Who doesn’t love sweet peas? Sow them in early autumn for best results

Sorting out my seed stash is usually an inclement weather activity – reserved for the pits of winter, when going outside is often unthinkable. This year, I did it on 5 August; the weather, you may recall, was not unlike November.

I’ll confess: it’s been a weak year for seed-sowing so far. I gave birth on the spring equinox, which set me back a bit. I merrily scattered some poppies, hollyhocks and foxglove seeds about during a break in the mid-August showers, but the real work will begin in earnest now, for sweet-pea sowing season is upon us.

Sweet peas are one of those flowering plants people get fanatical about. Heady with scent and prolific with blooms, they are among our most enduring annuals. Last year, mine started flowering in early May. My mother once managed to keep hers going until Bonfire Night – although five months is exceptional; five weeks of sweet-pea flowers is more likely.

Perhaps it’s the simple elegance, along with the smell, but there’s a nascent romance to a sweet pea. The Victorians – who were mad on the things, forming all manner of sweet-pea societies – decreed that they meant “blissful pleasure” when smuggled into a posy for a loved one. My grandfather grew them for my grandmother, who cut them for the house. For when you have sweet peas in abundance, it’s not only rude not to cut them, it’s daft – they reward those who do with yet more flowers.

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I like to sow mine from mid-September until mid-October. Some people sow on Boxing Day, including Instagram cottage gardener Arthur Parkinson, who leads a sweet pea sowing fest. Others sow in spring, but I think you get a stronger plant from sowing the previous autumn. Sweet peas are hardier than you think – mine, planted out, have survived the ice and gales of March storms far better than the snails that follow – and a cold frame or upturned large plastic storage box will provide sufficient cover for seedlings.

If you’re the type to remember to keep them, loo-roll tubes provide the depth needed for their gangly roots – they’re a legume, after all – which you can plant directly into the ground come spring. Or treat yourself to root trainers; I dust mine off every year. In either case, two seeds per vessel is about right, and it’s worth using good-quality peat-free seed compost.

Next summer may seem a way off, but growing sweet peas helps me track the seasons: pinching out is a January job and I often give seedlings around Mother’s Day. And on that grisly August day when I was fishing out this year’s sweet peas, it was this I was thinking of: sowing them, and knowing we’re at the start of another cycle.