Sweetest of Peas

My guide to growing sweet peas 🌱

 

The scent of summer. One of my earliest childhood memories is picking sweet peas for pocket money. My mum loved growing them in abundance, propagating them from seed in cardboard egg cartons in her greenhouse and planting them out after the risk of frost had subsided, they clambered up hazel obelisks my Dad had knocked up for her and they grew en mass, an intoxicating tangle of sweet shop blooms. I must have been around five or six, and my Mum would give me a fifty sent a bunch and dot them around the house and give them away to friends and neighbours. 

 

When I moved into my first house with a proper garden, they were one of the flowers I was most excited to grow. It’s now my eighth year growing them, and after multiple failures, I think I’ve pretty much got the hang of growing these fragrant beauties. Here’s a little guide to the sweet pea. Dos and don’t, tips and tricks, and the varieties I love the most. 

 

-There’s nothing wrong with buyin sweet pea plug plants. It saves an awful lot of time, and they often hit the nurseries at the time of the year they will be ready to be planted outdoors thus avoiding crowded, soil covered windowsills for the greenhouse deprived individuals among us. However, the reason I DO try and grow them from seed myself is for the more unusual varieties. Usually at the nursery, they stick to the more common ones such as ‘Painted Lady’ or ‘Spencer’, but nowadays, there is such an abundance varieties that are available by post. Here are my favourites…