Sweet peas in my opinion don't do well started indoors. Here's your best chance to have sweet Peas by the end of may--although it's pushing it in your zone. First pray for a warm spring. Then save your milk jugs. Cut the bottom out of them and remove the lids. On St. Patrick's day line them up where you want to plant your Sweet Peas. Press the bottom into the ground. This will warm the soil. The same day wet a coffee filter--you want it fairly wet but only as wet as the filter will absorb. Put your seeds in the filter and fold both sides down together over the seeds--not tight--just to make a pocket. Slip the filter with the seeds into a zip lock bag and seal it up leaving a little bit of air in the bag. You are aiming just for a bit of room for the seeds. Stick the bag in a place free from drafts. Check it every once in a while, but it will take a couple of weeks for them to sprout. When they are sprouted, take them outside, remove the bottles, wet the area good and plant them in the ground--3 seeds to a bottle. Then replace the bottles. If the weather gets hot remove the bottles in the daytime. Sweet Peas like to grow cool and it can be 10 or even 15 degrees warmer in the bottles if the sun is shining on them. Remove the bottles completely once the leaves hit the sides of the bottles or you will burn the leaves. I hope this will get you off to a good start and you'll have flowers for your wedding. As for your other question--My sweet Peas --in zone 3--bloom most of the summer. It takes lots of 80 degree weather for them to shut down and we seldom get that kind of weather for a prolonged time.

A lot of gardeners don't follow the USDA guideline on curing...they just warm/dry them out. I do the high heat and some humidity by heating up a small bathroom and hanging up wet towels.....88°, 88%, and 8 days!! I have individual room heat and thermostats.

I coordinated a wedding yesterday. It was hotter than blazes, 100 degrees. The couple were married on the stage of our outdoor Shakespeare Theater in the full sun at 2 p.m. (We had to vacate the grounds by 4 p.m. before the evening's play, so no other option). The reception was held at an older building, our Basque Cultural Center. Since my air conditioning is out at home I was hoping to spend several hours in the cool, but it didn't happen. The air conditioning was also out at the Center and all we had for circulation was ceiling fans. Despite the heat, the couple had a fantastic time. They have been engaged for nearly two years and they live in another state. Coming home to celebrate with family and friends was very important to them. This morning at church a friend mentioned that she attended a wedding yesterday. It was held at a cabin in a mountain community about an hour from us. When they arrived, they discovered that the cabin had no running water and bottled water was not provided. The couple had set up tables with umbrellas on a concrete slab in the sun. I asked how long she stayed and she said that they barely made it two hours before retreating to a cool car to drive home. In my community there were weddings everywhere. All of the typical venues were filled and many backyard weddings occurred. The caterers and decorators were totally booked months in advance. I already have 8-8-08 booked. It will occur on a Friday and will probably be another very popular date. I am also hearing comments about 6-7-08, which will be on a Saturday.

First marriage was very simple because we'd decided to get married and set a date for 5 weeks later. No engagement parties, no plans, we just wanted to leave the place we were living and move to L.A. but my parents wouldn't support that idea if we weren't married, so we did it. Many people thought it was a shot gun marriage-it wasn't-we just wanted out of the tiny, rural place that the Reagan Era economy had killed so we could get jobs and move from that tiny town back to my hometown in L.A. I was just 20-he was 22, and our parents lived on adjoining properties in rural Oregon. Got married in a darling little church in a rural setting in the woods. Mom made my dress and the 2 bridesmaid dresses. Reception was at my parent's house-mom made turkey tettrazinni to try to stretch to feed the 50 or so guests. SIL made the cake and I used the preserved frosting cake topper my mom had had at her bridal shower as the cake topper. We made it six years (and 3 kids) before I left him. Next marriage was again hasitly arranged. We went to the courthouse at lunch time. I wore a beautiful pale green silk dress loaned from a friend. Our kids from our previous marriages were our attendants. The boys wanted to wear boutonnieres and ties, so we made them and the girls each had tiny nosegay bouquets we made from flowers bought at a nearby flower shop. About a dozen friends and family came and we had a lovely ceremony in the judges chambers. We brought a boombox and played "The First Time Ever I saw Your Face" during the ceremony. The judge remarked that he'd done hundreds of weddings but that was the first time he'd ever performed one to music, Afterward we all went to have pizza. The next day-Labor Day-we took the kids to the State Fair for a family honeymoon. We'd been living together for 9 years and the kids really wanted us to get married. I needed to get DH on my health insurance so we finally decided to pull the trigger.