SWEET PEAS AND THEIR REQUIREMENTS 531 



If you have the space and the headroom, grow Sweet Peas, 

 whether for Midwinter, for early or late Spring, or for early Summer; 

 but don't attempt to have too many at the time when they are 

 flowering in every garden, as they then hardly pay you what it costs 

 to cut them. It is not that you shouldn't grow them outdoors, 

 but there is more money in it for you if you let your glass help you 

 get the flowers in at a time when they cannot be had outdoors. 

 If you have no facilities for raising them under glass during the 

 Winter months, at least start a good batch of plants during late 

 February or early March to be planted out so they will flower out- 

 doors in early June. This, in many locahties, means flowers weeks 

 ahead of those cut from plants sown in the open. 



Sweet Pea Culture Under Glass 



The Sweet Pea specialist with houses arranged for the crop uses 

 practically the same methods in sowing and cultivating as one 

 would outdoors. Next comes the florist who perhaps makes Chrysan- 

 themums in solid beds the principal crop and foUows them with a 

 sowing of Sweet Peas for an early Spring crop. This same method is 

 often foUowed, but on a smaller scale, by the retail grower. 



You can grow Sweet Peas under glass as successfully on raised 

 benches as in solid beds, but, in general, benches are better adapted 

 for the early or so-caUed Christmas-flowering sorts. Sohd beds are 

 best for the later-flowering ones of which the roots can go down into 

 the soil and develop greater resistance since they have to support 

 from 6 to 8 ft. of growth in a temperature which may run up. to 

 80 deg. and over on sunny Spring days. In growing for- early Mid- 

 winter flowering, you are apt not to produce as heavy gfgwth in a 

 bench as in beds, and the roots being confined will also have a 

 tendency to give earlier flowers. If one cannot devote a bench or 

 part of one to the growing of Sweet Peas, they can be successfully 

 flowered in narrow boxes, say 6 in. wide by 5 in. deep iiiside and 

 any length desired — or even in 5-in. pots, allowing about four plants 

 per pot. Another way open to the smaUer grower is to plant a few 

 seeds around the purlin supports in his Carnation bench. Whilfe 

 this cannot be considered a benefit to the Carnations, yet Sweet 

 Peas can be grown in this manner and made to pay by those who 

 may not have any other place avaflable. 



Peas for Early Flowering 



That the early varieties may be in flower around Christmas, 

 seed should be sown during September. Even if a whole bench 

 cannot be had it is as weU to sow a few plants. Use expensive seed 

 and if you have not decided just where they are to flower, sow from 

 five to seven in each of several 4-in. pots, aUowing aU the space you 

 can between them. If done the first week in September, place the 



