Sowed too early - sweetcorn & tomatoes overcrowding house

[anni]

Hello all,
We moved house just before Christmas to a new house and we've also bought a small strip of land next to the house and ever since I've been planning and building my mini raised bed allotment on it. The beds should be ready in 2-3 weeks time for planting - I should have
1.4m x 1.4m
1.6m x 1.6m
3.6m x 1.1m
2.25m x 2.25m - (sized for the sweetcorn -16 plants in a block)
I have chosen to start with raised beds for a number of reasons, but mainly because I have really heavy clay soil which is full of big stones, glass (from a previously demolished commercial greenhouse) and builders rubble (from when the house was built). This way I can dig out (and discard the worst soil, dig over and sieve the bottom layer and then work in newly purchased good stuff to the top of the raised beds.

I am a complete novice at this, but have spent 4 months researching and planning .... reading books, watching TV programmes and of course the web and this forum.

I started sowing seeds indoors on every windowsill as soon as the packets said I could and bought two wooden mini greenhouses/ coldframes.
I seemed to be doing pretty well until now and now my problem is that my tomatoes and in particular my sweetcorn are huge and taking over the house.
The sweetcorn is nearly 2ft tall and my tomatoes are over 1ft tall (no flowers yet)

Can I put the sweetcorn in bigger pots in my coldframes / mini-greenhouses yet? If not can I put the tomatoes in there?

I really need to free up some space.....


Thanks

Anni

[smallblueplanet]

Put your toms out in the g/h, but have some fleece ready to cover them at night when temps drop. (As they're mini g/h make sure they're well stabilised/screwed down! Lots on here have lost them to bad weather. Perhaps before you leave the toms out all night you could leave them in during the day and bring them back in at night for a couple of days to acclimatise them? Don't know about corn as I am a 'sweetcorn newbie'!

[Cutecumber]

Do you know when you last frosts are likely to be? Mini greenhouses do not hold the heat as well as their bigger cousins so you need to be careful.

I would put the tomatoes in the mini greenhouses during the day but bring them in at night until you are confident the temperatures are more stable. After a couple of weeks, keep them in their full time until they are good and tough. Plant when the first truss is starting to set - hopefully May.

The sweetcorn look a little skinny for their height - it is more normal to be sowing them about now in most of the UK. I have had young plants wither and die in cool springs in the greenhouse but I think you're just going to have to put them in and do the same as the tomatoes. I would stake them, too, if I were you, as they are getting top heavy.

I hope you have enough room in your greenhouses!

Good luck.

[anni]

Hi both, and thanks for your replies.
I haven't enough room for both the sweetcorn and the tomatoes, it's going to be a case of "either / or" or half and half.
My preference would be to put the sweetcorn in bigger pots (I think this is why they are so thin for their height), and as you suggest, stake them and put those in the mini greenhouses.
I have had a thermometer in each greenhouse and have not had below 2 degrees (at night) for 7/8 days, but this morning at 6.30am the temp was only 5 degrees and because it was cloudy it took ages to get above 10. As soon as the sun comes out the temp shoots up and I have to ventilate them. I have a book that says where I am the last frost is usually end of March, but that obviously wasn't the case this year... I don't know, but I'm guessing the last frost are over by mid April..
So it's not so much the frost that is worrying me as the colder night time temps. The forecast shows the lowest night time low over the next 10 days here as being 6 degrees... will this be too cold?
I don't have fleece, but would bubble wrap do? ... if not I'll get fleece.
I'll plan a hardening off - in/out regime as you suggest either way.

Thanks

Anni

[rustylady]

Everything is tall and thin cos it's too warm and not getting enough light. Get them outside at least during the day, if you have to bring them in at night, then so be it. They can go in cold greenhouse or coldframe.

[anni]

Hi RustyLady,
Ahh okay, I'm going to go with the not enough light angle on the tall thin problem... that makes a lot of sense, thanks...
Tomorrow, they begin going out in the day time and I'll take them in at night for the first few days, then test a few overnight to see how they go....
Do you think I should repot them as well? the roots of the sweetcorn have grown through the bottom of the small coir pots they are in. I can plant the whole coir pot straight in the new pot as it's biodegradable, but the bigger pots won't be, so would have to disturb the roots for final planting out...

Anni