juliepacker wrote in
s.com:

Hi

I am a bit of a garden newbie, so could do with some advise. Have
decided to atempt to grow sweet peas from seed. A friend told me to
seed now and winter the plants outside. So, I bought seeds and sowed
into a heated propagator in seed compost. That was a week ago, and as
far as I can tell the seeds are just sitting there. My question is am
I being impatient or is there a problem?

I don't think you need a heated propagator.

The idea is to bring them on slowly this autumn so that they get a head-
start in the spring. But if you keep them too warm I'd have thought they
would shoot away too fast and then run into problems later as the light
levels fall in the winter.

I've always been bad at growing sweet peas from autumn sowings, so maybe am
not the best person to advise, but I've been told by others here that the
problems I've had have been exactly that - keeping them too warm too early.

Planning to give them another go in my (unheated) greenhouse this autumn...

I can tell you that they will take a little while to germinate - only the
fastest seeds will appear inside a week! Give it a bit longer.

Alternatively, they are very easy to grow in the spring, and I reckon you
only lose a few week's growth, so sow more then if these don't work out.

Victoria