St. Patrick's Day-plant sweet peas in Ohio? Lathyrus HELP

I posted this first on the Vines forum; but then thought it might belong here. I have read on several sites that St. Patrick's Day is the day to plant sweet peas, Lathyrus odoratus, in the garden in Ohio. It's about 30 degrees here today and I am wondering when other Ohio zone 5'ers plant their seeds. I have started some inside that are now about 5-8" and wonder when I should plant them out? I know they are a cool weather plant and need to be out early; but how early??? I have very little experience with starting seedlings, and none with sweet peas; but have jumped into seed sowing this year with wintersowing and also under lights.

Not all my sweet pea seeds germinated; and I think it was the nicking of the seed. I may have damaged the inner seed, even though I tried to be careful. I then used sandpaper on the remaining seeds to avoid this, but is did not seem to make much difference. Would soaking them without the sanding or nicking work? Any advise GREATLY APPRECIATED!

I'll be watching this, since I was wondering the same thing. Tamara

Hi girls....we meet again! I didn't save any of my snow peas for direct sowing, but I wished I had. I planted a WS container but discovered after I had it sealed that I had missed one pea. So just for fun I stuck it in with some other things growing in the house...no nicking, no soaking, I just stuck it in. Boy was I surprised to see a vine shooting up just 3 days later especially since the seed was a year old.

I've no previous experience with this Tammy, but I'm going to guess that the St. Patty's day rule applies only to direct sowing. I wouldn't think we'd want to put the plants themselves out while it's still this cold, but I'll be watching this thread as well to see what the more seasoned growers have to say.

La

I do believe that planting sweet peas on St. Patty's day means direct sowing them. They do like it cooler but I think it's still to early for emerging babies. I would wait until you get closer to your last frost date. There could still be a couple of days with frozen temps left for us.

I didn't soak or nick any of mine this year, just to many! LOL almost all of the fresh ones germinated in a week, some I'm still waiting on. Try just soaking then for a few hours in hot water.

Tamara and La -I did find some good info:

http://www.backyardgardener.com/annual/annual42.html
http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/swp-transplant-tips.html

Thank you Tammy! Hey, how are your winter-sown containers doing? I'm so excited, my first ones popped up just yesterday Then one more this morning, and through-out the course of the day today 4 more germinated. Wow.

I started out last week with several types of lettuce and spinach, which are easy in cold weather; so I wasn't too excited. But within the last four days I have:
Arugula
Bachelor Buttons
a few Hollyhocks, "Blush Pink"
a few Convolvulus "Light Blue Flash"
a few Convolvulus "Blue Enchantment"
Lavatera "White Cherub"
Thyme
Chamomile
Corriander/Cilantro
Malope "Glacier Fruit"
Mountain Phlox - Linanthus
Monarda
Snapdragons "Black Prince"

Since this is my first year at WS, I also started seeds indoors as backup.