Sweet peas have to be one of my best sellers and they are flowering their little hearts out in the polytunnel at the moment. I spent half the day picking hundreds for the Oxford farmers market tomorrow. If all goes to plan I will have a queue and be sold out in a couple of hours. I follow the winter growing crop with the outdoor sweet peas which are all highly scented Spencer varieties. I have organised an Open Day around them on the 13th June, 'come and pick your own'…..one small problem, the weather has not been kind and the persistently cold spring has rather scuppered my sweet pea plans. Most of them have stubbornly remained the same size as when I planted them, with a slight crispy edge. As I have always grown show-stopping sweet peas, this is a huge blow to my horticultural ego. There's always something that doesn't come good during a season.
I am trying to console myself with all the other gorgeous flowers we will have for our Open Day (Sunday, 12-5pm): foxgloves, alliums, sweet williams, campanula, poppies, iris, verbascums, stocks and cornflowers. There will also be plenty of plants for sale too.
RS