See all the pods on my sweet pea plant. Have any of you ever harvested the seeds from the pods and re-planted them?
Today our daughter is in an outdoor casual wedding of a friend. I was so happy to wake up to bright sunshine and clear skies instead of the foggy mornings we had earlier in the week. It will be a shades and flip flop event now for sure. I’m really looking forward to the homemade Pico de Gallo the bride and her mother made for the barbecue reception.
What are your plans for this 3rd Saturday in August?
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 
I’ve planted them, although what I do here and what you need to do in your neck of the woods is probably different. Let the pods dry on the plant…this allows the seeds to absorb nutrients into the seed which will feed the seedling before there are leaves. I replant mine in Dec. Sweet peas need cool ground to set down a root system, so I need to wait…sometimes until January to reseed. They have a very hard shell so I soak my seeds overnight to help them out. Your soil is obviously moister and colder, so that may not be necessary. My guess is at your house, you could let the seeds dry off on the vines then just shake them on to the ground and cover with about 1/2 inch of soil. Since they grow as wildflowers where you are the conditions seem conducive to allowing them to fall to the ground and regrow.
Good heavens-time is flying. I love sweet peas. We had a STRONG storm come through last night and it has cooled a bit. Which means only upper 80’s for a few days. So we’re weeding and mowing for a bit today. Enjoy the wedding.
You can try to replant them, but there’s a nasty little problem. The major seed mfg companies (Monsanto being the biggest) have been engineering some their seeds to be infertile after on sowing. This is really awful because if their seeds ever fail, there is some danger of losing an entire species of plant off the face of the earth! Now there are ‘seed banks’ going up all over in many countries to preserve seeds in case of this type of disaster or others. Long story short, you can buy heirloom seeds on line that haven’t been genetically altered. They’ve been handed down from on generation to the next and preserved in families for years. These seeds can definitely be replanted. Here are a couple of links on the subject…
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-buy-heirloom-plants-seeds.html
http://www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=savingheirlooms.htm
I think you know from reading my blog that I am not a politicizer or an alarmist…but this subject makes me hopping mad!
Okay, I’ll take a few deep breathes and calm down now!
Oops, typos! I wrote ‘on’ instead of ‘one’ two times in my comment. Must’ve been riled up!
Love those sweet peas. Much appreciated onewomanwalking’s comment! So true! Why must people genetically engineer anything, arghhhhh!
Oh I can’t wait to hear how it all went. Splendid I am sure.
Oh how fun Ellen B! An outdoor wedding would be lovely!!! Today I searched down town Orange for something I could convert into a camera case for my new Pentax…yippee!!!
Love me
Enjoy your sunshine 🙂
I haven’t seen snow peas for so long, they aren’t grown in these parts! (Italy), my sister has them growing in her cottage garden (Australia) I love their colours and twisted, rambling vines.Hope the weather held on for a lovely outdoors wedding.Have a lovely weekend.
They are so pretty, Ellen. I have never grown them, but they look like the snow peas we had for dinner! 🙂
I hope they grow for you! I love when things reseed themselves!
Just a couple more weeks and then summer’s over. Here I’m beginning to see yellow leaves on a poplar tree… no kidding. Such a short summer for us here. Lovely pictures.
Beautiful! We didn’t have anything planned… we are enjoying a weekend without company! 😉
Weddings are in the air everywhere! I hope we’ll hear about the shades and flip flops event!
You have me longing for a bouquet of sweet peas! Next year I’ll plant some in my garden.
You had the perfect day for a wedding!
I ditto Kelly’s remarks. I’ve had a lot of success with the method she mentioned, but I never soaked my seeds. I just planted them. Michelle has also been able to replant hers. It’s so nice to see you still have sweet peas! Enjoy