Sweet pea seeds and plants are poisonous....I think it takes a fairly good size "dose" of mature, hard peas to cause serious problems. However, you will want to be sure that children know that even though they look a lot like the edible peas, they should not be eaten. Sounds like you plan to have yours in a separate area so this may not be a big worry.

I can't help with the timing of your crops. Around here most sweet peas bloom in mid to late summer. I think your spring starts long before ours, though, and bloom times would differ.

What are the peas that have different colored blossoms? I saw purple before. Mine are snow peas with white blossoms. I want some for next year. I planted snow peas from seed I saved and shell peas for the first time. I am excited for them to come up. I have a dozen snow peas up now :)

Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas have purple flowers. They are a small podded snow pea.

Yes, I plant sweet peas almost every year, usually at one end or the other of one of my regular rows of peas.

The major "problem" with them is the weather. They are kind of a gamble here. If it's a cool to average year, they are fine and can be very beautiful. If its a hot year, they may fizzle out prematurely without having many flowers.

The other problem with them is critters. I have had them chewed up pretty badly by woodchucks or rabbits, but this doesn't seem to happen ever time, so I think there are other things that animals might prefer.

The earlier you plant them, the better they seem to do -- sow as soon as the soil can be worked.

As long as the summer isn't excessively hot (upper 80s and 90s), if you dead head them, they'll bloom quite a bit longer.

Thank you naturegirl! I don't have room this yr so I will get those for next yr...purple is my favorite color!

I'm trying to grow both the sweet pea and the edible peas too. I didn't realize sweet peas were poisonous, so thanks for posting your question. I try to sow as soon as the ground can be worked and this year I managed to do just that with the edible peas. They've been in the ground two weeks now and not one sprout. It's either been cold or snowing since then. So I've put off sowing the sweet peas, I didn't want them to rot. So you are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place with the pea crops. Can't get them growing early enough to avoid the heat on the other end.

I was going to put the two together on the same trellis, but now I'll think better of that idea.

Thanks

I think sweet peas should be avoided when there are many children around. It might be a serious problem if they try to it those sweet peas. Its looks so delicious but it is very dangerous to eat.

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