BREAKING THE RULES BY SOWING SWEET PEA SEEDS IN MAY
The experts will tell you that you need to sow sweet pea seeds in late autumn or early spring and they are probably right. Who am I to say differently? However, it was May this year when I got sweet-pea cravings and so I ordered a packet of Suttons seeds on the 11th May, online, and sowed them as soon as I got them into trays. When the seedlings reached a couple of inches or so height, I stuck them in my West Yorkshire garden around a metal obelisk. By the beginning of August they had reached a height of 5ft (150cm) and now, mid August, they are dripping with buds. It just goes to show that sometimes you can break the rules and get away with it. If I had failed to get flowers, I had only lost out on the cost of a packet of seeds.
Sweet peas picked 16 August 2025 - seeds planted May 2025
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| Sweet peas sown in May |
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| Sweet peas sown in May |