Page 33 - ALG Issue 4 2021

Blue Danube
Anniversary
Mumsie
Sweet pea spencer waved
good well rotted stable manure, leaving the ground rough for the frost to break down over the coming months and weeks. If by March the prepared soil is dry enough so that it does not adhere to your boots, then it can be raked down to a reasonably fine tilth and marked out to where the growing frames are going to go. There are many different support methods that you can use,
but my preferred method is as follows: Mark out a rough circle approximately 36’’/915mm diameter on the surface
of the soil then insert 9 8’/2.4m canes around the perimeter of the circle, evenly spaced and pushed well into the soil. Tie this strongly at the top to form a wigwam, before planting out your plants inside this frame. I generally will use around 5 pots as previously described inside one of these frames. In the
spaces between the canes, I then insert twiggy pea sticks of hazel or similar that are about the same height as the canes, then run string around the whole framework pulling it tight as I go and threading it around the canes to add rigidity to the whole structure. Plants should then be watered in well, and
not seen to go for want of water at any dry spell. Once the plants start to grow away happily, feed weekly with a high nitrogen fertilizer, and keep removing all flower buds until the plants are around 3’/900mm high, then you can switch to a high potassium fertilizer and allow the buds to form.
Once the plants are in active growth, the high potassium feed can continue weekly, and any stems that grow out of the framework can be lightly tied back
...they should happily keep flowering all summer long and into the autumn – what great value for money!
onto any of the canes or pea sticks before they get damaged in heavy winds or rain. Keep cutting the flower stems as they form to use as cut flowers or ensure that any that aren’t removed
for this purpose are cut off before
the seed pods form, as this will slow down the production of new flowers.
If this routine of feeding, watering
when dry, tying in wayward stems and preventing the plants from setting seed is continued throughout the season, then they should happily keep flowering all summer long and into the autumn – what great value for money!
Aaron Hickman, President Yorkshire Sweet Pea Society
Available from Kings Seeds
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 33
Tamping down