The experts at Ardelia Farm recommend a chilly start for these ‘sentimental’ favorites.

Every year, right around Valentine’s Day, I begin soaking, sprouting, and starting seeds, dreaming of the fragrant blossoms to come. This year I’m tweaking my familiar garden ritual.

Earlier this winter I came across Ardelia Farm where proprietors Thomas McCurdy and Bailey Hale grow more than 150 varieties of sweet pea on 50 acres in northern Vermont. After reading their online growing guide, I’m trying their method that promises to produce sturdy seedlings that flower early and thus produce an even longer season of cut flowers.

Today’s blowsy sweet peas descend from a wildling discovered by a Sicilian monk in the late 17th century. Nearly 200 years later, the decidedly modest but powerfully fragrant flower made its way to England and sweet pea breeding exploded. Some of today’s varieties still bear the names of plantspeople, like Sutton, Eckford, and Spencer, who gave us the plant that we know and love today. 

Which is a long way of saying that sweet peas thrive in England’s cool, damp climate. Sound familiar? The following approach to starting plants is common among English growers, with a hat tip to the Vermont farmers who kindly spelled it out for me.

Read the entire story in the link below

GROW in The Seattle Times