how to grow sweet peas, growing sweet peas

How to grow Sweet Peas

Sweet peas are one of my favourite flowers for a whole host of reasons. I like their name, I like their shape, I like their smell and I like their personality. Yes, I believe that flowers can have a personality the same as anything else can. I like the way the Sweet Pea is so delicate and has such a blousy flower and yet will grow as strong as a vine and, if allowed to, get totally out of control. I’m all for losing a bit of control as long as it doesn’t involve too much Prosecco.

Choose the variety of Sweet Pea that you would like to grow. I have chosen two this year, a climber once again and a dwarf bush variety. Soak them overnight in a glass of water, keeping the different varieties in different cups and then plant them in individual seed trays, using a good quality seed compost. Half fill the trays with soil, make the soil damp with water, pop the seed in to the middle of the individual trays, cover over with more soil and sprinkle with a little more water.

Remember!
If you’re planting more than one variety mark the different varieties in each tray with an indicator.

Keep the soil moist but not soaking wet, keep the trays warm but not too hot and make sure they get lots of light at this early stage. You can pop them in to a plastic bag if you don’t have lids to your trays that in turn convert them in to propagators.

As you can see, last year I had Sweet Peas planted in just about every container that I could lay my hands on. When they get to be about three inches tall (picture above), the last frost has well and truly gone away and the weather is warmer they can be planted outside in a space that you have already prepared for them. This picture was taken on the 21st of May last year and was the day I planted mine out. You may be able to plant out in late April but judge it for yourself depending on how the weather is shaping up for the next few weeks.

Carefully prepare a space / bed for your Sweet Peas to go into. A fine soil, free of stones and not too much like clay will work well. They don’t like to sit in pools of water either so make sure that the drainage is good in that area.

As you can see from the picture above I planted four rows of six plants. I now believe that this was too much for the area that I had chosen. It was a fairly small area and I was not prepared for how much support the plants would need as they grew. I also chose a bed that began at waist height so trying to untangle the peas as they became entwined with each other due to a distinct lack of decent support was hard.

Of course as the summer went on the peas grew and grew and I grew and grew to love them. I stopped trying to support them and put this year’s jungle of peas down to experience. Of course I would have loved to have had them trained up a willow wigwam or trailing across a well constructed wall but this was not to be. And when they give you cut bunches of flowers such as these……….

……..for several weeks in row how can one possibly complain!!!

I’m all about ‘cottage gardening’ and my Sweet Peas obliged me in this. They looked awfully messy and gave me bunches of flowers. Thank you my lovelies. I also had Sweet Peas at my wedding last summer, in fact they were the only flower we did have apart from a few blush pink roses on the tables……

This photo was taken by the sublime Rikki Alley - http://www.rikkialley.com/ - she’s one of my most favourite photographers ever.

Have a wonderful time growing Sweet Peas. Tend to them, water them, love them, pick them, smell them, display them and remove the seed pods immediately or they won’t flower again……oh, and let me know how you get on!

Cherry x

For Part 2 on Growing Sweet Peas - Click here!

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