Texas Gardening: Sweet Peas - the time is now!, 1 by maggiemoo

maggiemoo wrote:
Oops! I was AWOL for a bit. I'm just copying this from a dmail I just sent someone, the short answer is that I don't think it's too late, but I'd get to planting right away! The picture is of some seeds I soaked and then planted about 10 days ago, the picture was taken 11/14.

Here's what I said in my email:

I normally plant seedlings - usually from Arbor Gate - around the end of October. As soon as I'm aware that they have them, I run out to buy them and plant them. I have planted later than that, as late as the beginning of December, with no problem. The main thing is they need to have time to mature before our heat sets in, so it all depends on how soon it gets hot in any given year.

I plant them in the ground, but once planted them in containers, they did equally as well. The only reason I planted in a container that time was that I was concerned about digging holes for planting, right where I had some things already planted (vines that were "asleep" for the winter.) I just don't worry about it anymore, those plants are well established now.

This year, for the first time, I am trying some seeds as well. I bought two varieties at Arbor Gate, one is suitable for containers since it only grows to about 10", the other is a normal tall one, but all white. I soaked the seeds first, since the seeds have very hard shells and I was concerned they were already getting a late start (compared to the seedlings.) I actually let them soak longer than I should have before planting (I don't get home till dark these days) but the first batch I tried - the short ones - are now about 2" tall! Just a couple of days ago I planted some more of those and some of the tall white variety, these were a second batch of soaked seeds, again soaked for probably longer than they should have been. The white ones I just planted straight in the ground. They have a head start on sprouting, now I just have to be patient to see if they will poke their little heads out of the ground. I placed them between the plantings of the seedlings I bought, in all three locations. I figure if they make it, I'll be ecstatic. If the don't, it was an interesting experiment and the seeds don't cost much anyway. :-)