The Sweet Peas are UP

It is, and should be, a post-Christmas holiday tradition, that Sweet Pea seeds should be planted in January. It's a beautiful and easy to grow vine or bush flower that blooms in earliest Spring, and can go on a-blooming until the early Summer when the garden makes way for the lush gardens of the summer heat.

Sweet Peas, Lathyrus odoratus, love a rich soil with lots of compost, lots of fertility, and aren't too fussy about soil, as long as it isn't too sandy or doesn't have too much clay.
Amend your soil where the vines will grow, and string up some sturdy hemp string, or attach a trellis to a board fence or on a wall, for the flowering vines. They can scamper up the branches of a shrub that leafs out late in Spring. I've had fun planting them in a sunny position at the foot of a large old lilac and they bloomed before the lilac blooms and the sweet peas were nearly done by the time the lilac leaves appeared.

There is also a bush Sweet Pea, and I've had good luck with that version also. So if you don't have room for a trellis or have a wire fence, just plant the shorter ones and you can still enjoy the delicious fragrance.

John Keats loved them so much he took a fountain pen to paper and wrote....

*********** 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white
And taper fingers clutching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 

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Soak the seeds overnight before you plant them and they'll sprout in about a week or so. After 9 days of waiting, here are my sprouts at 1 day old, 3 days old, 5 days old, and 7 days old!

You can see the little tendrils already, so these need some skinny little branches and twigs to help them get over to the trellis on my patio. It is gonna be fun watching them climb up!

Protect them from slugs, snails and birds and goats and chickens if you got 'em!
Keep them watered well, but don't drown them and if you get some sun on them, they will really take off growing rapidly and probably start blooming in April.
This is California gardening... for a colder climate like Washington, check this post I did in 2012.

Here's a few of the colors you can expect: All the lovely pastels, and dusky tones, almost black, and some are bi-colored, but they are working on the ever-elusive yellow. Blue is particularly charming in the Sweet Pea!
The fragrance is a bit of sweet Spring charm,  the flowers are gorgeous and complicated, and arrive on long slim stems. A bunch of them in a vase or Mason Jar, is a simple pleasure.

Bi-Colors!

Curly tendrils!

Always choose varieties that say on the package or catalog description, that they are fragrant. Sadly, in the quest for color variety or heat tolerance, a lot of fragrance power has been lost.
I always choose the old-fashioned, or heirloom seeds, but this year, I'm trying a New Zealand line,  Cheri Amour, from Renee's Garden.  This variety promises to be both fragrant and beautifully colored with solids and bi-colors, and  the petals are ruffled!

Don't eat these peas.... they are not the garden peas... Sweet Peas are mildly poisonous.
A few old fashioned Sweet Pea varieties are Old Spice which resists heat, Flora Norton, Miss Willmott, the Incense blend, and the Spencers, and here's a link to Swallowtail Garden with 33 delightful varieties. There is still time if you hurry! 

Renee's Garden seeds are here.

Beloved for centuries, this farm in Southern California celebrates an April Sweet Pea day!

the sweet pea ...Old Spice Mix

Lathyrus odoratus, Old Spice mix, is an  heirloom collection of the sweetest sweet peas ! These are loving growing up my cyclone fence. These are amazing ! Fragrant fragrant and oh so very fragrant flowers. I started them in late February, after enriching the soil with chicken manure. By July, most Sweet Peas are all done and over.
They took a while to start after sprouting....they seemed to just languish in March and April....then in May they really started growing.... I should have planted more...one pkg is pretty Scotch........I only got about a 4' run...but I'll grow this variety Old Spice, again and again. .....Look at the colors! A 2 tone purple cutie...

 

Bright pink in a mottled pattern....

 Mottled and rather ombre pink......these are so great !

 These are bright neon pink raspberry ! 
and lastly..... a blurry pink and white mottled sweet pea...
I'm telling ya....this is a great package...
I bought these locally, they're Territorial Seed Company, from Cottage Grove OR. Clicky this link for all the info you need to grow these beauties.....

The first seeds of spring...

when I had the farm in Lakebay in the early '90s, by the first day of Spring...... the heirloom tomatoes, the weird bell peppers and the hot and mild peppers were sprouted in the greenhouse, and growing  strong .... 6" tall was about the average, and often strong growers like the Brandywines could easily be almost a foot. Also by now, I'd transplanted almost everything into 4" pots for selling at the first Farmer's Mkt in May.
After people got past the idea that I was crazy, with my black flowers, green flowers, and weird tomatoes....my homegrown tomato best sellers were Black Krim, Mr. Stripey, and Yellow Cherry.

Black Krim pic is from http://luckymoonfarm.blogspot.com/

Mr Stripey pic is from http://www.tagawagardens.com/tgg_kids_kitty.htm

Yellow cherry pic from http://www.landrethseeds.com/

How did I find all these weird seeds before Google? There is this very quaint place in every city...it's called the Library!
fer instance...
Landreth Seeds is Americas Oldest Seed House established in 1784....they supplied seeds to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the Bonaparte family.

"Our founders introduced into the United States some of the most beloved flowers and vegetables known today including the Zinnia, the white potato, various tomatoes, and our own Bloomsdale Spinach. We have become the oldest seed house in America because we are passionate in our quest for excellence in quality, service and innovation."

Since I don't know how long I'm gonna be in this house, I'm gonna plant seeds and a few summer bulbs like gladiolas, and lilies...hardy things that can take neglect. This turn of events does cut down on the truly weird....but not much. When the weather gets a bit warmer, I'll plant some odds in the big pots I scored last fall.
The seed racks are still really full, so I'll probably buy a few Territorial Seeds, a pot or 2 of  black Mondo grass, and a lot of  Hume Seeds.

I should have started the Sweet pea seeds in January...but it's not too late for them
The most heat-resistant varieties are Old Spice which are so so so Fragrant! and I like the little Super Snoops too. I soak my seeds for a day to get them ready for the rainy Northwest.....no really, it helps them crack the shell and get growing. I am famous, however, for having 15 tin cans of soaking pea seeds with the packet clothespinned to the edges, scattered all over the house........these are perfect for the Official Washington State Fence...Cyclone..
Sweet Peas need a very rich soil...this is the time to use a lot of that compost. Fish meal, bone meal, egg shells, and a few alfalfa pellets...but I avoid most nitrogen-heavy fertilizers...I want something like 0-20-20. Don't forget the Slug bait!

pic from http://www.laobserved.com/malibu/2009/05/sweet_peas.php

 ..... Of course ...bunches of Alyssum. It really does smell like Honey! The white is most fragrant but I love shades of purple...so I mix and match.
Then Night Scented stock and the other fragrant charmers  will be planted near the doors and the windows that open on a warm day.......the flower bed under the living room window, the kitchen windows, and my sewing room...the  Regular old Stock..... and tiny Mignonette. I think I'll put some in a few pots, mixed with other summer faves, and then on warm days and evenings, I can place them under the windows and enjoy the fragrance as it wafts in the breezes....and bring a pot inside for the night....

My faves are weird....but fragrant is also very much at the top of my What to plant list!

Those are my first choices for planting seeds directly in garden beds here at the Tiny House. This weekend, the first of Spring 2011, I'll mow the lawn (electrically) and get my flower beds ready.
These days, until I settle down in a bigger house again, I'll let someone else grow the heirloom tomato and pepper starts I like. I'll go to the Farmer's Mkt or a local nursery to get the heirloom plants....they're widely available finally and Huzzaaah!

Then the old stand-bys..Calendula, poppies, bachelor buttons, larkspur and forget-me-not...these pics are from Hume Seeds. I know once these are planted, I'll pop in some sprouts of Nigella, Canterbury Bells, Salpiglossis....and then in April, the nasturtium seeds......both the climbing and the little bushes....the Variegated Alaska series are a fave...with its splotchy variegated leaves....if it's weird...it's mine!


The sentimental favorites.......Bachelor buttons......

Forget Me Nots which only need planting .....once....you won't forget them...they do go wild.

And Dorothy Gale's nemesis....Poppies! Papavar somniferum paeoniflorum.
 Poppies from seed....Shirley...California poppies, Eschscholzia ...the red Flanders Field poppy....

pic from http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/7212
Van Gogh Poppy Flowers, article on the theft in Egypt in 2010 from Bloomberg news.


oh and later in May....the daisies, the cosmos, the zinnias, and the sunflowers! the sunflowers!
Let the Gardens begin!