Topic: Seed sowing - I'm off

[kt.]

Just been too busy to sow anything this year.  Within the next couple of days fingers crossed.....

[strawberry1]

I have sown tomato seeds indoors, all destined for buckets and gropots and on the patios in the sun. Also a few little gem lettuce. I am only growing basic veggies this year on my small allotment and have sown the sutton broad beans in root trainers, ready for a stormy allotment later. In weeks to come, a few hardy green cabbages and a few red drumhead cabbages, a couple of sprouts, kale, beetroots in modules. Potatoes, if they ever arrive from thomson and morgan. Parsnips called guernsey. Oh I am getting a bit ahead of myself here but you get the picture. I am not killing myself and the most exotic will be a few climbing squashes and italia courgettes

Jermor, autumn sown, are doing fine and will replace onions for me as they seem to bolt less

[mormor]

Yesterday I sowed a short row of rocket and one of lettuce in the cold frame. Not too wet and frost gone. But I don’t think I dare start on peas. Mizuna and rocket in frame from early winter are about two inches tall (or short!) I would like them to realize the days are longer! But it was just great getting something in the earth!

[galina]

Yesterday I sowed a short row of rocket and one of lettuce in the cold frame. Not too wet and frost gone. But I don’t think I dare start on peas. Mizuna and rocket in frame from early winter are about two inches tall (or short!) I would like them to realize the days are longer! But it was just great getting something in the earth!

It is certainly fine to start and sow peas indoors and transplant.  Outside they would need protection, not so much from the cold (they can tolerate quite a bit of frost).  What gets them is mice eating the seeds and sharp winds snapping the plants.  If you can protect them from both, you can sow outside now.

[Digeroo]

I put peas outside under bottle cloches.   I put a cane through the top of each one to stop them being blown off and try and bury bottles several inches down.  I am not sowing wrinkled variety peas yet.

I like the mangetout.  The Swiss Giants are snow peas and in the past I have had them outside under bottles at -19, they are fine as long as the leaves do not touch the edge of the bottle.  I still consider the early ones to be a gamble and I am starting some more off.   If the bottles blow off they are a goner and sink without trace.   Voles, deer, squirrel, pigeons?

I have peas and beans coming up in pots as well.  The peas need to be planted out they are getting too big.

The parsley I sowed is now looking very bonny I have five pots of it like little green lawns.  They are now in the porch to harden them off, though I took them in the night before last.  We had a major frost -2.   

[artichoke]

For the last two years I have protected peas from wind and pigeons by encasing the row in cheap fleece tied with string to upright bamboos. They do seem to grow extra well inside this protection, especially early in the year, though it looks horrible. I have some gutters and pots of Oskar ready to go out - it is a very low-growing pea, supposedly early and prolific, so I hope to get away with a protective plastic tunnel at first before supporting them and doing the  fleece thing.

Apart from that I have not sown any of the seeds mentioned in this thread, and feel very behind......is today the first day of spring according to some?

At least I have a respectable area of chunky little broad bean plants and an experimental field bean patch.

[strawberry1]

I am leaving my tomatoes out until the weather gets cold again, perspex greenhouse so nothing fancy but they will do well. Love it when this happens 

Am thinking about parsnip seed sowing but am sitting on my hands and waiting for 2 more weeks, neighbour lost all hers last year as the ground was too cold. 22 march onwards is when I will start seed sowing in earnest and that is when I will put my spuds out too, however I am deviating because I am going to bung a few beetroot in a few modules today. Oh I really do have to sit on my hands just now. Plenty of time for most seeds

[gray1720]

No sense in hurrying, one half of the allotment still slurps when I stick a fork in it, and it's so open to the West that everything is alway slow getting going, but I sowed my cennin on St David's Day (a clue there, for the even harder of Welsh than me), and some cayenne peppers too. I'll do things gently for a bit as we're away for a week in early April, don't want to kill too much stuff!

Does feel good to get a few seeds in, though...

Adrian

[sparrow]

my early peas are up, plus sweetpeas and the 3rd sowing of broadies (d**n mice!)

first chilli flower will open any day now from an overwintered lemon drop and I've stuck some beetroot in modules.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh that does scratch an itch!

[manicscousers]

3 bags of smile spuds planted indoors, 3 types of cabbage sown and salads transplanted 

[strawberry1]

It is another very beautiful day in somerset and am deliberately not going to pack any seeds in my bike bag for the allotment. I want to sow but it is too early for what I want to grow this year. I put some basil in a pot for indoors and a few beetroot in modules, transplanted some lettuces. I want to get parsnip and rainbow chard sown  but on 22nd march, says I with a determined voice. Looking at my notes from last year and the fact that I want to grow good big cabbages and doric sprouts, end of march will do nicely. No spinach, celery, fennel this year but just the stalwarts including squashes and courgettes

The ground had such a battering this winter and I don`t believe that we are in for a settled summer, so sowing will be biased to veg that will stand whatever the weather

Potatoes are chitting, jermor have grown nicely over winter, so hunky dorey in reality. I shall have to be content to hoe today and maybe pick a caulie if big enough

[strawberry1]

I am just back from 3 hours hard labour. The ground is clay and is still cold and claggy. The raised beds are good but underneath will also be claggy. Too early yet for spuds or seeds in the ground in my area and I am somerset. The surface was like a smooth crust so I have been breaking it by swinging my azada and I am tired now.

[caroline7758]

Finally made a start today! Embarassed to say that meant first clearing the old tomato plants out of the greenhouse! Then sowed some broad beans. Didn't want to be anti-social any longer as my daughter's up from London for the weekend, but it feels good to have finally got off the ground!

[strawberry1]

blimey, nature wants to get going. Boltardy are up in only 4 days and I just put the module tray outside. Great considering they are old seeds, I keep them in airtight boxes in the fridge, all except parsnips, year on year

I have 3 x 3` tall raised beds at home in the back, only about 4 sq feet each, where we have a hot microclimate and it has been getting to 23 degrees lately. The beds are slightly cooler and more shaded. The gravel garden is 3m below the young orchard behind so is sheltered. I have just sown some early nantes 2 seed tapes in one of these beds, they were left over from last year, If they grow well then I can start pulling them late may to june and in the meantime will grow on a sutherland kale in a pot to replace the carrots. Got to make these beds work for me and kale is a great one to have by the house in the depths of winter.

I may well prick out my tomatoes today, they look hungry. 16 strillo, as they freeze brilliantly and also 6 ferline as they are reliable and taste nice. All are good outside all summer but I can get the 4 ferline under cover, which gives them a push ahead

[goodlife]

Embarassed to say that meant first clearing the old tomato plants out of the greenhouse!

Heh...I'm just about to do mine too..though I'm not embarrassed..happens every year.. Yesterday I was tidying other GH and found trays of dried bean pods...still waiting to be 'cleaned' and seeds stored away...and when I say 'found', its not that the GH is 'THAT' untidy..but the GH has been winter storage for sacks and sacks of sheep wool..


Well...I can now say that this week Its been my  'I'm off' week...FINALLY! Toms, chillies, peppers and lettuce are 'done', it took ages to decide what varieties to choose and like every year, I'm surprised what new packets have accumulated in to seed box from last sowings  Today is broadbeans and wheat's turn and to plants second half of the shallots outdoors...pot up some onion seedlings...divide everlasting onions... (I'm off topic now..sorry...)
Ohh it feels good to get back outdoors...

[Paulines7]

Another one here still clearing out the old tomato plants!. 

I planted some garlic and onions in polystyrene boxes in the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and they are all doing well with plenty of green shoots. 

Last March/April I planted garlic cloves outside and none of them came up.  Yesterday, I went up to the area where I had planted them and I was amazed to see that they had not only sprouted but were about 10 inches tall. 

I will be soaking sweetcorn, peas and beans tonight with a view to putting them in pots or polystyrene boxes to start them off.  It's still too muddy to walk on my vegetable beds at the moment. 

I will also be starting off my chillies, cues, courgettes, squash and tomatoes by wrapping the seeds in wet kitchen towel, putting them in plastic bags and placing them in the airing cupboard until they chit. 

[cornykev]

Three early spuds planted two weeks ago under cover
Toms have germinted indoors.   

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've got TPS and some of the broad beans in, all in pots.

[Digeroo]

Three early spuds planted two weeks ago under cover

   Now you remind us.

[strawberry1]

sitting on my hands didn`t work and parsnip seeds are in. I had a cover on the soil and tbh it felt more than 7 degrees. I will give them a month and there will still be time to sow replacements id needed

Tomatoes are coming in at night today, weather has changed again and I have dug out some lengths of fleece for the lettuce and beetroots if it gets to ground frost temperature