Starting and Planting Sweet Pea Seeds

I have always tried to plant sweet peas to harvest their beautiful flowers. Unfortunately, I never plant them early enough, and they always die around the end of June because of the hot Virginia summers. This year I was determined to have sweet pea blossoms to harvest before the plants were fried by the sun. This year I started them in late January downstairs in my basement. I had almost 100% germination! The varieties I planted were Grower's Choice Sweetheart Mix Sweetpea and Grower's Choice Bridal Bouquet Mix Sweetpea from Floret Farms.

A close-up of my first sweet pea seedlings.

Only a week later my sweet pea seedlings were several inches tall, and I potted the tallest ones into bigger pots, so they wouldn't be root bound in the smaller seed flats. I pinched some of the taller seedlings as an experiment to see how they did.

The seedlings after a week.

The tallest sweet pea seedlings that I transplanted into larger pots.

A week after potting them up, I planted them in the ground. It was a very nice day for February, and the ground wasn't frozen so the planting process was fairly easy. I added compost from my own compost pile along the center of where the sweet peas were planted because my soil is almost all red clay. I planted the sweet peas in two different places: one spot in the back garden and the other by the patio. All the plants are very healthy still, and I can't wait to see further growth!

The sweet peas planted in the ground by the patio.