First Sweet Pea Blooms – Against All Odds

Posted on by Ilze

This morning, I stepped outside, still holding my tea mug, and saw it. A little burst of color, climbing on a string —my first blooming sweet pea.

And honestly, I almost cried. They really earned their right to bloom.

I started them way back in January, in little plug trays on a windowsill. It felt like a promise to myself that winter wouldn’t last forever. But somewhere around March, things started to go wrong. The light wasn’t enough, the stems were leggy, and they looked sad. I cut them back and moved them to the greenhouse, hoping for recovery.

But that was just the beginning.

The raised beds weren’t ready. The weather was awful. I struggled to find decent compost that wasn’t too fresh straight from under the cows! They sat there, patiently growing, waiting—twice cut back, multiple times questioned. At one point, I almost gave up… forgot to water them… multiple times… while still in small plugs.

Finally, in early June, after what felt like a whole gardening season of delays, I planted them out – as they were… roots tangled and replicated the plugs, I cut back root clumps. And Latvia didn’t really feel like summer yet—cold winds, constant rain, gray skies. I wasn’t sure they would make it.

But here we are. Middle of July, and these stubborn vines are finally starting to bloom and look healthy!

Not all of them yet. But enough to fill my heart with a quiet kind of joy! My first sweet peas!

Do you like sweet peas? My grandmother always had a whole wall of them climbing along the fence. She’d pick a big bouquet every year for kapusvētki—our cemetery festival—usually at the end of July.

Ilze

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25 thoughts on “First Sweet Pea Blooms – Against All Odds”

  1. So glad you have some signs of colour and flowers starting to emerge, at last. Kapusvētki, haven’t heard of that before, but my relatives always send me photos of the family grave plot around this time of year.

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    1. Thank you! Yes, seeing that color feels like a little reward after all the waiting. Kapusvētki is such a tender tradition—families gathering, cleaning graves, bringing flowers, and just remembering. It’s lovely that your relatives share photos!

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    1. Thank you, Derrick! It’s one of those moments where persistence actually paid off. I wasn’t always hopeful, to be honest—but nature has its own quiet strength, doesn’t it? Do you grow sweet peas too? I think I haven’t seen them on your blog… or maybe I am… not sure!

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  7. Chicken manure is really good fertilizer, …BUT…. it’s a hot fertilizer and you if you get it fresh you need to let it set out over the winter to break down some, or it will burn your plants up, ask how I know :P.

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    1. Thanks for the tip! I know horse manure is the only one that can go straight onto the beds without composting first. 🙂 But… you can tell me how do you know 😉

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