Page 32 - ALG Issue 4 2021

Sweet Peas
Sweet peas are a wonderful addition
to any allotment plot; given the right conditions they are easy to grow, attract beneficial pollinating insects, reward you with handful after handful of fresh cut flowers for the house, as well as filling your plot with that incredible scent. Sweet peas are generally best grown from autumn sown plants. I prefer to sow mine around the middle of October, ideally the second or third week. They can then grow on steadily all winter, ready for a spring plant out, and if all the right conditions are met, they will often go on flowering almost until its time to sow the following years’ batch!
For sowing, I tend to mix approximately 65 litres of a good quality multipurpose compost with approximately 35 litres of John Innes number 3 potting. Although the latter is rather high in nutrients,
it is diluted by the multipurpose, but
has enough to keep the plants ticking over all winter and shouldn’t need any supplementary feeding until well after they are planted out. To the above mix,
I add a generous amount of perlite, to keep the mixture open, free-draining and ‘sweet’. I use 1ltr ‘long’ pots
(ones that have a greater depth than diameter) for sowing into, over filling the pots, striking them level with a piece of wood, then ‘tamping’ the surface down to give a depression onto which the seed can be sown. I rarely soak or nick the seed, as many modern varieties don’t require this.
For the pot size stated above, I will
sow 5-7 seeds, evenly spaced across the surface of the compost. This can then be topped up with more of the same compost and in the same way, overfilled, struck off, then tamped down again. Don’t forget to label each pot as you go! They can then be well watered in. Ideally, a temperature of about 15°C is ideal for germination, but as soon
as the seedlings are showing through, they should be moved to an unheated greenhouse or ideally a cold frame. Grow them on as cold as possible all winter and take care to avoid over- watering as this will cause rot in the
Where cold frames are used, keep as much ventilation on the frame as possible once the seedlings are a good size, only closing the lights on very cold nights
young seedlings. Where cold frames are used, keep as much ventilation on the frame as possible once the seedlings are a good size, only closing the lights on very cold nights. For bush growing from a sowing on the second week of October, aim to pinch out the tops of the seedlings around the second week in January, then these should start to form good short stocky side-shoots.
In the meantime, unless you operate on a no-dig system, in any clement weather the area in which you intend to grow your sweet peas can be cultivated, dug over well, and incorporating some
Bobbys Girl
Route 66
32 Allotment and Leisure Gardener