I would love to have outstanding sweet peas for 2010
By Flowermanx1
United Kingdom 
My sweet peas have been a little below average this year.In fact most years they are pretty average Is there someone out there who really has the magic touch with sweet peas who would be willing to share his / her secrets with me and a few hundred others. I don't want to show them, just show them off. At present I grow mine in half a large barrel with a good compost and well rotted manure and feed once a week with tomatorite, take off the the side shoot and watch them grow. Problem is they grow tall and lust with all the flowers at the top and not many with four flower heads. Please help. Taking them down today has prompted the question
do they need full sun for as many hours as possible. taking inti account the uk weather
9 Oct, 2009
Answers
the first sweetpeas I ever grew' I had just started turning over a new garden, and it was mostly clay I had this packet of pecote sweetpeas no chanch of geting a fine tilth on the clay,so I just put a net up and sprinkled the seads on the ground which was lumpy like two inch limestone,I was gratly amased that they even grew , but I got eight flowers a stem and the net was coverd with them the local club gardening of which I was not a member came up and thougt they were fantastic, I have allwys been a veg man so I was not realy imprest, the only thing I can put it down to is they like clay and you must not molicodle them
9 Oct, 2009
i dont take the side shoots off and i get lovely bushy plants. i feed them with lots of rich compost from the compost bin. i also mix in slow release fertilizer pellets. they get lots of water too.
9 Oct, 2009
Previous question
Some say never plant SP's in containers I never have trouble with my planter and yours sounds good.Sweet peas need fertile well-drained, humus-rich soil and in full sun or very light shade. Incorporate organic matter such as compost or well rotted manure at least four weeks before planting and apply a general fertiliser such as Growmore as per the recommended dose. After planting water the plants well during dry spells but from the base avoiding the leaves.
Pinch out the growing tips of autumn-sown seedlings when about 10cm high to encourage branching. Pinch out the growing tips of spring-sown seedlings if they are getting too long and leggy (in a container I tend to do this with alternate plants anyway). Cut flowers frequently dont let them produce seed pods. Also watchout for mildew and spray ASAP if starting. I tend to twist mine round the stakes so they dont grow straight up seems to flower all over the stem then. Forgor to say they hate over crowding mine did much better when I went down from 12 to 6 plants in my planter.
9 Oct, 2009