You can grow beautiful sweet peas in East Texas Zone 8b with a little planning and these tips!
Sweet Peas are an heirloom garden favorite for their delicate vining habit and decadent scent. Just a few tucked in a bouquet or arrangement fills your home with their wonderful perfume.
How to Grow:
Order your seed in late summer, August or September. Don’t plant them right away. Place the packet in a cool dark place (a closet works great) and wait a few more weeks for the days to shorten and the nights to cool down. Remember, we are growing in Zone 8b EAST TEXAS.
After October 15th take out your packet and soak the seed in room temperature water for 6-8 hours. This is will soften the hard seed coat and encourage germination. I usually place them in a tea cup over night on the kitchen counter. The next morning, take your seed tray and fill it with Seed Starting Mix. Be sure to moisten the seed mix in a tray BEFORE you plant the seed. The seed mix takes up a lot of water. While you don’t want it soupy wet it does need to be thoroughly moistened. Have you seen the video I made about seed starting supplies and when to use blocks vs. trays?
Sweet peas are a large seed and they grow fast. For these reasons I use a tray. If a you are only growing a few a repurposed plastic six-pack would be perfect.
When your tray is filled with moist Seed Starter Mix use a pencil to make a ‘dibbit’ or hole in each section. Not too deep, slightly less than 1/2″ is fine. Drop one sweet pea seed in each and cover with soil. Sprinkle Vermiculite lightly over the soil to help prevent dampening off. ‘Dampening off’ is a fungal disease that attacks seedlings and causes them to die.
Place your tray of seeded sweet peas on a Seed Starting Heat Mat (not your medicinal heating pad!) and cover with a plastic dome or or shallow pan. Sweet Peas need darkness to germinate so you won’t need grow lights yet. The cover will help maintain humidity and encourage germination. Once your seedlings have germinated in 7-10 days remove the humidity cover and turn on your grow lights. Plan to set out your seedlings when they have 2 -5 true leaves. Sweet Peas grow fast! Check them daily and always bottom water. Use a timer to turn the grow light on and off. About 12-16 hours a day of light and the remaining hours should be darkness. This helps stimulate the young seedlings to grow. Keeping the light on 24/7 will result in leggy, weak seedlings. Place a small fan in the vicinity to gently stir the air and reduce any risk of dampening off. The soft ‘wind’ will also encourage stronger seedlings.
When to Set Out:
Set your seedlings out in a prepared garden bed on a mild sunny day. Give them a drink of fish emulsion diluted in water as your planting them. Don’t worry if they flop over, they’re a vine. Be sure to have a sturdy trellis to train them on as they grow. I use T-posts and a cattle panel. You will need to gently wrap them around your trellis as they grow to encourage them to climb. If you skip this step they will sprawl on the ground and produce fewer blooms. I sometimes use jute twine to tie them up until they are tall enough and strong enough to support their weight on the trellis. In our warm fall days you will need to water your young plants regularly. They do not like wet feet so plan to do a deep water once a week rather than constantly soaking them with a sprinkler. I never recommend overhead watering. It creates too many problems and rarely provides effective water at the plants roots.
Mulch the base of each vine with pine straw, leaves or shredded bark. This helps maintain cool roots on warm fall days and preserves moisture in the soil. As the winter progresses you may need to cover the vines with frost cloth if nights dip into the 20’s or teens. I don’t cover my sweet peas unless a hard frost, below 30 degrees is predicted. I toss a lightweight Frost Blanket over them and weigh it down with blocks or bricks, whatever is laying around in the barn. The next morning when the sun comes out I remove the cover as soon as the temperature is above 29 degrees. It can get extremely warm in East Texas beneath a frost blanket with the sun shining all day. Be careful removing the blanket so you don’t damage the vines.
It may seem a hassle to cover occasionally, but the reward is the sweetest smelling spring flower you will ever grow. Some of my favorites are Enchante, Old Spice and Flora Norton for their fragrance.
And that’s it. Get Growing Friends!
