Saturday was dull and mild again. It seemed rather damp and drizzly for most of the day but our actual rainfall only amounted to 1.0mm.
After finishing off our seed order last week the first package from Plants of Distinction arrived in the post on Saturday.
All I've got to do now is to resist the temptation to sow any seeds until the end of March or beginning of April. I’ll see lots of comments on blogs, twitter, Facebook as well in gardening magazines about sowing seeds much earlier. For me I've found it doesn't work. I've no issue with sowing seeds indoors and getting them to germinate and most seeds given a nice warm indoor temperature will germinate in a few days. What then? How do I stop those little seedlings becoming weak, straggly long legged seedlings. Anything remotely tender doesn't want to be moved to our cold greenhouse before the end of March or early April. So any early seedlings get off to a poor start by being sown too early and becoming leggy.
These young tomato seedlings that germinated under our indoor growlight were sown on 30 March and had grown into tall leggy seedlings by 12 April. I don’t know where I would grow them on if they were sown in January or February.
Just so I feel I've made a start I might sow some “Bistro Mixed” salad leaves under the indoor growlight where they can grow on to crop before the space is required for starting off tomato and pepper sowings.
Posts
I have had a good result with my Mesclun, grown under Growlights, but you are right in what you say about resiting the urge to sow too soon. Early-sown seedlings languish, whereas late-sown ones will soon catch up and will go on to be better plants. I hope your Bistro Mixed does well!
ReplyDeleteWe tried salad leaves early on last year Mark and had good results so I'm hoping for the same again.
DeleteYou are so right, it is difficult to resist sowing early, but my results are much better too when I start only in March.
ReplyDeleteI will be your new follower.
Hi Janneke
DeleteJust had a look over at your blog and it looks like spring has already arrived. Glad you agree about how it's best to resist sowing seeds too early.
Some interesting tomato varieties there. I think I sowed tomatoes in February last year, but much later the year before. I think you're right, the later sown ones do catch up and become stronger plants. It might be interesting to sow at both times and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteMy usual problem is once the seedlings move into our cold greenhouse they don't appreciate the drop in temperature from indoors to greenhouse. The plants get checked and take a while to recover especially if we have some cool or frosty nights.
DeleteTimely advice for me Martyn: I've got some lights now - although I haven't unwrapped them yet. Nor agreed on where they are to be set up.... On the plus side I've got a new plastic cover for the mini greenhouse/shelves. Roll on March
ReplyDelete