Autumn has become an important time for me for thinking ahead and getting a head start for the growing season next year. Spreading out the workload is useful for me as my work also gets very busy in spring and it can all feel a bit frantic at times, which is not how I like to live. But in autumn, time stills a bit, other jobs in the garden slow down and are less urgent and so you have time where you can look back and see what did well for you (and of course what didn’t in this most tricky of growing seasons) and think about what you would like to sow again next year. I’ve already sowed some hardy annual seeds for earlier flowering next year and they have germinated nicely and so I’ll be pricking them out soon. But the next job on my list is sweet pea sowing.
I just love sweet peas, they have so many memories for me, of my mum especially, but they just evoke those summer vibes and the scent just blows me away every year. They come in such a range of colours from beautiful romantic pastel shades to more vibrant hot shades and they are just brilliant to pick as a big bunch and arrange together in a simple jamjar or they are brilliant to mix in to your summer flower arrangements adding that touch of scent which is often lacking. They are and have been part of my gardening calender for many years now. 
So I used to sow them in the spring when all the other mad rush of seed sowing is going on but now I prefer to sow in the autumn, usually in October and I have had good success with that. Timing can be a bit crucial, you don’t want to sow too early as they can grow too fast and they then have to sit all winter and can run out of steam. But you also want to sow them while its still a bit warm so that they germinate nice and quickly. Then once germinated they need to be kept fairly cool so that they just grow slowly and steadily. When it gets very cold they will stop growing completely and just stay dormant till the weather warms up again. October seems to be a good time. If you have some where to protect them or even a propagator you can sow them anytime over the winter to be honest, they just need a bit of warmth for germination and then they can just tick over. I have an unheated greenhouse that can get very cold in the winter and I tend to just keep them in there in colder times and in the late winter bring them out on nicer days. 
I tend to sow in root trainers but a 9cm pot is fine, the roots grow a long way down in sweet peas so whatever you grow them in they need some room to grow downwards. This is more important I think with autumn sowing as they are sat in their pots a lot longer than from a spring sowing. I use Melcourt Sylvagrow multipurpose compost which is nice and fine for seed sowing but also has a bit of nutrition in there to keep them going over winter. I sow one or two seeds per module or pot. Sweet peas are lovely seeds, little black balls and are easy to handle and push down into the compost about an inch down. Within a few weeks there should be signs of germination, love that joy of seeing the first shoots emerging. 
Once germinated they can be moved to a cooler spot and just keep an eye on them to protect from slugs and keep watered. It must be a bright spot though as they can get too leggy otherwise. They can be pinched out if they do start getting too leggy or after they have produced 2 or 3 sets of leaves. That just means nipping off the top growth down to the next leaf, leaving two sets of leaves below that point. Then you will get shoots emerging further down and you will get a nice bushier plant.
I bring mine out of the greenhouse in the spring, they are hardy so can cope with the cold. Just protect if we have a longer spell of frosts. Then hopefully you can plant them in their final positions in March or April. They do need some support though and this can be what puts some people off growing them as they do need some tying in to the supports for a bit until they get themselves growing well. I grow mine up an A-frame but a wigwam is lovely in a cottage garden. Then all you have to do is keep them well-watered and they need lots of nutrients so a seaweed feed once a week is great in their growing season.
This year was a good sweet pea year for me, though we might not have like it as much, as it was cool and wet especially in the late spring! I was maybe a bit later inpicking my first big bunch but mine flowered for longer than usual. Here are some of my favourites from this year.
This is little bunch of ‘Jilly’ the beautiful cream variety, ‘Nimbus’ white speckled with dark purple and ‘Alan Williams’ a lovely pale lilac. Unfortunately we have sold out of ‘Jilly’ but ‘Swan Lake’ would look just as good.
This bunch has more of ‘Alan Williams’, ‘Eclipse’ a vibrant pink and ‘Beaujolais’ a rich dark purple.
This bunch has again ‘Alan Williams’ isn’t he is a great mingler, ‘Swan Lake’ a gorgeous pure white’ and ‘Noel Sutton’ a hard to describe bluey-pink.
If you want to be a bit patriotic, chose ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Noel Sutton’ and combine with ‘Winston Churchill’ a nice deep red!
Love them all! Here are all the Higgledy varieties that I grew this year, a couple of plants of each variety up either side of the A Frame. From the top and clockwise round the clear white is ‘Swan lake’, ‘Winston Churchill’, ‘Eclipse’, ‘Alan Williams’, ‘Noel Sutton’, ‘Flagship’, ‘Beaujolais’, ‘Nimbus’ with ‘Jilly’ in the middle. You can tell the difference here between the creamy big flowers of ‘Jilly’ and the lovely pure white flowers of ‘Swan Lake’. 
Nothing better than picking a big bunch.
I also used Sweet peas a lot in my posies and arrangements. This includes Sweet pea ‘Nimbus’ and ‘Alan Williams’ in with Canterbury Bells, Cornflower ‘Blue Ball’ and Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’.
Here is another celebration of the blues and purples. Here is more ‘Nimbus’ and ‘Our Harry’, a new variety I tried this year which is a lovely clear blue, with Cornflower ‘Mauve Ball’, ‘Echium ‘Blue Bedder’, Feverfew, Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’ and Larkspur ‘Imperials’.
This posy included the wonderful Sweet pea ‘Beaujolais’ a deep rich purple-red, here with Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, Canterbury Bells, Cynoglossum ‘Mystic Pink’, Sanguisorba and Origanum.
If you don’t want to grow single colour varieties then we have some lovely mixes, like ‘Starry Night’, ‘Old Spice’ and ‘Mammoth’. Though if you want the best scent go for ‘Cupani’, this has smaller flowers but packs a punch with fragrance!
We currently have a special offer for sweet pea seeds at the moment, a fabulous bundle of 6 sweet pea varieties.
Higgledy Anne
(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)