a conversation with the earth. The gardener does something, and the earth responds via the outcome. If you plant a tomato seedling upside down, for example, the earth will happily swallow it, thereby ending the discussion. A new dialogue starts every time the gardener sows a seed or does anything to disrupt the status quo, even something as mundane as digging up last year’s beds. Like any language, a garden dialectic grows to reflect the landscape, complete with regional variations.