Sweet Peas

August 19, 2016

Sweet Peas

Sweet Peas are the quintessential English cottage garden flower; there will always be a place for them in my garden just for the idealised romantic image they conjure up, let alone their scent and great properties as a cut flower. There aren’t many flowers that can better the summer fragrance that drifts around your home from a freshly picked bunch of sweet peas.

Over the years I’ve had mixed Sweet Pea success, with issues ranging from too short a stems for a cut flower, low flower yields and the plants giving up by high summer. This year it seems to of all come together and with one wigwam of clambering sweet peas I’ve been picking a couple posy’s every few days, the flowers just keep coming. I think there are a couple of factors that have aided sweet pea triumph this year. Their wig wam is situated in full sun; I’ve popped one of the watering system sprinklers at the base in the centre of the structure and enriched the soil with plenty of well rotted garden compost. This has resulted in strong healthy plants.

A mornings Sweet Pea harvest

Sweet Peas flowering up my home made willow wig wam

May 19, 2016May 19, 2016

A May harvest from the kitchen garden

Whilst planting out Kale and sowing Dwarf French Beans, I noticed my first few Radish’s and Broad Beans of the year. They didn’t make it to the kitchen, a gardener’s perk! The young fresh flavours got me thinking about what we’re actually harvesting at the moment. So here’s a quick snapshot of the produce from the garden today.

Radish ready for picking

Broad Bean Aquadulce Claudia, I sow them in October for an early Spring crop, usually very successful unless we have an unusually cold winter

Artichokes, they look so beautiful I can’t bare to cut them yet.

Ranunculus Aviv Orange, Zing! I can’t keep my eyes off them, an amazing cut flower.

Autumn sown Sweet Peas, the summer floral scent is a refreshing change from the more intense and heady daffodil aroma I’ve got used to in the last few months

Flowers from the cutting border. It was only when up loading this picture that I realised how ridiculous the tulips look, they’ve now been reduced in size and popped back into the arrangement below! I’m far from a natural florist!

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015

Autumn sown seedlings and Larkspur failure!

A week ago I sowed some hardy annuals for the cut flower border next year. Germination has been quick. The cornflower ‘Black ball’ were up first closely followed by godetia and sweet peas; which I chipped a small section of skin from the seed with a sharp knife, the result a 100% germination. The nigellas, cerinthe, wild carrot, ammi, florists dill, bupleurum rotundifolium were close behind. My only failure larkspar, this is a re-occurring problem, I have tried to sow larkspur seed in a variety of ways including; freezing the seed prior to sowing, in and out of propagators and at different times of year. On average I manage one plant a season, an appalling result which would generally result in me accepting defeat and not bothering again. But not larkspar, I am dazzled by the dark blue aura it emits, reminiscent of Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech that I long to visit. So yet again I try my luck with larkspar seeds. Any tips for success would be very much appreciated.

Autumn sown seedlings

October 10, 2015

How to get an earlier cut flower crop next year

Autumn is the time to sow hardy annual flowers. They can of course be sown in Spring, but, sowing now enables you to bring the flowering season forward, you can enjoy cut flowers weeks if not a month early. Sow directly into the soil where they will flower, or as I’ve done sow in pots and over winter in a cold frame. I like to sow a green manure over winter in the cut flower bed. My October cut flower sowings have included, Nigella, Ammi, Cerinthe, Godetia, Cornflower Sweet Peas, Bupleurum rotundifolium, Anethum ‘Graveolens Mariska’ also know as Florists Dill, Larkspur and Calendula.

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015

Sweet Peas

Through the post today arrived my Sweet Pea seeds, beautifully packaged in their silver vacuum sachets.

Sweet Pea seeds ready for sowing

The sweet peas I chose are Mrs Collier, a lovely creamy white; Almost Black, as it suggests a very dark purple; Parfumiere Mix and More Scent another creamy white. I have selected varieties good for cutting, hopefully they’ll have long stems, a good vase life and a scent that will drift throughout the house come summer. I usually sow sweet peas a little earlier in the year, in the conservatory. This year I was a bit late ordering the seed and have decided to sow directly into the cutting garden border. I have built a frame with our home grown hazel stakes at the end of the border for the sweet peas to clamber up. At the bottom I’ve popped in pea sticks (the ends of the coppiced hazel) to help them on their way up.

The finished cutting garden border, at the far end is the sweet pea climbing frame

Pea Sticks at the bottom of the sweet pea frame, to help them on their way

I used a dibber to make holes about 3 cm deep and 10 cm apart and popped in two seeds to each hole. If both seeds germinate I will discard the weaker plant to give the stronger one the best possible chance. Sowing directly may mean the sweet peas take a few extra weeks to bloom over those sown indoors, but, the plants should be healthy and vigorous as they hate their roots being disturbed when planting on.