if the weather is set to be 20 c next week can I sew my runner beans and some squashes or should I wait until mid April?
I can hear you all growing at such a silly question :tongue3:
next week I will have had my allotment for 1 year - I have to admit this late spring has been killing me - call me impatient.
Nora
Nooooo wait until late may
If you mean sowing outside direct in the ground then, as Basfordlad says, no wait until at least mid May onwards!
If you mean sow to grow inside then wait until towards the end of this month and then plant out late May onwards after they've been hardened off.
Far too many people start planting and sowing much too early, which all too often ends up being a waste of time and money!
thank you so much for all your advise.
I will wait then.............
Nora
I think you'll find next week IS mid April, Nora! :happy7:
Well if you do sow any runners or squash outside next weekend we'll all blame you for the May frost/snow/hail etc... :cussing:
The crucial thing is when is the last frost in your area!! I sow them in my cold greenhouse in mid May and plant them out at the end of May/Early June. In Birmingham we can get light frosts as late as Early June sometimes though it would be unusual. That comes from having a "Continental Climate" as we are so far away from the sea!
Nora, the Met Office forecast maximums for your area are:-
Sat 10, Sun 15, Mon 14, Tues 12, Wed 13.
Have you been reading the Daily Express???
It's a bit early... if yu've got tons of seed and nothing else needs the heated propagators (they'll need heat to survive the nights) then you might as well give it a go... I'll be sowing some Giganda (a giatn white bean from the same family as runners) this weekend... I've got tons of seed, nothing else needs heat under it at the moment (the toms and chillis etc are in a massive hotbed in the GH) so given that they're a long-season bean giving them a head-start isn't a bad idea... but I predict I'll be trying to keep them on 4 foot canes by the time they go out, the rest of the beans (and I grow a lot of beans) will be sown early May to go out early June unless the weather is predicted to be great through the end of May...
If you want a challenge then sowing a few runner beans in April can be an interesting challenge and sometimes you win. The last couple of years we have had late frosts so no good. I have in the past had runner beans to eat the end of June by putting cling film right round a wigwam.
Dwarf french or dwarf runners are easier to cover. Can also be grown in a bucket since this can be taken inside during the night. Dark seeded ones are often slightly more hardy than white seeded. Do not use any seed you mind loosing. I save my own so have enough to waste some and not mind.
The maximums are important but it is the minimums that kill things. Courgettes and squashes like a mimumum of about 7C. So if you are handy with the cloches and fleece etc it can be quite fun to try. You will need to watch the weather forecast and be ready to cover them with plastic boxs and heaps of old clothes. Remembering that the temperatures forecast can sometimes be several degrees over stated.
One year I even got courgettes through a very late -4 frost by dashing out during the night with bottles of hot water for them. There were also bottles of water planted with them which warm up during the day and give out heat at night.
I always start off some climbing french the first week in May under bottle cloches and then go on holiday for a week. Mostly they are ok when I get home.
I never plant any tender stuff out until June.