Sweet peas are easy peasy!
SHOULD you fancy growing sweet peas, look for pots or cell trays of young plants. Or buy packets of seed and sow now.
If sown this weekend, they should produce blooms in July and continue to flower for the rest of summer.
For best results, sow the seeds into pots, half-trays or cell trays. use fresh generalpurpose potting compost and keep the trays or pots warm and moist. The young plants will be safe to set out when they’re around 10 cm high.
If you prefer to grow your plants naturally, arrange them in groups and provide canes or pea- sticks. If you want the flowers for cutting, gather them as soon as they have opened. Always use scissors or secateurs.
Sweet peas stop blooming as soon as they have set seed, so remove each flower stem as its last bloom has begun to fade.
For top- quality flowers on long stems, grow sweet peas as cordons. use single canes or strings set vertically and fix top and bottom along two taut lengths or wire. Allow each plant to grow a single stem, attaching it gently to the supporting string. Sweet pea rings are best, but you can use jute string. Keep pinching out all sideshoots.
This may seem fiddly and time-consuming, but it isn’t. done every three days, it takes only a few minutes to pinch out 20 plants and gather the fragrant flowers.