Bad weather.

[Mike and Louise]

Hi all.
This is our first posting here.

Long story short.... we are not new to growing veg at home and we have done so since 2006. However this years Spring has been, well, screwed up.

We have tempartures of 20 deg C one day and now today it snows.

This time last year and 2006 we already had all our veg seed in the ground and it germinated nicely.

At present, we have our broad beans, peas, spring onions, spianch and lettuce seed in.
The greenhouse has our tomates and cucumbers in.

We still have other seed waiting to go in the ground, but what with this cold and wet weather we can't sow anything.
However, according to the long term weather forecast, things are not going to improve for another month at least.

What are the rest of you doing regarding your seed sowing?

By the way, a list of what we are sowing this year can be seen on our site Welcome to Natural Aromas - The Good Life.

We currently have a cloche frame work over our veg beds (you will see this in the pics on our site) however we are also having some very strong winds too and they don't stay up long.
At the moment we just have netting over the veg beds.

I'm just a bit worried that the seed we have already sown will just rot in the ground because it is too cold and wet, then, by the time it does get warmer, it will be too late in the year to sow anything, other than runner beans.

Any advice would be greatly recieved.
This strange weather is really starting to get to us. We had fields full of lambs in January, it's hot one day and now it is snowing.

[Paulottie]

You just have to wait for the right conditions or sow indoors in modules get them going and set out under fleece or something. Rotted seed is expensive seed. Don't want to sound a big head but experience and patience counts. you just know when its right to go and must learn to wait. Whilst we all wish to steal a march on nature; I have found most things catch up/get away quickly in the right conditions.

Welcome to the vine.

[Cutecumber]

I'm afraid that it's normal for spring weather to be erratic.

Gardening means you have to roll with the punches and do the best you can.

If you're growing to sell or for self-sufficiency then you have to invest in protection for your crops to get them through the vagaries of our weather.

[Paulottie]

PS. the crops you have in are pretty hardy and shouldn't mind too much. Don't let the greenhouse get cold though.

[SarzWix]

Good points from Paulottie & Cutecumber - I do 90% of my sowing into trays, pots or modules/cell trays, so I can start them off in a protected atmosphere. I have heated propagator, window-sills, small heated greenhouse & large unheated greenhouse, and my plants progress through each of these until they're ready to be hardened off in the cold frame. All of these provide varying degrees of protection from the weather, and if conditions are still bad when the plants are ready to go in the ground, I have 3 lots of cloche hoops (some home-made, some bought cheaply from Lidl) and a choice of fleece, polythene or Enviromesh big enough to cover them. It's taken a few years of investment to aquire all these things, but it really makes a difference to the plants not being battered by the weather.
Occasionally I do struggle to keep the covers on the cloches when the wind is bad, but I've got some decent ground pegs now, and all the stones, bricks etc I've dug up do a great job too.

[Mike and Louise]

Well the only seed we have left that needs to go straight in the gorund is the radish, beetroots and carrots.
It's these that I want to get sown lol.

I have sweet corn, red and white cabbage and caulifowers in the heated propogator now, but even they can't go outside untill this damm weather improves.

[rustylady]

My greenhouse is bursting at the seams at the mo, with everything in cell trays waiting to go out. I've got daughter's stuff in there too. Tomatoes are on the lounge windowsill, but I'm holding back on sowing chillies cos I've literally nowhere to put them. Went to the lottie yesterday, and it's looking sad. It's been the wet, I think, more than the cold. The ground is absolutely sodden.

[Two_Sheds]

I have sweet corn, red and white cabbage and caulifowers in the heated propogator now

Hello and welcome. I'll be brief, just because dinner is on..
I'd say you're too early for sweetcorn anyway. I won't sow mine till the end of the month, unheated greenhouse (they have plenty of time to crop)

Cabbage is hardy and certainly doesn't need heat to get started. Mine have been sown into the unheated greenhouse and are just started to pop up.

Cauliflower is notoriously difficult to grow, so I don't even try

Have you sown all your seed at once? It's always good policy to sow little and often, so that you don't end up with a glut, eg 1000 beetroots all ready at once.

Seeds are cheap ... don't give up, just go buy some more. Or beg some off the Seed Swap