Winter-Flowering Sweet-Pea Culture 



By Anton Zvalonek. 



The ideal soil for the sweet-pea is sandy loam. Red 

 shell soil is ven- excellent if taken about six inches of 

 the surface ; and very coarse gravelly soil, if well fer- 

 tilized, will also grow very good sweet-peas. Soil taken 

 from swampy places, provided it is not heavy clay, but 

 only black sediment, is very good if not used the same 

 •j'ear. Such soil should, in the fall, be spread out about 

 isixteen inches thick on hi.gh ground. Left there over 

 -winter, the rain and frost will wash out any alkali 

 ■which the soil may contain ; white clover seed scattered 

 ■over this is also very beneficial. In about six months, 

 or say in June, compost may be made of this soil by 

 using one part of short manure to three parts of soil. 

 Use some air-slacked lime and coarse bone. 



For December and January cutting only large houses 

 should be used so that the sun can penetrate every cor- 

 nier. In such houses it is possible to get satisfactory 

 •crops only durnig these two cloudy months. If you have 

 not an up-to-date greenhouse, the sweet-peas should be 

 sown later, say in October. Sweet-peas sown late this 

 way will not bloom before February, at which time there 

 is sufficient sunshine for a good flowering crop. All that 

 is needed is eight feet of head room. 



Solid beds of one and a half to two feet of good soil 

 are the best. After the soil is well prepared in the beds, 

 it should be well tramped down, and if too dry, watered 

 down evenly to the base, leaving it for several days until 

 the soil is just in proper condition to work. 



To prevent slow germination, soak the seed you in- 

 tend to sow in water for about fifteen hours just before 

 sowing. This will cause the seed to soften and swell 

 o that when sown they will germinate quickly. Those 

 seeds which still remam hard should be filed. The best 

 method is to use a very fine flat file, taking one seed 

 in each hand and striking it once or twice over the file 

 just enough to cut the hard skin. The seeds treated in 

 this way should be dropped back into the water, and 

 within another fifteen hours they will be soft, swollen 

 up and ready to sow. 



When the beds have been well prepared as described 

 above, press the soil down as firmly as possible, and rake 

 everything off very sniooth. Then make rows at least 

 Ave feet apart and drop the seed about three inches 

 :apart in the row, not more than one and a half inches 

 •deep. Be sure before sowing the seed that the soil is in 

 just the right working condition. Never sow seed in 

 soil which is too wet and sticky : rather w-ait a few days 

 until all is right. Aloreover, never sow white sweet-pea 

 seed in dry soil which has to be watered before the seed 

 is up. Any seed of this variety, if sown in dry soil and 

 watered very soon after being sovv'n, will seldom germi- 

 nate. After all the seed is in, rake the surface of the bed 

 very fine for about one inch deep. This will make a 

 -very fine pulverized soil mulch on the top, which dries 

 off soon, thus preventing the lower moisttire from escap- 

 ing, besides keeping the entire lower soil very cool, which 

 is very needful to sweet-peas when starting. If these 

 directions are carried out, no watering will be necessary 

 for ten days at least, or at any rate as long as all the 

 seed is not up, or so long as you can find moisture about 

 four inches below the surface. Sometimes I have let 

 dhree weeks elapse before watering the beds. This meth- 



od encourages the seed to sink their roots deep in the 

 soil, hunting for the moisture. Such sweet-peas, with 

 deep root^, can withstand the hottest days without damp- 

 ing off, as IS so often the case when the moisture is kept 

 onlv on the surface. If it becomes necessary to water, 

 you should water well down to the base, but not very 

 often, keeping the surface rather dry and well worked. 

 After sov.ing, the temperature should be kept as low 

 as possible : and if the seed is sown in August, when the 

 weather is extremely warm, the glass should be white- 

 washed slightly as long as the hot weather continues. 

 Spraying the plants and glass from the inside between 

 1 1 a. ni. and 4 p. m. also helps to keep down the ex- 

 treme heat. After the sweet-peas are up the plants may 

 be sprayed several times each day during such hot spells. 



After the seed have been sown, keep the greenhouse 

 ss cool as possible, admitting air day and night as long 

 as the weather will permit, and there is no danger of 

 frost. The cooler it is wdien the plants are started, the 

 stronger and healthier they become. It is necessary late 

 in the fall to start firing, so that the steam and hot water 

 may be turned in the heating pipes. Keep the tem- 

 perature from 40 to 44 degrees Fahr. at night, never 

 any higher, for ii it is kept too high, the young plants 

 will begin to bloom too soon, and before the roots have 

 had a good start. Such plants, forced in this way, usually 

 ])roduce very small flowers with short stems. The Win- 

 ter Sweet-Pea, if sown in August or later, when well 

 grown should be at least thirty inches high before show- 

 ing the buds. The higher they are in that stage the better 

 the results. I would rather see sweat-pea plants four feet 

 high showing the first buds than two feet. Sometimes 

 during especiall\- warm and bright falls the plants show 

 the tendency to luid very early. In this case I recom- 

 mend picking all the buds as soon as they appear. This 

 will give the plants better root-growth for the later crop. 

 After the plants are two and one-half to four feet high, 

 they will all bud. This is the time to raise the tem- 

 perature, increasing it every night by one or two degrees. 

 If the temperature averaged 44 degrees, make it 45 de- 

 grees the ne.xt day, and so on until 52 is reached. This 

 is the highest temperature for the older winter grandi- 

 flora at night. When in bloom, 60 degrees during cloudy 

 days and 68 during bright days is best. All the new 

 Winter Orchid-Flowering Sweet-Peas, in the first stage, 

 need the same treatment as that just prescribed above 

 lor the winter-flow ering sweet-pea, i. e., 40 to 45 degrees 

 at night and 55 to 65 during the daytime, according to 

 the weather, if bright or cloudy. But after these are in 

 bud and flower, raise the temperature to 55 degrees Fahr. 

 at night and 60 to 65 for cloudy days and 70 to 72 

 during bright sunny days. This higher temperature is 

 necessary for the new strain, as the flowers are twice as 

 large and the number of flow-ers to the stem twice as 

 many : and the additional warmth prevents the falling off 

 of the buds and causes the flowers to have brighter 

 colors. 



N'erv often we hear of plants losing all their buds. 

 To prevent this, keep an even temperature, especially 

 during the night. If, during a frosty night, the tem- 

 perature is 55 degrees Fahr. in the greenhouse, at seven 

 o'clock in the morning the glass will be heavily frosted. 

 As soon as the sun comes out the ice inside will begin 

 to melt, causing a heavy dampness in the greenhouse. 

 Many growers usually shut oflF the heating pipe as soon 



