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When do you put your sweet peas out mine are about 6inchs now

They can go out now, if they are hardened off Becky... we will wait a couple of weeks as we have just pinched them out and want to see reasonable side shoots first..  :)

ok cheers how do you pinch out side shoots first year of growing these

I never bother about pinching them out (stopping) but if I did I would take the growing tip between thumb and forefinger and nip it off with my nails just above the next set of leaves.

Some info here that might help; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Sweet%20Pea/Sweet%20Peas.htm

Thanks for replys will put in ground maybe next week or week after

No need to pinch out sweet peas. 

You can if you want to. But don't think that just because you are not sure what to do, you will fail.

If in doubt,
leave it out.

So long as there is no herbicide in the ground from infected manure, they should do well.

It is now nearly a month since I planted my sweet peas so I can now start to select the stringest growth and tie them to the canes. They have come through a few hard frosts since I planted them but no damage.

I grew sweet pea for the first time last year and they soon became 'top heavy'. I planted them 12" apart, tied them to canes and left them to it. I ended up with a mass of foliage and it was very difficult to see the flowers. Should I have reduced the number of side stems to reduce bushiness? TG's site says remove the tendrils but not the excess stems?? Confused  ???

I keep just the strongest shoot unless it is a very vigorous variety then I leave two. You remove the tendrils so that they do not get round the stems and give you Bent stems. They make very little to the flowers, I used to grow for show but now just grow to give away, we do not like flowers indoors but they are always accepted as a raffle prize when I am giving a talk.

quick question..whats the ideal planting distance?
I got some from garden centre today ,plan to harden of for a week or so then grow up the side of my garden fence.
This was  a pack of 12 cells could(as im a tight git)i split them down and transplant into peat pots to double my monies worth??
Regards.

Sorry Terrier that I haven't got round to easing your confusion so here goes; and when I am at it I will try and answer SteveB's query.

The essence of the exercise is; Do you want masses of big flowers with 3+ florets on each stem?

If the answer is yes then you have to remove the tendrils as they appear, as these take up 'plant energy' which otherwise would be used to produce large stems.

The same applies if you allow more than one stem to grow i.e. the root system has to cope with potentially double the flowers.

Obviously if you remove the tendrils you will have to tie the stems in manually with sweet pea rings, twist ties or wind them around a suspended vertical string.

In Steves case because he is a tight git  ::) [his words ;D] he could set his plants around a foot apart, tip them out to promote more than one stem and tie in these additional stems effectively 6" apart thus giving a mass effect.

OK he will get plenty of flowers but he will rarely have any with more than three florets per stem.

Hope that answers the question/s BTW Steve I'm only kidding I'm sure your not that bad ;)

Cheers teegee,,,i am
It was the way i was brought up parents of the victorian age.......never throw it away it may come in handy.

Exhibitors who won the Daily mail cup in London for 12 vases with 18 stems to a vase (if I remember right) used to leave two shoots on strong growing varieties to even them up with the slower ones otherwise it is difficult when you come to layering them but they still got 4 or 5 florets per stem.You just need to prepare the trench well. We leave a part of the tendrils on if we are showing as it is used in staging to reverse the front leaf on the vase top.

I Plant one either side of each cane 8" apart. I only have one strong shoot on each plant (but I leave one side shoot in reserve at the top of the plant just in case they go blind. As they sometimes do. I disbud until they throw 4 buds. I like good quality flowers on the  Spencer varieties. I do  grow old fashioned one and these I leave to their own devices except for picking off the seed pods

Well done.....now im totally confused !!Surely they need the tendrils to climb?when you talk about pinching side shoots is that like you do with tomatoes?
confused.com@sweetpeas.uk

Quote from: STEVEB on April 03, 2009, 19:40:33
Well done.....now im totally confused !!

you and me both ??? :-\

mine are planted in black buckits and outside, don't pinch out nothin'  ;D

That's the kind of advice I like. Chuck them in and let them grow.

I do much the same. All I do is pick off the dead flowers.

Ok if you take the tendrils off you will have to tie the plants in ! If you are not going to be showing them i would just take a few tendrils off so that you dont have to tie in, this will make life easier and by removing a few the plant will save some energy.