Planting Sweet Peas
The weather is finally starting to warm up here in the Northeast and all of us at my Bedford, New York farm are looking forward to gardening season.
This week, my gardeners planted the first flower seeds outdoors - sweet peas. The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is a garden classic producing beautiful blooms with the most amazing scent. Sweet pea seeds can be sown into small pots of compost in autumn and overwintered indoors, or planted directly into the ground come spring. Ryan planted several sweet pea varieties from Johnny's Selected Seeds and from Owl's Acre Seeds in Northern England. These flowers will give us lots of fragrant color this summer.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
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- Something is always going on in my greenhouse. These are sweet pea seeds soaking in small containers of water.
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- These seeds were soaked overnight. Soaking rehydrates the seeds and softens the hard seed coat.
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- The sweet peas are then drained and placed back into the containers ready for planting. The seeds are more plump after soaking. Ryan also inspects them and removes any broken seeds or seed fragments.
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- This year, we’re planting the sweet peas along the front and back fence of my vegetable garden.
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- Phurba uses a hoe to create a shallow trench – just a couple inches deep.
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- A hoe is a versatile hand tool used to remove weeds, clear soil, and dig narrow furrows and shallow trenches for planting seeds and bulbs.
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- These are some of the seeds – large enough to see when dropping them into the trench.
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- Ryan drops the seeds into the shallow furrow. Sweet peas are happiest in the sun with their roots in cool, moist soil.
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- These seeds are planted just a couple inches apart. Look closely and you can see each of the seeds.
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- Next, Ryan uses a small garden soft rake to cover the seeds with two inches of soil.
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- Using a rake also makes the area look neat and tidy.
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- Some of the sweet peas we planted this year include Johnny’s Elegance Formula Mix. This variety was developed for flowering under short days, low light conditions, and in cool greenhouses. This mix produces long stems of three to five blooms in seven shades of red, four shades of pink, two shades of purple, as well as blue and white. (Photo provided by Johnny’s Selected Seeds)
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- And this is another variety we planted was Royal Mix – these flowers have exceptional fragrance and are very attractive to hummingbirds. The mix provides large, two-inch blossoms in bright, clear colors of red, purple, mauve, pink, blue, and white. (Photo provided by Johnny’s Selected Seeds)
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- Johnny’s also carries ‘Pulsar’ – another striped and ruffled variety on long stems. This one features lavender streaks throughout and lining the petal edges. (Photo provided by Johnny’s Selected Seeds)
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- These sweet peas are called ‘Mars.’ They have striped, ruffled petals on long stems. The plants produce three to four blooms per nine to 12 inch stem and are highly fragrant. (Photo provided by Johnny’s Selected Seeds)
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- This variety is from the European company, Owl’s Acre Seed. It’s called ‘White Supreme.’ It has large pure white flowers on long strong stems. (Photo from Owl’s Acre Seed)
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- This is another variety from Owl’s Acre Seed. ‘Jilly’ shows off gorgeous deep cream blooms. (Photo from Owl’s Acre Seed)
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- Owl’s Acre Seed’s ‘Oban Bay’ has a very distinctive pale ice blue color. Vigorous and reliable, this lovely sweet pea is hugely popular in Scotland. (Photo from Owl’s Acre Seed)
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- And here is a lovely pink variety called ‘Angela Ann.’ This sweet pea has an attractive rose pink on a white background. It’s an excellent sweet pea for the garden or to use as cut flowers. (Photo from Owl’s Acre Seed)
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- The same process is done on the front fence and the back fence of this garden. After germination, the seedlings develop into bushy plants before producing buds and flowers. We’ll see the beautiful and fragrant blooms later this summer.
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