Sweet Peas
By Dinky
United Kingdom 
Can you help, we have had a major problem with our sweet peas, some grown from seed and others bought as small plants, they seemed to start off well and after abou 6 weeks the leaves started to curl, we thought they were not gettin enough water so have been making sure they did not dry out. The plants continued to grow and form stems but did not flower the bud just dropped off. We have grown sweet in the same soth facing plot for the last 10 years and this is the first time we have had problems. We have taken them out and the roots don't seem too bad but not what I would call a good root system there was also some small white balls in the soil surounding the root. Last year we had a lot of flying ants in the area could this be a contributing fact, we have used dung in the past but didn't use it this year. Other plants which are in front of them are doing well.
9 Aug, 2009
Answers
You mentioned that some of them were bought as plants - could the little balls be from the compost mix that the plants were in - to open up the compost, this is what a lot of growers add.
Did you feed the plants weekly as well as watering them? Maybe the soil wasn't fed enough, if you grew sweetpeas there before and didn't prepare it for this batch.
10 Aug, 2009
Previous question
« the leaves of my cucumber plant are cover in like a white dust
they might not have had enough feed in the soil.
the roots will have small beige root nodules on them. this is normal for all the pea and bean family. the nodules contain Rhizobium, a bacterium that helps fix nitrogen and the plants play host. the bacteria get sugars from the plant and the plant gets nitrates from the bacteria. really neat.
9 Aug, 2009