Sweet Peas

Yorkie1

SPs are hardy so you should be able to plant them out before the last frosts, mardatha

mardatha

Godsake I didn't know that! lol Brilliant, ty!

DigForVictory

Where to best/most MSE to buy seeds from?
Especially as I'd like to grow just white variants. (Childish whim.)

mardatha

I use ebay, but that's just because I'm lazy

ALIBOBSY

I have some from earlier years, but also bought a pack from Aldi I think.

I will be doing some this week into toilet rolls on the window sill. They will progress from warm sill in the front room to cool sill in the porch, to unheated greenhouse (once we sort the panels that the recent winds have blown out), to garden probably around Easter.

When growing indoors pinch out the tops when they start to get a bit leggy to encourage side shoots and more flowers later on.

Love sweetpeas and DD2 is mad on them as we call her "sweetpea" so she thinks they are "her" special flowers lol.

Been reading up on permaculture and companion planting as want to go for it much more this year and sweetpeas like other simular legumes-peas/beans/lupins, fix nitrogen into the earth so benefit many other plants as well as the flowers drawing in beneficial insects for pollination. Avoid planting near aliums and beets.

Ali x

twiglet98

Ali when starting them in loo rolls, do you chit them first, how deep do you set the seed in the tube, and do you use seed or multi purpose compost? How moist do they need to be? I've chitted them before on wet kitchen roll and they've just rotted!

lostinrates

DigForVictory wrote: »

Where to best/most MSE to buy seeds from?
Especially as I'd like to grow just white variants. (Childish whim.)

We always grow our own, but last year something went wrong. We have an all white garden and I was in b and q and noticed the all white sweet peas plants there. We got them on a discount weekend and it worked out scarily about what I spent on seeds often, and we had a run of sweet peas about 15 metres long.

We're they the best sweet peas? Nope. They were bog standard white ones. There was the odd interloper. Oe shocking pink one and I think one purple one. But it made me laugh and ensured I kept on top of picking.


I'm planning the same this year for that part of the garden tbh, because we have limited space in the house and this was much easier. We're it more expensive I would do otherwise, and I did miss choosing showier blooms and being fussy, but NOONE but me noticed.

mardatha

What sort of thing do you use for them to climb up?

lostinrates

mardatha wrote: »

What sort of thing do you use for them to climb up?

I usually use a wigwam made of our own sticks cut from hedges or pollarded limes now. Last year I grew them in a straight line up screening fencing. They were, effectively, a summer hedge.

peachyprice

OOh, you lot have just given me a wonderful idea, I have a new lavender border this year, I could grow sweetpeas up against the fence behind it, white would look quite spectacular. And imagine how happy the bees and butterflies would be.:D