SWEET PEAS fourth page.
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when positively warmer conditions prevail, and there is warmth in the sunshine, open the lid sufficiently to encourage the circulation of air.[Consideration: a total lack of fresh-air circulation within the cold frame is detrimental to the developing plantlets. This is especially the case when the temperature is well above 50oF].
TIP -- use the old-timers' method to reduce germination time: take the individual seed between thumb and forefinger with the white eyelet looking towards you, and with a very sharp penknife or craft knife -- and great caution, for the knife could slip -- chip off a small, very thin part of the hard shell. Keep away from the white eyelet when doing so. Then insert the nicked seed into the compost in the pot.
SEEDLINGS AND PLANTLETS IN A SPARE ROOM. Working in a spare room -- and noting that in the procedure there is no moon-phase consideration -- prepare pots, sow them with the chosen sweet-pea seeds and produce fully-manipulated plantlets ready for planting out as is described in SEEDLINGS AND PLANTLETS IN AN UNHEATED GREENHOUSEx(use the back button to return to this point). In doing so
dedicate the spare room to plantlet propagation. Do not engage in any activity in it that causes fluctuations in temperature: "That is," says the head gardener, "do not put the unexpected guest in it for an overnight stay, or do not turn it into a temporary playroom for visiting children. Keep the door locked when you are in the room doing what has to be done, and when you are not in it. You must be the only person to use the room whilst the sweet peas are in residence"
ensure that the chosen windowsill or floor space upon which to station the pots is adjacent to glazing that faces south
ensure that the spare room is cool, but not icy.[Considerations: 1 -- for germination, a temperature of 50oF or thereabouts (no more, no less) by day and by night is required, certified by a room thermometer held at floor level; 2 -- the central heating is turned on or turned off by day and by night to achieve and to maintain this temperature level, according to the prevailing weather conditions; 3 -- a thermostatically-controlled central-heating system, adjusted to a maximum heat level of 50oF, considerably simplifies this stage of spare-room, sweet-pea-plantlet production]
lower the room's ambient temperature to 40oF once germination has been obtained and keep it at that level -- but no lower
turn the pots 180o once per day at the same time in the day the moment that growth begins.[Consideration: this reduces stem 'legginess' and distortion as the young plants stretch up towards the glazing in order to reach the sole source of light.]
TIP -- in a centrally-heated house do not develop plantlets on a landing window. The heat rising from the hall below during the day is much higher than during the night. The fluctuation in ambient temperature causes irregular germination, rendering later management more difficult than it need be. Further, the high daytime temperature is likely to cause too-early germination and too-rapid stem growth -- encouraging stem 'legginess'. Better by far to turn an unused spare room into a temporary, makeshift greenhouse. Its temperature can be controlled with ease and certainty.
PREPARING TO PLANT OUT. For maximum results at Tresillian, the head gardener uses a section of one of his extremely long, metre-wide, deep-trench beds -- the beds that are in the first year of their four-year life span. This is when the nutrients of the bed's metre-deep, layered 'sponge' are untapped, and when the 'sponge' has maximum ability to catch and retain the moisture that descends to it from the ground's surface and is pressured up to it by the moon-attracted, rising water table in readiness for the roots of the plants that are specific to the deep-trench bed's first year. In addition to the sweet peas there are the marrows, the courgettes, the pumpkins and the R J Harris's Moon Gardening-highlighted runner and climbing french beans.
Under Mr Harris's management, each is developed in its own, adjacent section of the deep-trench bed.
The user of R J Harris's Moon Gardening must, in the ideal, and like R J Harris, resolve to make a sweet-pea development an unfailing annual feature. Within the context of the present discussion, this must be as from the first year of applying the head gardener's way of gardening. Hence, it must be the Year One Area that is affected to begin with, and that Area's three-metre-long, metre-wide deep-trench bed that must bear the garden-under-conversion's first sweet peas (see Diagram 1, page 14). Subsequently, sweet peas feature in each of the other three Year Areas during the first of each Year Area's four-year life span, drawing in the pollinators for the benefit also of all of the other three Year Areas, which cannot bear sweet peas.
This resolve renders the months of October, November, December and January of the first year of the garden-conversion project especially busy months, for at least four major things have to happen during that time: 1) the whole of the garden-to-be must first be laid out in sketch form with the aid of garden canes and garden line (see PREPARING TO CROP ROTATE); 2) the Year One Area must be fully established, with its single-dug bed and deep-trench bed installed and ready for use (see Diagram 1, page 14); 3) the recommended type of broad beans must be given their October sowing in the single-dug bed; 4) the sweet-pea seeds must be sown in pots and the resultant plantlets manipulated as is described in this website section. At the same time, and increasing the pressure upon the gardener, the recommended cabbage and/or onion seeds must be sown in the seed bed if a decision is made to install cabbage and/or onion plantlets in the single-dug bed once the broad beans have been cleared away, making space for them (see CABBAGES and ONIONS) -- and adding to that pressure, in this event, is the requirement that a seed bed be established (see Diagram 1, page 14).
With this broad picture held in mind
create the Year One Area's deep-trench bed in the October during which the first sweet-pea seeds are sown in pots. Do so as is described in DEEP-TRENCH BED in R J Harris's Moon Gardening
complete the bed by the start of the October moon's fourth quarter (or the November moon's fourth quarter, if making the bed has to be postponed from October).[Consideration: at this time of the month, Earth's water table falls, making the garden's top soil receptive. This achieves a maximum start to the drawing into the soil of the nutrients made available by the deep-trench bed. It also maximises the bed's ability to absorb the moisture that descends to it from the top soil]
earmark one third of the deep-trench bed's three-metre length for a sweet-pea wigwam having a slightly less-than-one-metre-square footprint
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SWEET PEAS fourth page.
