Sweet Pea Jargon
Break
The term break, when referring to sweet peas is where the side shoots appear at the leaf nodes of seedlings these side shoots will go on to produce the flowering stems.
Chitting
Chitting of sweet pea seeds is carried out on cultivars that have a particularly hard seed coat, ( some old fashioned cultivars and comercially grown seed ) or for even germination during winter sowing, the process involves breaking the seed coat. This can be achieved by using a sharp knife, fine sand paper or a file and is carried out on the opposite side of the seed from the scar. View our tutorial on chitting.
Course
If a sweet pea stem/spike is refered to as being course, this means the stem/spike is overly fleshy with large gaps between the blooms, and is caused by over feeding or over rich ground preparations.
Distinct
The term distinct is often used in horticultural exhibition schedules, such as 3 vases distinct, this basically means each individual vase must be different generally cultivar/colour wise. All sweet pea cultivars are classified with in the National Sweet Pea society classification list.
Etiolation
Occurs when sweet pea seedlings are grown in poor light over warm conditions or a combination of both and result in weak spindly growth, producing plants that have long internodes and few leaves and rarely make good plants.
Layering
Layering of sweet peas, is carried on cordon grown sweet peas, once the they have reached the top of the canes generally 5-6 feet they are untied/rings removed and laid down on the ground along the row, ready to start again using this method cutting of blooms will be delayed by 2-3 weeks.
Half Layering
This is the same as above however they are layered along the ground and bent up 18 inches to the nearest suitable cane, the addvantage being cutting of blooms can commence almost immediately.
Spike
A sweet pea spike is the complete flower including the stem, the term spike/stem is often used in horticultural exhibition schedules, such as a vase of 15 spikes.