14 



The Florists' Review 



October 7. 1920 



bed is best. The roots and soil moisture 

 are under better control and the growth 

 hardens more, causing the buds to hold 

 better. There is no doubt about getting 

 more flowers from a raised bench than 

 a ground bed during the average win- 

 ter months, but after a few warm spells 

 in early spring the bench plants shorten 

 up fast and are ready to be thrown out, 

 while those in ground beds, with their 

 roots on a cool bottom and with four 

 times as much soil to work through, 

 are still producing heavily. The low 

 bed allows more head room, produces 

 finer flowers and does not need to be 

 rebuilt or have the soil renewed. The 

 soil in the raised bed must be changed 

 annually, while the ground bed produces 

 better results each succeeding year. 

 When a raised bed is filled with roots, 

 it requires such heavy watering that 

 most of the life is washed out of it. 

 On the other hand, the ground bed, 

 under certain conditions as to drainage 

 and character of soil, may not require 

 the application of any water during 

 November, December and January. I 

 have had ground beds 6 to 8 years old, 

 which produced, in the original soil, 

 growth strong enough to ipake stems fif- 

 teen to twenty inches long, and these 

 beds annually produced a crop of peas. 

 Between these heavy crops I try to get 

 in something else, such as chrysanthe- 

 mums or asters. * Or, if time permits 

 nothing else, a sod of rye or oats is 

 turned under. 



Building Ground Beds. 



As already stated) we mulch these 

 catch crops liberally with good manure, 

 washing it into the soil for the benefit 

 of the succeeding pea crop. Every sea- 

 son, also, we give an application of bone 

 meal or acid phosphate, at the rate of 

 about 200 pounds per thousand square 

 feet of bench. 



To build ground beds, 12-incb pecky 

 cypress is used. In handling the crop 

 these sides are subjected to considerable 



wear and they should be substantially 

 supported. A convenient width for the 

 beds is five or six feet, according to the 

 system of planting used. If two rows 

 run lengthwise the 6-foot bed is neces- 

 sary, but such a bed is too wide for 

 handling the crop conveniently if the 

 rows are planted across the bed. 



Unless the soil is underlaid with 

 gravel or is otherwise perfectly drained, 

 a 3 or 4-inch drain tile should be laid 

 about eighteen inches below the top of 

 the bed. Before filling the bed with 

 the prepared compost, we pulverize the 

 soil thoroughly down to the tile, incor- 

 porating as much good manure as pos- 

 sible. The roots are strong and able to 

 assimilate plenty of feed by the time 

 this lower depth is reached. 



If raised beds are used, the propor- 

 tion of manure should be reduced to 

 one part in three or four parts of soil 

 and particular attention should be paid 

 to having it well mixed. The roots seem 

 to succeed in finding all the manure at 

 once in six inches of soil. Hence an 

 overdose on a raised bed, especially in 

 hot weather, rots the roots quickly. 

 When this occurs a new root system 

 promptly breaks out near the surface, 

 but the plants have received a check 

 and careful handling will be required 

 te bring them around. With ground 

 beds I find it safer to have the top 

 four tvr five inches of soil entirely free 

 of manure. This root-rotting occurs only 

 with July and August plantings. With 

 the cooler weather of late September, 

 it disappears. 



After the plants are well established 

 in a raised bed and cooler weather sets 

 in, they can be fed according to their 

 needs. 



The Successive Crops. 



Sweet peas can be started as early 

 as the middle of July, but August is 

 better. If successfully carried through 

 the hot weather, this planting will begin 

 flowering in October. With an average 

 amount of sunshine during the dark 



Vase of George J. BaQ's Sweet Peat Columbia. 



mouths, this is the most profitable crop. 

 Because of the excessively high temper- 

 ature at starting, however, this plant-, 

 ing is often either lost entirely or sur- 

 vives in poor condition. If successful 

 it gives a good crop for Christmas and 

 St. Valentine's day, but the plants are 

 generally exhausted by Easter. Nothing 

 but a light, well exposed house, in which 

 the plants have ten to fifteen feet of 

 head room, will do for this midwinter 

 crop. We have a service building 

 against the end of one of our early pea 

 houses, and within fifteen feet of this 

 end we cannot get a profitable growth. 

 The main planting, particularly for 

 beginners, should follow a catch crop, 

 generally mums. Good plants, either 

 from 2-inch pots or seed beds, planted 

 after early mums, will require ten feet 

 of overhead room. If planted after late 

 mums, they do not get much over six 

 to eight feet high. All these after- 

 mum plantings should be in heavy crop 

 for Easter and under average weather 

 conditions will last until Memorial day. 



Late Winter Planting. 



If good plants are used, planting can 

 be done at any time in January or Feb- 

 ruary for a good spring crop. However, 

 it must be remembered that these late 

 plantings do not have time to produce 

 the strong growth and consequent 

 strong-stemmed flowers which we get 

 from the early plantings. Side benches, 

 where the head room is limited to four 

 or five feet, or space cleared of some 

 crop about St. Valentine's day or the 

 beginning of Lent, can be used advan- 

 tageously for this late planting of win- 

 ter-blooming peas. They will be in full 

 crop throughout May. If the late or 

 summer-blooming kinds are used at this 

 time, they will not be in by Memorial 

 day, unless the spring weather favors 

 them. After March 1 we take our 

 chances with the late type, as it is 

 stronger and better able to produce a 

 fair crop before the hot weather puts 

 an end to the sweet pea business under 

 glass. 



I have followed a crop of early sweet 

 peas, thrown out April 1, with strong 

 4-inch pot plants of late Spencers, seed 

 of which was sown February 1. They 

 were potted March 1, four plants in a 

 pot. They came into full crop by June 

 1 and continued in heavy crop through- 

 out June. They were on a raised bench, 

 and required heavy and almost daily 

 watering, a heavy top-dressing of ma- 

 nure and light shading. 



However, I do not recommend such 

 intensive methods on beds to be used 

 for peas the following winter, unless 

 the soil is to be changed. I prefer to 

 rotate with another crop. Throughout 

 June there is an active demand for peas 

 at fair prices and the winter-blooming 

 types are hardly available unless the 

 spring weather proves favorable to 

 them. 



Under ordinary conditions of ripen- 

 ing, the outer covering of a sweet pea 

 seed becomes extremely hard, sometimes 

 requiring as long as two months in the 

 soil to soften. Some lots of seed may 

 nearly all come along in a week or ten 

 days, but generally about a third will 

 drag along. Consequently, if they are 

 drilled in where they are to grow, the 

 result will be a more or less uneven 

 stand.. The late ones will become the 

 weak plants of the row. 



To avoid this, we soak all our seed 

 two or three days, pick out and sow 

 the swelled ones and resoak the re- 



■^f "«■■ *;.|v;.s-:>'. •-* ■•' 



