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First sowings

SarahKateSarahKate Posts: 37
in Plants
Getting towards Spring although slowly but itching to sow seeds.   With a cold greenhouse and a fair size garden with acid soil  and established perennials.  I like to grow a few bedding plants and a good number of vegetables.    What would be the first seeds you would sow and when would you sow them?
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  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    IMHO, even for those of us lucky enough to live in Devon, it's a bit early. I don't even think of sowing until March. I find if you start too early , you just end up with leggy seedlings and  it being too early to get them outside.
    Devon.
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I agree.
    I sow and grow all bedding and veg and my first sowing last year was 10th March (tomatoes) and I picked the first tomato in 29 June.
    No point in sowing now - there's not enough light for seedlings to grow strongly.
    You'll just end up with leggy plants that can't support their own weight.
    I also started sowing veg outside in late March


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I'd agree - it's not the germination of seeds that's the issue, it's having the room to house them when you pot them on. Bedding can't go out till around end of May at best, so you need the room inside for them and that's tricky unless your greenhouse is very big!
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • chickychicky Posts: 10,410
    I start some of mine off early Feb, indoors in windowsill propagators.  My rudbeckias, scabious, echinacea and lupins need an early start if they are to flower this summer (or, for the lupins, get to a big enough size to survive a winter outside).  Other things - like cosmos, tomatoes and cucumbers - wait til March.
  • barry islandbarry island Posts: 1,847
    I've just started some beans Aquadulce Claudia in toilet roll tubes, and peas Meteor in gutters both in the cold greenhouse, nothing ventured nothing gained.
  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    I've sown seed as well but not the sort that need warmth, those that need a cold start


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    The only seeds I sow early are tomatoes and lobelia, I have the space and conditions for them. I do those mid February.  All the rest I do at the end of March, and perennials around August . 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I sow onions in Mid Feb under lights inside, nothing else gets sown before late March My last frost is 1st June so you can probably go 3-4 weeks earlier than me.
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    chillies come first here - probably next weekend, in a little heated propagator on the bedroom windowsill. Once they are up and doing, they move into little pots on the windowsill and I start the indoor toms in the propagator. Broad beans and peas on a cold windowsill are usually about the same time - late Feb or so. By which time the early potatoes are chitting and all the windowsills are full.

    Depends on the weather when things get going in the unheated greenhouse - usually it's sometime in March. Last year it was April.
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Garlic is about the only thing I plant in January, straight into the ground. I’ve tried sowing earlier, thinking I should have a head start here in Spain, but it doesn’t work, as others have said, leggy seedlings that don’t thrive. I will start peas, beans and first early salad potatoes in February, again straight into the ground. The few flower seeds I tried indoors also did better sowing in May than any earlier. Its so tempting to sow early, but when I do I end up binning the seedlings and starting again so I am going to try and restrain myself this year.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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