What progress?
I'm a bit behind on quite a few things this year. I'd left the young plants, grown from seed a bit too long in their pots. They had become somewhat intertwined with each other and they looked weedy and a bit yellow! But they have been very forgiving and since their late planting out they are putting a lot of effort into correcting my neglect. I now have some flowering Sugar Beth peas!
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| One of three pink flowering vines. |
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| Purple flowers on one of the vines |
I have 12 plants growing from this sowing, 3 are pink flowering and the remainder purple. The purple flowering peas are showing a selection of coloured pods, green, partly purple and I think one is solid purple. Most are mange-tout type pods with 1 being a sugar snap which is part purple
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| Nearly all purple |
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| Slightly mottled pod of a sugar snap type |
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| Sunlight highlighting the purple and green colours |
My aim for this cross was a pink flowering, purple podded mange-tout type pea, although I'd be happy with a sugar snap. But it looks like my aim won't be achieved. The 3 pink-salmon flowering peas have resulted in 1 green podded type and two coloured, but that's where it goes a little skew. The pods initially look like they are purple but as they grow they appear more reddy in colour, I think perhaps the pink flowering gene affects the tone of pod colour as well as the flower and leaf axil splodges. Although it might be a trait from the pollen parent. Anyway it is very attractive, though not as intense a red colour as the pictures I have seen of a 'red podded pea'. It is very pretty none the less, especially when sunlight catches behind the pod, then I think they look amazing!
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| Two of the pink flowering F2's have pinky - red colour on the pods |
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| Pretty and unusual pod colour |
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| A purple flowered with green pod and a pink flowered with 'pink' pod side by side. |
