Sweet pea, Spencer Ice Cream
A climbing vine with large ruffled flowers in cream and white, and a strong scent. Put up a trellis before planting. Keep picking or it stops flowering.
Growing
- annual
- Full sun
- 4 to 6 weeks before last frost
- 4 to 5 weeks before last frost
- 6 to 13 mm (1/4 to 1/2 in)
- 14 to 21 days at 13 to 18°C (55 to 65°F)
- 15 to 30 cm (6 to 12 in)
- 183 to 244 cm (72 to 96 in)
- 61 to 91 cm (24 to 36 in)
- Trellis, it climbs
- 75 to 85 days
- 4 to 6 days
Spencer sweet peas are the big, frilly ones with long stems, grown for cutting. Ice Cream is soft cream to white, with a scent that fills a room. It climbs, so put up a trellis before you plant. This seed was saved from my own plants.
Sowing and starting
Soak the seed in room temperature water for 24 hours first. Sow 6 to 13 mm (1/4 to 1/2 in) deep, since it needs dark to sprout. Start indoors 4 to 5 weeks before planting out in deep cells, or sow two or three seeds every 15 cm (6 in) outside. It comes up in 14 to 21 days at 13 to 18°C (55 to 65°F), so a cool room is best.
Keep it cool and bright. Seedlings handle a light frost, so they can go out early, which gives you a longer picking season. Pinch out the tip at 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) tall so it branches from the base.
Care
Full sun to part shade, in rich soil with lots of compost. Put up a trellis or netting before planting. Water well in dry spells. Keep picking, because once it sets a pod it stops flowering.
When to cut
Cut when about half the flowers on a stem are open. Cut in the cool of the morning, and cut often.
In the vase
Keep them in a cool room.
When cutting a bouquet, strip any leaves that would sit under water. They turn the water murky fast. Change the water every few days for the longest lasting bouquet. As flowers fade, you can remove them and rearrange the remaining flowers.
Saving the seed
Leave a few pods on the vine at the end of the season until they're papery and rattle. Sweet peas mostly self pollinate, so saved seed comes back fairly true.
Worth knowing
- Sweet peas are a flower, not a vegetable. The pods look like garden peas and they are not food, so keep them away from small children. The ASPCA lists the closely related perennial pea as toxic to horses.