Cutting Garden – Part 1 – Sweet Peas

 

Over the years I’ve learned what garden plants give you the most bang for your buck and I thought I’d highlight a few here.  Right now I’m picking sweet peas every couple days.  It’s taken me many years to perfect growing them, and I still haven’t perfected them, but I have learned a couple tips I’ll pass along.  We always hear about sweet peas being a cool weather, spring flower.  Maybe down south, but in New England it takes until August for them to grow big enough to flower.  I used to grow them, only to have them get about 2 feet tall and whither away in the heat.  Then one year I planted them in a part of my garden that only gets morning sun… and they thrived!  So now I’ve learned that’s the secret, they need the cool afternoon shade.  This year I ordered a seed collection from Select Seeds which contained 5 varieties – Cupani’s, America, King Edward, Black Knight, and Miss Willmott.  I think the photo is King Edward.  I presoaked and planted all the seeds, had some leftovers that wouldn’t fit around the trellises, so I planted them in a pot.  They didn’t all come up, even though I planted the fattest, presoaked ones, but luckily I had the extras in the pot, which transplanted better than I expected (I also always had trouble starting them indoors and transplanting them out, then I read that they don’t transplant well, so now I direct seed them).  I lost all my garden pea plants to the bunnies in the area, but the sweet peas survived, and now I have a bouquet of flowers every 3 or 4 days.  They don’t last very long as cut flowers, but the more you cut, the more you get, so I always have more.  And if you have a whole bunch of them together, the fragrance is wonderful.  Not so noticeable with one flower.  I highly recommend you try sweet peas for fragrant bouquets.

~ by cindyeo on August 25, 2009.