Help! What Should I be Doing?

YoungBean

Hey guys,

I know that this thread is going to sound really desperate...but I feel it.

I have loads of seeds including:

Carrots, leeks, sweetcorn, brussells, tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage, parsnips, goosberry and rasperry tree, runner beans

What should I be doing and when?

At the minute the only progress I have is that I have some seed potatoes on the windowsill chitting away.

But I feel that I should be doing something else?

Any help?

Sooz x

misskool

you can start sowing leeks, parsnips, brussels, tomatoes and maybe your cabbage (depending on what variety it is).

Raspberry runners (depending on variety) can go in the ground.

YoungBean

Should I sow these outside?

I sound like a right doofer

WestonDave

To be honest for most things March is pretty much the limit of when you can start, and being "oop north" in Bradford, you might be advised to wait a bit longer for the frosts to be definitely over.

That said sweetcorn is a bit of a rush to get it growing enough for a harvest, so I'd be looking to start that round about the earliest date it says on the packet, but try to ensure you have room to keep growing it on indoors as you won't want to put them outside until May if you can help it.

Carrots and parsnips are best outdoors so you'll need the ground to be reasonably frost free and not waterlogged or the seeds will just rot. Depending on whether you are growing in pots or the ground you may need to get some plastic to cover the ground to keep the rain off and help warm it up. Alternatively just wait!

No rush on Brussel's - you'll start them off in seed trays and then be looking to plant out after the frost and as they don't harvest until winter, there's no rush on them. (Taste best with a bit of next winters frost in them so you don't want to be too early with those!).

Give the runner beans maybe another couple of weeks and then start them indoors on a window sill ready to plant out later after the frosts.

The fruit trees probably need hardening off - aclimitising to outdoors - if they've been kept or grown indoors so you might want to start putting them out during the days, and bringing them back in at night or when hard frosts are forecast, with a view to planting them out next time a warmer week is forecast.

Its really tempting to get on with it, but patience is the friend of the gardener. I'm near Bristol so relatively warm and at present the only thing I've started is chitting the potatoes, and starting off the peppers. We'll probably look at starting beans etc indoors this weekend mainly because we are away next weekend.

YoungBean

Dave thank you for this!

I have some compost and trays in the cellar, and got really confused as to what I can start off in the trays, and what I can't.

So sweetcorn and runner beans I should be able to start indoors in the next week or so? Everything else, wait til the weather picks up a bit?

WestonDave

Yep - sounds about right. Sweetcorn wants as long a growing season as you can give it, but can't go outside until May so you'll possibly end up with quite big plants indoors so will need space and to keep turning them so they don't grow towards the light. Runner beans need to be strong enough to survive the fact that slugs love them, but if they grow too much indoors you'll have a knotted mess!

YoungBean

Aww lovely.

I can get cracking with something then.

Watiting for the weather to pick up is starting to get boring!!