Sweet Pea Queries

[Ruth King]

Hi Arjen

Some of my sweet peas have now hit the roof of the greenhouse, so it's time for drastic action! Should I pinch out the tops now to encourage more horizontal growth? Also, please can you give me a rough idea how long the Winter Sun sweet peas tend to keep producing, as I may need to commit to offering a substantial quantity (or not?) for a wedding on 9th June and as this is my first batch, I'm unsure how long they'll continue to flower. 

I'm also interested to know why a few of the stems only produce a couple of flowers, when the majority have at least 3 and often 4? Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? 

One side of the greenhouse has grown considerably taller plants than the other, although they are gradually catching up. They have all been treated in exactly the same way, except that one side was double-dug by a friend and I'm wondering whether she didn't go quite as deep as I did, or perhaps add quite as much muck? Are yours all roughly the same height I wonder? The greenhouse runs North - South and it's the ones on the West side which have grown the strongest. (Maybe all the RHS training in double-digging was worthwhile after all?!?)

Best wishes

Ruth 

[Arjen Huese]

Hi Ruth,

When they get too big I usually have too much mildew in them anyway and it's time too clear - just making sure that the next batch is ready. This year we'll finally manage to have a gap-less spring - the summer sweet peas are nearly ready, probably next week or the week after and the winter ones are still producing fine. I normally count with 8 weeks of production for the winter sweet peas and around 5-6 weeks per batch for the summer ones.

Number of flowers per stem is totally the result of genetics - nothing you can do about except buying the right varieties from a reputable breeder... Or even better: collect seeds from the ones with 4 or more flowers and use those next year and steadily improving your own strain. I have some great varieties now with 5 to 7 flowers per stem and really strong and long stems, very good for cutting.

Don't know about the length of the plants - are they all the same variety? If not it's most likely genetics again, otherwise it might be the digging skills of your friend...

Arjen