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
13:43the next few weeks we'll get them cut back.
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