Hi JR, with those packets you will find they say there are about fifty seeds in there. This if FROGPOO. There will mainly be small seeds or husks in these packets that will never germinate. You may get 10 or so that will be any good so you will need a few packs to start off with. I put them all into a mug of hot water. Not too hot but as hot as your fingers will stand when you dip them in.
Soak them in the hot water for a few hours and then change the water over for more hot water of the same temp. Leave overnight and then remove the seeds that have puffed up and split open. The ones that are ready will be sticking their tongues out at you. Plant these into some seed growing mixture in those peat pots and barely cover with soil. One seed per pot. Change the water and re-soak the remainder for another day. Take out and plant any more seeds that have split open. The remaining seed you may have to put a tiny cut in them with a blade on the opposite side to the eye of the seed. If they do not start after this then just plant them out but they probably will not germinate. You must keep all the soil/seed raising mixture damp at all times and also in a warm spot be careful not to uncover the seeds when watering. Dryness has nothing to do with the success of the plants.
Once the plants have got there initial two leaves they seem to sit there for ages not seeming to grow and I suspect they are sending down a tap root first Then they will take off. This is a make or break stage because if you let them dry out they will die very quickly. Once the plant has its first main leaf (one with multiple leaves on it) you should plant them out into the spot where they will be left to grow. I made the mistake early on when I just put them into 6” pot or hanging baskets and they grew too big and then died because the pots could to keep the roots cool or wet enough. Deep damp sandy soil in a sunny spot will be perfect. I used ordinary sandy loam or a loose friable potting mix. Do not use gravel.
Once the plants have more than one main leaf on them you can start to feed them with half strength Nitrosol and organic lawn starter fertiliser, add some native slow release fertilizer to the ground before planting.
When the flowers develop the black eye you should shake the stems to distribute the pollen from inside the top of the flower (behind the eye) to drop down inside and make contact with the single sticky stem which has its sticky bit right at the very bottom of each flower. If you do not do this you will not get peas and hence no seeds for next year. In the wild they would have the wind and animals brushing through them to cause self fertility.
Attached are a couple of more pics showing the size of the plants in an old wine barrel and these are watered twice a day. Also some new flowers that came out this weekend on account of the sunshine.
Cheers
ALLAN