Confused as to when to sow seeds

[Rose willow]

I am a complete beginner to vegetable growing and am confused about when to sow certain seeds as most people seem to have grow lights which I don’t. Am I right in saying that with no grow lights I should wait til march to sow chillis peppers and tomatoes.? I do have a heated propagation and an unused Nw facing freezing cold conservatory I am going to use once plants have germinated?

[Luca4]

https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/cale...rsonalised.php

Love this website, helps by personalising dates by last frost in your area, a great help to us novices

[nickdub]

In principle, it is fairly simple to decide when to sow tender plants such as tomatoes. To grow properly and fruit they need both light and warmth (a minimum of say 15 C). Obviously you can provide artificial heat and warmth to get plants going earlier, but if you are reliant on raising small plants without artificial light then, for most of the UK, late March or early April is about the earliest time for sowing.

Your conservatory will come in handy on the summer for growing the plants, but would be too cold now. A cheap maximum/minimum thermometer is a useful tool to let you tell how cold things are getting at night in a place you are planning on growing things.

[Rose willow]

Thanks both

[nickdub]

No worries - good luck and Happy gardening. Nick

[mothhawk]

A lot of chilli peppers need a long growing season, so folk start them early. Some take 120 days to reach maturity and start to fruit. Then you have to wait for the fruit to ripen. I believe that the general rule is the hotter the chilli, the longer the growing period. Jalapenos are quite fast growers and I know bell peppers are fast growers too.

[nick the grief]

hey you're half way to being a gardener ... you have the right name

A lot of folks (including me) have itchy finger and sow and plant stuff too early. when I was at school I worked for a chap and his dad was an ex head gardener and he always said "if its too cold to sit and drink a cup of tea with your bear ar*e on the soil - it too early" can I suggest if you try this do it at night the neighbours get upset ... errr apparently , so I'm told

there are a couple of good books that I wouldn't be without

Joy Larkom - Grow your own Vegetables

and then there's

John Harrison - Vegetable growing Month by Month

and a 3rd is by Lucy Peel - Practical gardener Kitchen Garden

but you can do worse than going to your local allotment site and see if they have an onsite shop and let none plot holders buy stuff. and asking some of the 'old boys' what they sow and when and also what they grow - they will know what grows best for there as they will have tried it all and it will save years of disappointment and frustration - I love Kingedwards potatoes but they just won't grow where I live took me 4 years of crap crops to work that out. my mate 3 miles down the road grows them like twitch but he can't grow carrots only in tubs

But don't be afraid to ask on here - no such a thing as a daft question.

Nick

[Nicos]

I started my tomatoes too early last year and had to keep them indoors for about 8 weeks- maybe more

The good thing about leggy tomatoes is they thrive being repotted deeper than their original soil line. I must have repotted mine about 4 times until the last frost had gone - which for me is early June as I don’t have a greenhouse.

I love the idea of sitting on the soil...ha ha ha!

[Bren In Pots]

I've not sown anything yet but will be starting sowing in the next week or so. just a few toms and aubergines.

[ameno]

I'll probably be sowing my peppers next week, but after that I don't plan to sow anything more until about mid-March.

[nick the grief]

... I love the idea of sitting on the soil...ha ha ha!

he was in his 70's I guess so was a garden boy around the 1920's and was full of loads of interesting stories - most of which I never wrote down or recorded .

He was the first person I knew who grew tomatoes in straw bales and they set them up around christmas in the greenhouses ( and they were beautifull greenhouses proper old fashioned ones half brick with heating pipes) and then if they ( the gardeners on the estate) needed a pee they did it on the straw bales the high nitrogen content helped start the decomposing off and within a couple of months it was ready to use and as it broke down the heat given off helped keep frost off.

I just wished I'd paid more interest.

[Jungle Jane]

Peppers take a bit longer to germinate than tomatoes,I’d sow them early March. Once they’re germinating you can put a bit of white card or foil on the other side of the seedlings to help reflect light. Tomatoes I usually sow around the second week of March,between 8th - 15th sort of thing. I start a few plants off early under the grow light around now but most start on the windowsill early March. There’s a seed sowing thread in the veggin out forum,you could have a look there during March/April etc & you’ll see what we’re all sowing & join in Add what you’re sowing to that thread,then next year you can use it as a prompt

[smallblueplanet]

I am a complete beginner to vegetable growing and am confused about when to sow certain seeds as most people seem to have grow lights which I don’t. Am I right in saying that with no grow lights I should wait til march to sow chillis peppers and tomatoes.? I do have a heated propagation and an unused Nw facing freezing cold conservatory I am going to use once plants have germinated?

With your heated propagator you can start your 'tender' seeds when you like, but without light they will struggle and if you put them in a cold conservatory they'd surely die. When you grow stuff try and keep in mind their original growing conditions.

So I think we'll start our aubergines, chillies and peppers tomorrow in our heated prop. It's on the kitchen table near the window. They get left in the heated prop after germination but put into small modules to allow them to grow on. Without some extra light they can/do get leggy (stretched out searching for light). But I bought a cheap IKEA desk lamp that with a daylight led bulb in it gives just enough extra light to slow the leggyness. Some chillies have a much longer growing season (from seed to fruiting) and so need a very early start - basically any that are not capsicum anuum ie habaneros, scotch bonnet etc. We start them all at the same (earlyish) time as it's easier.

We'll leave starting the tomatoes for a few weeks because they grow so much faster and even if they go leggy their stems can be buried and will grow roots. You can do similar with chillies/peppers/aubergines, although the aubs don't need it so much.

[Nicos]

Didn’t realise I can plant chillies deep each transplanting...thanks for that!