Post by scrumpy on Jun 25, 2011 21:25:56 GMT
Spent today layering my sweet peas. Not sure if this has been covered before but thought i'd show you how it was done.
Cordon sweet peas obviously grow up canes, but what happenes when they reach the top of your 7 foot cane?
The answer is to layer, which means untying the sweet peas on the canes from top to bottom, then lining them out on the ground, and then tying up a new cane.
Depending on how uniform the height of the sweet peas are, and how far apart the canes are, determines which cane along the row you grow them up. I aim for 7 canes along as mine are about 8" apart, meaning there will be 4 foot 8" along the row, and when tied up it'll be 18" high. However, because of the variation i have this year, i've gone 6 canes along.
What i do is untie the sweet peas on the last 6 canes in the row,
then the next sweet pea is tied up the end cane, and so an and so on all the way around the bed until eventually they look like this
As you can see, the plants are now about 2 foot up the canes.
Layering also improves the flowers.....some of them need it !!!
Layering also gives you a good chance to examine the plants from top to bottom for bugs and things that you couldn't see eating them because they were so tall, clean up the laterals you've forgot to remove. All in all, a good clean up.
Out of the 96 plants i started with, i've lost 4 due to some bug. No idea what it was, but you could tell something was wrong so up they came. Of the ones remaining, i'd say i've got about 70 plants capable of producing a decent bloom for Wem, that's if i can rid the plants of this mildew type thing they have that i can't get rid of
Cordon sweet peas obviously grow up canes, but what happenes when they reach the top of your 7 foot cane?
The answer is to layer, which means untying the sweet peas on the canes from top to bottom, then lining them out on the ground, and then tying up a new cane.
Depending on how uniform the height of the sweet peas are, and how far apart the canes are, determines which cane along the row you grow them up. I aim for 7 canes along as mine are about 8" apart, meaning there will be 4 foot 8" along the row, and when tied up it'll be 18" high. However, because of the variation i have this year, i've gone 6 canes along.
What i do is untie the sweet peas on the last 6 canes in the row,
then the next sweet pea is tied up the end cane, and so an and so on all the way around the bed until eventually they look like this
As you can see, the plants are now about 2 foot up the canes.
Layering also improves the flowers.....some of them need it !!!
Layering also gives you a good chance to examine the plants from top to bottom for bugs and things that you couldn't see eating them because they were so tall, clean up the laterals you've forgot to remove. All in all, a good clean up.
Out of the 96 plants i started with, i've lost 4 due to some bug. No idea what it was, but you could tell something was wrong so up they came. Of the ones remaining, i'd say i've got about 70 plants capable of producing a decent bloom for Wem, that's if i can rid the plants of this mildew type thing they have that i can't get rid of
, It looks neat 
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