peas,please help me

[kate&rob]

last year i planted 2 rows of peas and got about 5 germinated, i suspect though cant say for certain that the mice may have had a field day. am i better planting them individually then transplanting once germinated or trying again straight into the ground?

[janeyo]

Hi I grew mine in little pots then planted them out and only one failed to grow out of 10 plants.

[Jenegade]

Hi, I planted mine in pots outside last year and all germinated - probably was mice unless it was really old seed? I was planning on planting mine inside first this year and then putting them outside.

[SarzWix]

I hardly ever sow anything direct anymore, so much of it failed for me. A lot of it down to the slugs I suspect! I started all my peas in root trainers or peat pots last year and they grew really well when i planted them out.

[Flummery]

I start mine in pots/modules/even seed trays. They get on much better and you don't lose any.

[allotmentlady]

Hmmm seems the mice may have had a scrumptious meal on your behalf!!! What I do is take half a guttering pipe, fill it with dampened soil, then sow seeds, leaving it either near window in shed or on table in greenhouse, when the peas are about 4 inches high, I dig a trench where they are going to go and with a little persuasion, slide the lot into the trench, leaving the guttering to start more peas!! Its always worked for me !!

ps guttering is fairly cheap at most builders yards

[moggssue]

I used guttering last year as well, it worked a treat for me, all the seeds germinated and grew to a decent healthy size ready for transplanting into a nice neat ready made row on the lottie. I found it helped with the successional sowing as well, stopped my temptation to oversow all at once since there was only so much room in the guttering, and I knew I could start all over again once the first lot were out!

Good luck .....

[kate&rob]

i tried the guttering a couple of years ago but couldn't slide them out easily for some reason. i'll try that again this year and also pots. thanks for the advice

[gojiberry]

I have good success with guttering, I found the art is not to have the length of the gutter to long as the longer it is the harder it is to slide out. Mine is the length of a seed tray and I can get two lengths side by side in a seed tray. I have, from time to time, mice in the greenhouse so even sowing indoors I have to be vigilant. One way of detering mice is to soak the seeds in parafin overnight before sowing. It isn't foolproof as mice may still take a few before they realise they don't like the taste of parafin.

Ian