Easy Sweet Peas

[crazy_red]

I have never had any success with sweet peas

Can anyone suggest a nice, any colour except orange or purple, smelly variety that is easy to grow?

They never sprout for me, even though I sand, soak, etc, exactly as per all the books say to......but I really want some to grow in with my runner beans this year for a coloured screen....

Thanks,

Crazy Red

[seasprout]

Dont sand or Soak.... it stress's the little seed too much.... i was told this by an Chelsea exhibitor. I never have and always (smugly) have had brilliant blooms.

Buy any seeds from Kings, they are all very good quality, and give you a guide to the ones with the best scents, and you can buy single colours as well as mixes.

[seasprout]

Incidentally. runner beans will really smother your sweet peas out, i tried couple of years ago with spare plants.. you need to keep picking your flowers to keep em coming, you will struggle to see them amongst the beans.

*Seeds, Herbs and Bedidng Plants from Kings Seeds

[ChocClare]

I grew sweetpeas in among my beans this year and it was the first time I've EVER had any success with them. No, I didn't soak them either (tried that before and got nowhere - they went all leggy and died) - BUT I visited a care home in Sindlesham last year and their sweetpeas were just incredible - masses of them in all colours, and the windowsills had vases and vases of them. So I buttonholed the gardener and asked him the secret of his success and he said Well, obviously, keep picking them, but the most important thing is to feed, feed and feed some more - at least three times as often as it tells you. So I fed and I fed (starting to sound like the three little pigs this, isn't it?) and I have to say it was very successful - both for the sweetpeas and the runner beans. I'm going to try a runner bean trench this year, but I will probably still feed as well. Mine were either from b and q or a freebie, so it wasn't even a particularly wonderful brand!

[sarraceniac]

Just a tip. Start them in cardboard toilet roll tubes stuffed with compost. If you are starting soon then just put two seeds in each tube and put them under cold glass. Then when it is time to plant out just pull the weaker shoot and put the whole tube in where you want them. The cardboard will rot away very happily and ....easy. By the way, if you see on another site that Alan Titchmarsh invented this it is not true. He suggested it in the 80s. My father was using it in the 40s when toilet rolls first appeared.

[Alice]

Last year (first year in this garden) I wanted sweet peas to screen some fencing. I bought some sweet pea plants in the garden centre and planted them beside the runner beans. Wonderful. The biggest job I had was cutting the flowers every day.
I think I'll just buy them as plants again.

[crazy_red]

Cheers everyone for the good advice.

I 'll have at look at King's and nosey round the other seed catalogues.

If I get any results, I'll post piccies.

Red x

[jackie j]

Yahoo I have just planted some sweet pea seeds I have put them I in each seed cell with a lid on top in the spare bedroom. Last year I bought them as plants reduced in B & Q put them at the lottie by the fence and they were brilliant kept picking and giving most of them away.

[Nicos]

I'm not been very good with sweetpeas either

...and what has finally decided to grow always seems to be covered in Aphids
Is there anything I can do to prevent the aphid attack?

[sarraceniac]

Buy a pet lady bird? Or maybe just keep spraying with weak soap solution which will get at the little b****ers but shouldn't hurt the garden niceies too much.

[Snadger]

Got a free packet of 'named' sweet pea seeds when I ordered a King's seed catalogue!

[Two_Sheds]

I just pinched out the tips of my sweet peas today ... about 95% have grown, only a couple have either not germinated or rotted in their pots.

They are 4 inches tall now ~ it's amazing that anything will grow in this weather (unheated plastic greenhouse)

[hooraynana]

I'm with Nicos on this one , have no bother growing them but can't bear to bring them in the house as they are covered in little black beetles - any tips ?

[bravo2zero]

Sweetpeas.

Be patient with them and they will come eventually. I sow 5 seeds per 3" pot and let them overwinter in the tunnel where they will be planted just inside the door for really early blooms then i make a few more pots up for outdoors then stagger direct sowing outdoors. This gives me blooms from late may-ish to the first frost.

[Two_Sheds]

they are covered in little black beetles - any tips ?

Beetles or aphids (blackfly?)

I get loads of black pollen beetles on my sunflowers, but never on sweet peas.