Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

On 03 Feb 2003 02:20:41 GMT, arden (NAearthMOM)
wrote:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

The secret is you gota hold your mouth just right when you plant
seeds. I still haven't learned how.

Zhan

"zhanataya" wrote in message
...
On 03 Feb 2003 02:20:41 GMT, arden (NAearthMOM)
wrote:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

The secret is you gota hold your mouth just right when you plant
seeds. I still haven't learned how.

Zhan

In addition to holding your mouth just right when you plant the seeds, you
have to live in the right zone. I had great sweet peas (zone 3, northern
MN), which reached six feet tall and had foot long flower spikes. Sweet peas
like cool temperatures to do their best. Even in northern MN they reacted
negatively to warm temperatures - that means days above 80, Zhan!

Plant them as early in the spring as you can or start the seeds inside in
pots from which they can be knocked out and planted without disturbing the
roots as soon as it quits freezing. If you sow the seed directly in the
ground, use a trench that can be filled in as the plants grow. Mulch heavily
to keep the soil as cool as possible and give regular feedings of
fertilizer.

No, I don't grow them in zone 6B!

John

I had some great sweet peas in big (18'' square) planting boxes last summer,
in Spokane, Wa. I planted the seeds directly in the pots in mid-March -
around St. Patrick's Day. Then we had quite a bit of cold weather, so they
didn't germinate (or at least come above the soil) until almost mid-April.
However, they were blooming by mid-late June as I recall, and stayed in
bloom until the middle of August - although the foliage was getting pretty
skanky by then. I do think the secret is to plant them VERY early so that
they have a good root system developed by the time hot weather arrives. And
by all accounts, they despise the combination of heat and humidity found in
the East and Mid West during the summer, so you want to pray for your first
hot spell to arrive late........I suspect they'd be happiest in places like
coastal California, and the cooler parts of the pacific northwest.
Apparently my grandmother grew gorgeous ones in the mile-high alittude of
Butte, Montana. (Maybe the fact that summer nights are routinely in the 40's
helped her out there).
"B & J" wrote in message
...
"zhanataya" wrote in message
...
On 03 Feb 2003 02:20:41 GMT, arden (NAearthMOM)
wrote:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

The secret is you gota hold your mouth just right when you plant
seeds. I still haven't learned how.

Zhan

In addition to holding your mouth just right when you plant the seeds, you
have to live in the right zone. I had great sweet peas (zone 3, northern
MN), which reached six feet tall and had foot long flower spikes. Sweet
peas
like cool temperatures to do their best. Even in northern MN they reacted
negatively to warm temperatures - that means days above 80, Zhan!

Plant them as early in the spring as you can or start the seeds inside in
pots from which they can be knocked out and planted without disturbing
the
roots as soon as it quits freezing. If you sow the seed directly in the
ground, use a trench that can be filled in as the plants grow. Mulch
heavily
to keep the soil as cool as possible and give regular feedings of
fertilizer.

No, I don't grow them in zone 6B!

John

On Sun, 2 Feb 2003 23:56:54 -0600, "B & J"
wrote:

"zhanataya" wrote in message
.. .
On 03 Feb 2003 02:20:41 GMT, arden (NAearthMOM)
wrote:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

The secret is you gota hold your mouth just right when you plant
seeds. I still haven't learned how.

Zhan

In addition to holding your mouth just right when you plant the seeds, you
have to live in the right zone. I had great sweet peas (zone 3, northern
MN), which reached six feet tall and had foot long flower spikes. Sweet peas
like cool temperatures to do their best. Even in northern MN they reacted
negatively to warm temperatures - that means days above 80, Zhan!

Plant them as early in the spring as you can or start the seeds inside in
pots from which they can be knocked out and planted without disturbing the
roots as soon as it quits freezing. If you sow the seed directly in the
ground, use a trench that can be filled in as the plants grow. Mulch heavily
to keep the soil as cool as possible and give regular feedings of
fertilizer.

No, I don't grow them in zone 6B!

John


I've even tries them as winter plants. No go. And they are one of my
very favorites. Life aint fair.

zhan

No, I don't grow them in zone 6B!


Zhan, If I swallow the seeds maybe then they'll grow........

JOhn, I AM in zone 6b, pity me ........but I am starting them inside this
year.........

Love caryn
No, I don't grow them in zone 6B!



"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

In article ,
unity (DGiunti) wrote:

In article ,
arden (NAearthMOM) writes:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn

They were the first plant I grew from seed when I was a child. So
they could
not really be hard to cultivate.

I suspect nasturtiums were the first I grew from seed, but sweetpeas were
either a close second or both during the same childhood year. In the late
1800s & before World War II, there were hundreds & hundreds of named
cultivars in all colors & they were quite the garden fad. Now the vast
majority of those varieties are extinct. The perennial ones are major
introduced weeds around here (puget sound) but pretty weeds at least.

-paghat the ratgirl

You should try and get a variety that does
well in your area. They do resent having their bed dry out too much
while they
are still in the sprout stage. Perhaps starting them in recycled annual
seedling trays would help because you could keep an eye on them.

But what sort of problems are you having with them? It's a bit early in the
season to get them started outdoors if your area has a real winter.

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

In article ,
arden (NAearthMOM) writes:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn

They were the first plant I grew from seed when I was a child. So they could
not really be hard to cultivate. You should try and get a variety that does
well in your area. They do resent having their bed dry out too much while they
are still in the sprout stage. Perhaps starting them in recycled annual
seedling trays would help because you could keep an eye on them.

But what sort of problems are you having with them? It's a bit early in the
season to get them started outdoors if your area has a real winter.


David Giunti email: unity
What is the question? Gertrude Stein's last words
No one mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing. Alan Watts

On Display in the UK http://www.web-gallery.co.uk

In article ,
(paghat) writes:


In article ,
(DGiunti) wrote:

In article ,
arden (NAearthMOM) writes:

Please fill me in!


Love caryn

They were the first plant I grew from seed when I was a child. So
they could not really be hard to cultivate.

I suspect nasturtiums were the first I grew from seed, but sweetpeas were
either a close second or both during the same childhood year. In the late
1800s & before World War II, there were hundreds & hundreds of named
cultivars in all colors & they were quite the garden fad. Now the vast
majority of those varieties are extinct. The perennial ones are major
introduced weeds around here (puget sound) but pretty weeds at least.

-paghat the ratgirl

Have you looked around for some nasturtiums whose names you remember and not
found them? They are still quite popular flowers, though I do remember the
older neighbors telling me that there had been a fad on those things you are
growing there when I tried them. They were available in several different
colors in the 50s seed packets. They told me that the sweet peas had a similar
vogue even earlier in the 19th century too. The reason I selected that seed
packet was because they offered many different colored blooming varieties in
one packet. I knew that I would not be able to control the first generation
of seedlings color arrangement but there would be a lot of variety that would
be interesting. They were all the colors of the rainbow.

I don't remember if sweet peas are one of the flowers that need to have their
withering blossoms removed to continue flowering, like snap dragons? I think
they may be, but I am not sure?

I have met several self confessing nasturtium planters that enjoy planting
them on public land, just to give the spot a little color to enjoy the next
time they passed there. They were sort of guerilla gardeners. The nasturtiums
don't always perfectly naturalize because they like to have their seeds dry
out. If they stay too damp the seeds rot.

There are all sorts of guerilla gardeners though. One acquaintance plants
species that feed native butterflies. Many refer to these plants as weeds
however. My last garden was of her type. If you keep only the natives growing
that you knew support a butterfly species, you can get something other than
birds to hang out. I thought that when I started that garden that the place
would get over-run with caterpillars, but they have quite a few predators in
the wasp family the greatly reduced the butterfly productivity of the patch. I
usually had at least one hanging out. One of the native checker types uses the
same plant for all the stages of it's life. Leaves as a caterpillar and the
small red flowers that cover (oddly) the stems of the plant as an adult.

Dave

You should try and get a variety that does
well in your area. They do resent having their bed dry out too much
while they
are still in the sprout stage. Perhaps starting them in recycled annual
seedling trays would help because you could keep an eye on them.

But what sort of problems are you having with them? It's a bit early in
the
season to get them started outdoors if your area has a real winter.

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/



David Giunti email: unity
What is the question? Gertrude Stein's last words
No one mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing. Alan Watts

On Display in the UK http://www.web-gallery.co.uk

"NAearthMOM" wrote in message
...
Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

Caryn, there is an EXCELLENT article with sources for seeds AND plants and
some fine tips in the new issue of Garden Design. It has a close up of a
BLUE sweet pea on it............(it's also the Feb/Mar issue) well worth the
investment.
Hope this helps
madgardener

Sweet peas are beautiful vines, but they need cool soil to germinate. I planted
my seeds last week. Up on Long Island, USDA Zone 6b-7a, you can plant them a
month before last frost. Sometimes if the soil is a little too cool, the seeds
can rot. If you have a Kmart near you, Martha Stewart seeds has excellent
selections of sweet peas. Her seeds are also 40% off.

On Tue, 4 Feb 2003 09:57:56 -0500, "madgard" wrote:


"NAearthMOM" wrote in message
...
Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"

Caryn, there is an EXCELLENT article with sources for seeds AND plants and
some fine tips in the new issue of Garden Design. It has a close up of a
BLUE sweet pea on it............(it's also the Feb/Mar issue) well worth the
investment.
Hope this helps
madgardener

I have them sprouting up all over the place in the spring. I don't do anything
to them except try to keep them tied up. I even have them sprouting in places
that I don't want them due to the spreadiing of the seeds in the pods.
Sue in Mi. (zone 5)

MiracleGro!!! And, good seeds. I planted mine from the Heritage Seed
Catalog collection and they came up great last year, lots of beautiful
blooms!

LeeAnne
"NAearthMOM" wrote in message
...
Please fill me in!


Love caryn
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"