Heating seeds

[its hilly]

I want to start some veg seeds early on, but dont have a greenhouse, or warm windowsill (dont do central heating so our house is roughly fridge temp overnight)
What i do have is plenty of fresh and one year old muckheap. Horse/chicken/rabbit/vegetation/shavings.

If I half fill tubs with this (and which would be best) then several inches of compost will the newly turned compost generate enough heat for seedlings for a week or two. Theyd be in a sheltered place, with clear plastic loosely laid over to keep heat in, snow etc out.

[sarraceniac]

Depends what you are wanting to grow Hilly. If you are planning on Chillies or even tomatoes, no way although the Victorians built hot beds of manure in glass houses to grow all sorts, but they were big and produced lots of heat as the manure decayed. Beans, onions, lettuces etc. should be fine epecially with manure. But if it's going to be in the house, I hope it is past the pongy stage.

[jacob marley]

Without being sarcastic what is the point i live in the midlands which is a tad warmer than your part of the world .
I have a greenhouse and a large home made Propogator but i do not sow any seeds until the spring equinox 20 .03. 10 this year and make the most use of the extra daylight the most important part of the growing season hope this helps....jacob

[bramble]

Jacob,I thoroughly agree with you.
Getting the seeds to germinate is only the beginning. You then need to make sure they stay at roughly the same temperature, and with the weather being so cold this winter you will have your work cut out.
The next thing is the light levels. If your seedlings do not get enough proper day light they will not thrive. As the days are so short that is a problem to start with, but if you get a spell of weather where the sky is grey you are only wasting your time, effort and money.
Far better to wait a month or 6 weeks when the days are longer and the temp is a bit higher and the seedlings will flourish without having such a stressful start.
Hope you don't take this as a criticism, as I was only trying to be helpful.

[Two_Sheds]

Getting the seeds to germinate is only the beginning

Yep, and you need somewhere to keep all the growing plants until they go outside after the winter.

[sarraceniac]

Strange. I'd better put weed killer on my Senshyu onions that are outside (and fine) my broad beans (ditto) my shallots and my latest batch of pak choi plus a few other things, all of which are OK. All of which were germinated indoors and are now planted out and looking fine. My old dad used to say, back in the forties and fifties, that you couldn't grow anything in winter, he was a gardener of the Victorian school. Is my garden full of Scotch mist?

[jacob marley]

Okay that is fine try it with a early sowing of Peas and carrots and i would think radishs would stuggle but the other stuff good luck with i have onions and garlic growing well but there is a time and place for everything ..jacob

[jacob marley]

What i was trying to say but not very well is that in about 6or7 weeks time there will pictures of tall spindly seedlings that grapes have sowed early and the weather is to cold and they want to know can they be saved .
It happens every year and it is a shame a waste of seeds and compost i hope that explains it better..jacob

[sarraceniac]

That was my original point JM. It depends what you sow. The advice on this thread seems to be 'You can't grow anything now'. Far more useful to tell people what they can sow instead of just saying that you can't grow anything because the days are not long enough. Some things you can get away with and an experienced gardener should know that and point less knowledgable people in the right direction instead of just saying that they should forget it. Anybody want to buy 2 cwt of pak-choi?

[bramble]

If people ask for advice they should take it.
If they don't like the answer, then I am sorry, just don;t ask.

[zazen999]

If people ask for advice they should take it.
If they don't like the answer, then I am sorry, just don;t ask.

People ask for advice all the time on here and don't necessarily take it - if respondents disagree then what advice should the person take?
_______________

Hilly hasn't put what seeds they are hoping to sow - so perhaps if we knew that, we could try to help rather than arguing amongst ourselves.....

[SarzWix]

Sarraceniac, if you read It's Hilly's first post, you will see that she says her house is unheated overnight, so even getting seeds to germinate indoors may be a bit hit and miss at the moment...! In Cumbria it's likely to be hitting -10c over the next few weeks, so even with a hotbed system, it's still going to be below zero overnight. Even the hardiest of plants are going to be in 'hibernation', not growing, which is what a seedling needs to do.
I'm all for pushing the boundaries of what can be grown when, but I think the others are right, this may be the wrong time to try it!

Hilly, is there any chance of you investing in a heated propagator? I believe you can get them from Wilkinsons or B&Q for about a tenner these days, and if you only switched it on at night when the temp drops, it might just get you some early seedlings that could then be grown on in a hot bed/container when a bit bigger?

[its hilly]

Ok I can see where you're all coming from with both views so please dont start a war. And I'm not taking any of this as criticism Bramble, I asked for advice so I could see what others thought. Then like most other peeps I'll make my own mind up, do it and learn, hopefully

Mar and Apr are generally very mild here, but May has been soggy foul the last three years. Theres no way the open ground will be ready before end Mar/April I think. But I have already prepared a builders bag (They'll be my raised beds for this year) which is mulched and warm ready to plant now, which was what started me wondering about seed, and if it was worth a try if I could get round the lack of greenhouse. Its sheltered and easy to fleece at night. Jacob Im right on the coast, so get really good light, Im already on 8/10 hrs depending how clear it is. Its the wind chill I have problems with as it can drop the temp 2 or 3 degrees.

[zazen999]

Hilly - what seeds were you thinking of?

Onions, I'd say yes
Tomatoes, I'd say no
Chillis - I'd say if you can keep them frost free and stump the expense if they fail, then it's worth a try
Most other stuff doesn't really benefit from an earlier sowing......

[sarraceniac]

Sarraceniac, if you read It's Hilly's first post, you will see that she says her house is unheated overnight, so even getting seeds to germinate indoors may be a bit hit and miss at the moment...! In Cumbria it's likely to be hitting -10c over the next few weeks, so even with a hotbed system, it's still going to be below zero overnight. Even the hardiest of plants are going to be in 'hibernation', not growing, which is what a seedling needs to do.
I'm all for pushing the boundaries of what can be grown when, but I think the others are right, this may be the wrong time to try it!

Hilly, is there any chance of you investing in a heated propagator? I believe you can get them from Wilkinsons or B&Q for about a tenner these days, and if you only switched it on at night when the temp drops, it might just get you some early seedlings that could then be grown on in a hot bed/container when a bit bigger?

Everybody may note, if they read Hilly's first post, that she is going to attempt what was covered in great detail on the TV series 'The Victorian Garden' that is - using rotting manure to produce heat to germinate seeds. I think every gardener who had Sky up to about a year ago will have seen this ad nauseum (remember when they had a gardening channel?). Like all Sky's ex BBC stuff it must have been repeated about 20 times. It is something I would love to try myself, again stressing with the right plants, not the pineapples in January that the program showed. I like pushing the boundaries and don't like to say that because I've never tried something it won't work but don't think I would be allowed to afford £10,000 for the Victorian Great House type of glass house. Certainly worked on the level they did on the program though. Unless somebody thinks they fiddled the temperature readings and just went down to Tesco and bought the stuff that they grew. You can't trust these telly gardeners nowadays with their new fangled Victorian ideas can you?

I still think that with some things it may well work, but that is only because I have seen it.