Saturday 10 May 2008

Sweet Peas

I sow my sweet peas quite late, in the middle of March, so that I can get them in the ground once the soil has started warming up and the roots can go straight down rather than going round and round in their pots.

I sow them in the greenhouse, three seeds to a 9cm pot, then get them out into the cold frame as soon as they've germinated. By the middle of April they were looking like this:


I planted them out at the end of April:


I pinch the tops out so they send out strong new shoots so by today they were looking like this:


Now all I've got to do is put up some support for them to climb up; it's up to them to get on with growing and make lots of nice flowers for me.

2 comments:

emmat said...

i didn't pinch the tops of mine out because I was waiting for them to get established after planting out. But then the lead tips all wilted away, and new strong side shoots began and have taken over growing up vertically as the lead tip. Now I am REALLY confused about which bit to pinch out!

Simon said...

I reckon I'd leave them alone now, the side shoots grow upwards anyway, it just means you get more shoots from each plant and they're more vigorous