Sweet Peas in So. Calif.

This is a good time to start seeds for the Early Flowering varieties of Sweet Peas if you live in So. Calif.
If you start them now, and the weather cooperates, you can have sweet peas blooming around Christmas.

The seeds will germinate faster if you soak them overnight in warm water.
Prepare the soil with steer manure now, and by the time the seeds have sprouted and begun to show tendrils, you can plant them in the ground.

By starting them now, they will be loaded with flowers by spring.

Do you advise against direct sowing?

Not at all ! I start them in 4" pots because I have minimal space, I add lots of manure to the soil and by the time the seedlings are ready, the soil has cooled off. Also, I have 2 cats, so any bare patch of soil becomes a litter box...hence another reason to start them in pots.

I hate thinning out perfectly good seedlings and no one to give them to.
Starting them in pots eliminates that.

You got a good point...I do that with the harder to get seeds, then I get a little "lazy" with some, and just scatter the seeds in the garden....it takes the waiting away, I kinda forget they're there and one day they appear!
Thanks for the reminder though, I'm getting some seeds this weekend! Last year I waited too long and by the time they came up it was too hot!

I've never grown sweet pea in S. Calif. In Seattle, I used to direct sow them, put a kettle on to boil, then water them in with the boiling water. I had huge success with this method, though of course we sowed them in late April!

You must have been planting the late flowering varieties, then.
I've never tried boiling water on the seeds...

Usually by the end of May, mine are finished and getting mildewed...our June gloom period!

They were actually not late blooming - in Seattle the soil is just not warm enough until then. Think June Gloom (but with MUCH cooler temps) for 9 months of the year! :)

This was my dear old mum's method, used since the '30s growing up on rented farmsteads. She also remarked that they were organic gardeners before their time, as they couldn't afford the chemical fertilizers and pesticides of their day.

Makes total sense about the soil not being warm enough !