October and even early November are the perfect times to be sowing sweet pea for flowers next spring. As well as annual sweet pea there is also a perennial everlasting pea which also produces masses of blooms but can be a bit of a thug if not contained and can even be invasive in some areas. I'm sowing both varieties this year for flowers next year. Both are quite tough and can withstand the cold pretty well but young plants will need a bit of protection over the colder months.
00:00Today, as I promised, we are going to look at
00:29that growing sweet pea.
00:31So I'll just show you a few sweet pea that I've already started over the last while.
00:38This is two types.
00:41This is the sweet pea that most people know.
00:44You can see they're very gangly already.
00:49These ones are actually sweet pea that I just collected the seed pods off from my own garden.
00:56Sweet pea from last year, and these are a fragrant variety of the annual sweet pea.
01:04They will just survive grand over winter as long as you have a little bit of protection.
01:12So I'm just going to keep them in the greenhouse out there.
01:16Just to get them started, sweet pea actually prefer to grow in cold, colder temperatures.
01:23And so they'll be fine over winter just as long as there's that wee bit of protection.
01:27And you can plant them out before the frosts are over in February, March time.
01:33So I actually get early flowers in, in the spring, and they really take off.
01:42Like they were planted maybe a week and a half ago.
01:46And because they're fresh seed, they just, within a few days, they were all up.
01:52And there's more in there as well, like they come and see the shoots are at different stages.
01:57Now I left them on doors for a couple of days, and that's why these ones have shot up so much.
02:02As soon as you see growth on them, you should put them somewhere cooler.
02:05Like it's best they, they like they germinate in temperatures of around 15 degrees.
02:10So even on doors can be about warm for that.
02:13But you can see then what happens, they just shoot up looking for the sun.
02:17Whereas outdoors, the colder temperatures will keep them shorter, stockier, and better for winter.
02:22Ready to take off in the spring, and they'll develop their roots over the winter.
02:28And there, I have about 30 here already.
02:31And these are all free seeds because I just picked them myself.
02:34And as you can see, I have about a whole pile more on here.
02:40And we're just going to sow a couple more today, just to have a succession of them.
02:45So that's what they look like, they're like little hard balls.
02:49And just like that.
02:53And what I recommend doing, what a lot of people recommend doing, is before you sow them,
03:01it's getting a little bowl like that.
03:06Put your seeds in there.
03:08And then, back it towards the camera.
03:12And what we'll do then, is we'll get some water.
03:14And just let them soak for a few hours.
03:16There we go now.
03:30You can see them on there.
03:34Some are floating to the top.
03:35So they might not be viable, but they may sink to a bottom.
03:39And then you know.
03:40So most of those are viable seeds in there.
03:42We'll just plant them up.
03:44And I like to plant them, because their roots grow quite fast and quite deep,
03:49it's better to plant them in a deeper pot than you would say a shallow tray or anything like that.
03:54The other variety of, it's not a sweet pea, but it's known as an everlasting pea.
04:00And it's not known as a sweet pea because it hasn't got any fragrance.
04:04But this is a flower in the pea family, very similar to sweet pea.
04:10Looks the same, behaves in the same manner, climbs up.
04:14Produces purple, pink, sometimes pale, white, pink flowers.
04:19And these are perennial.
04:21That's the difference.
04:22These will come back year after year in the garden.
04:26So you won't have to keep sowing them.
04:28But the only thing is that they can become, they can take over basically.
04:35They can spread through the roots.
04:37Whereas annual sweet pea will just stay where you put them and climb up.
04:40These ones can start spreading underground and come up with different places.
04:45So I'm going to try and grow them in a pot this year.
04:48I'm not putting them in the ground.
04:49The original plan was to put them in the ground.
04:51But when I learned a bit more about them, I thought I decided against that.
04:56Now, I have a few of these.
05:00You can see the leaves are quite different looking to the other ones.
05:06There's not many leaves on them.
05:07But the annual sweet pea, most people know, have a much more rounded leaf.
05:13Whereas these have a longer, thinner leaf.
05:18But when they grow, they grow 68 feet.
05:23Same as the sweet pea basically.
05:25And you'll have flowers in the summer.
05:28They're, they germinate at a slightly higher temperature.
05:32And they flower a bit later.
05:34But again, they're hardy.
05:35So they can be planted out soon.
05:37And they have big pots.
05:38They just need to prepare bigger pots for them.
05:40So that they, and these are probably about two months old at this stage or six weeks old.
05:46So they just need to move on to a stage, the next stage.
05:51But they'll not grow much more over winter anyway.
05:53They'll take off in the spring as well.
05:55So that's all you need to do really.
05:58And I have a whole pile of seeds here for two reasons.
06:02Is that I'm keeping now for the spring.
06:05So that'll just keep a succession of sweet pea going.
06:10From the spring into the summer.
06:12Just going to see that envelope out.
06:15And then, it's also an insurance policy too.
06:21In case any of these get eaten or get battered by the wind or something like that.
06:26Or the polytomal comes down out there.
06:30So that's everything there.
06:35And then we'll come back in a few hours as I say.
06:37And we'll just sow the seeds then.
06:40But this is one of the, this is probably the last seed sowing for, in the normal way that I'm doing this year.
06:48The only other thing I'm going to try is, and we'll do a wee demo of that, is winter sowing.
06:54Some hardy annuals in containers to leave out over the winter.
06:59And, I'll just show you now why we're here at that.
07:04Well, one of the other jobs that we're doing pretty soon is, bringing in the Davis.
07:11We'll have to, uh, cut down the tubers and bring them in.
07:16So, if you want to try one, they're sowing.
07:18And you have some seeds, or you can get your hands on a packet of seeds in about a compost.
07:23Hold on to any bottles, and we'll go through how that's done.
07:27I have here some, there's a Doherty's apple cake with a lid.
07:31These are ideal for smaller flowers.
07:34They won't grow too high.
07:36Uh, that's, I know Doherty.
07:41These are already.
07:42These are all hystery's that have to be vegan and stuff like, so, uh, what we'll be doing
07:47is just putting a few holes in the tops and bottoms of these for ventilation.
07:52But these are great because they have a ready-made lid.
07:55They protect the seedlings over winter from the worst frosts and stuff like that.
08:00And there's a load of seeds you can plant like that.
08:04And, and, but you can, and just to show you, you can literally go to these in anything.
08:14I keep a lot of these wee ready-made things and things like that.
08:17Punch a few holes in them, and you have a seed tray.
08:20So, and then you can always wash them out then when you're done with them.
08:25And recycle them again.
08:26So, we top there.
08:29And, we'll be back in a few hours and we'll get patting up the sweet pea.
08:35So, our seeds have now been soaking for quite a while, a few hours now.
08:45So, what we're going to do is just fill these two little hearts up with compost.
08:58So, and this is just plain old multipurpose compost.
09:04And it's good quality stuff.
09:10This is my cans.
09:11You can tell that up until I can't pass, because it has, if it's a nice dark colour and it's loose and it's fine enough that it's not big lumps, then that should be fine.
09:31Especially for bigger seeds, you can actually sub it for smaller seeds, but there's no need.
09:37I've never subbed any compost, but I do see people doing that.
09:40So, what I want to do is just put that down first.
09:52And then, we'll just get the seeds and just scatter them.
09:58I know you can be more precise about this, but I've shown many seeds that I'm not going to, there's too much time worrying about spacing at this stage.
10:07Okay, they are quite, I've always found sweet pea quite easy to repot.
10:15So, divide when they're grown together initially.
10:23So, I'd say there's probably about 15 in these, and it's probably too many, but I don't think all of them will germinate.
10:32But they certainly will germinate at the same time.
10:35So, they'll be different lengths, stuff in height.
10:40And these can stay in here till spring, in these pots.
10:46As long as they're grown on in cool temperatures outside, in either shed of some short or cold frame.
10:59They're just a protective, do you know the big plastic buckets you get?
11:03Um, for storage.
11:07If you can get holes into that, or just leave the light kind of slightly off it.
11:14They're handy too.
11:16Just try and get the see-through ones, because they have, uh, they'll let the light through.
11:21They'll take ones, might not.
11:23They're, I'm not sure if you can pick up on that, but the seeds are in there.
11:27They're sort of spaced out.
11:29And they do be different sizes as well.
11:31It hasn't seemed to affected the germination.
11:34Uh, the ones that I picked up were actually the ones I picked from the pods myself.
11:42Were smaller than the ones you normally get in, uh, when you buy a packet of seeds.
11:48But, well, some of them were big, some of them were small.
11:52But, uh, it didn't affect them germinating.
11:54They've all germinated the same, so.
11:57And just, like, the amount of seeds I had there would probably, that I picked up.
12:03From the two packets of seeds that I grew this year.
12:07There'd be enough seeds on there for about five packets of shop bought seeds.
12:13So, it's a really good saving as well, because seeds are getting slightly dear.
12:17There's not great value, but they are getting about dear.
12:21Just like everything, I suppose.
12:23And, that's them now covered over.
12:27They're not very deep.
12:29Um, they don't have to be very deep.
12:33Well, they're not like, actually, I'm not gonna do this.
12:34If I can't eat again, I'll open it up.
12:35See, there's just one popping there.
12:36There's just one popping there, there.
12:37So, all that remains to do now, and I'm just gonna do it on this tray.
12:38pop onto the top there. So all that remains that we do now, and I'm just going to do it
12:43on this tray, is just provide a wee bit of water and just let them soak that up and that's
13:05just the finished product. So once I will keep them just by the window here and you can see
13:12here I dug these out and brought them inside. This is the pelagorums, the geraniums, beautiful
13:20scent off the leaves. These were both grown from seed last year and you can see how well
13:27they're doing. But they were on the ground and I dug them out because they're not frost
13:33hardy and I'm going to have to cut them back at some point, but they're so pretty there
13:38and they've been flaring away for months. I don't really want to cut them back yet, so over
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