Homeschool Garden Club - Sweet Peas

Sweet peas a really pretty flowers that smell fantastic. They look lovely in the growing in the garden or in jam jar on your homeschool study desk. The more you pick, the more they grow! We have a lovely collection of seeds all started from a very thoughtful Christmas gift from our learner Christopher in 2019. Every year, we share these seeds further through the Homeschool Garden Club seed swoop. We don’t know the original variety name only that Christopher’s grandfather grew them from many years before he passed away before passing the seeds on to his grandson. You may be able get some at our next seed swop.

Warning: These are not an edible flower. Never eat the seed pods - they’re poisonous.

Sweet peas are great for pollinators: Bees and butterflies love them for their scent and colours. The pollinators are attracted to the flowers but then go on to pollinate your fruit and vegetables.

Now I know I go on a bit about keeping the costs down, and you may see suggestions of using toilet rolls for sweet peas as they don’t like their roots disturbed and the toilet roll can rot in the ground. We have not had any success with this method here at the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden Club. Here spending a little on some deep root pots that you can reuse, year on year, is a a good use of your pocket money.

If you would like to grow some of our sweet pea seeds here is what you will need:

• Sweet pea seeds

• Compost

• Deep root pots

• Cling film

• Sticks, canes, twine (sweet peas like to climb so you’ll need to make a tall pyramid of sticks for them to scramble up.)

1. Fill your deep root pots with compost and put them in a tray.

2. Make a hole and drop two to three seeds in.

3. Sprinkle compost over the seeds.

4. Water the soil and cover with cling film.

5. Put your tray on a warm, sunny windowsill. Keep the soil moist.

6. In about a week, when the seeds have germinated, take the plastic off.

7. Choose a sunny place outside to plant your sweet peas.

8. You can grow them in a container or the ground, but add some fresh compost or manure.

9. Find three long sticks or canes.

10. Push them into the soil in a triangle shape, about 30cm apart.

11. Tie the canes together at the top to make a wigwam. The sweet peas will wind their way up the poles.

Plant Your Sweet Peas Outside

1. Take your sweet peas outside each day for about a week but bring them in at night.

2. When they’re ready, make a hole next to each cane and plant your seedlings.

3. When they’re about 10cm tall, pinch out the tip of each stem to make the plant bushy and strong.

4. Sweet peas are thirsty. Water them every morning.

5. Sweet peas keep flowering all summer if you pick the flowers regularly and remove any dead ones. This is called ‘deadheading’.