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What next?
Loganberry Hut
Posts: 199
in Plants
My borders are ready. I have collected a zillion packets of seeds, and a few less containers... I'm itching to get growing but worried that I will start too early. I don't have a greenhouse / cold frame so what I sow will be sown and grown in situ... When is it safe to start? I'm growing mostly hardy cottage annuals, sweet pea, and will be attempting lots of growing in cracks. I'm in belfast and it's still around 8???c on a great day!
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Hardy annuals that you scatter can be sown now, provided your soil is not too soggy.
I would sow a few now, and sow some in April, to give a longer flowering period.
Yes, start sowing hardy annuals in situ now. I sprinkle a little sand where I've sown them so that I don't hoe up the seedlings when I attack the weeds with my hoe.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Rake over your soil again to smooth it and bring up any stones and loosen any naughty weed seedlings then sow your seeds in straight rows across the space. This helps you see what is plant and what is weed and you can then thin them more easily to give the strongest seedlings the growing space they need to flourish.
Sow a few now if yu're depserate to get going but save seeds fo a later sowing as the first lot may suffer and fail if the soil is too cold or wet and we get some bad weather. When sowing outside, patience is a virtue but you can also start things off in modular seed trays on a bright window sill and grow them on till they're big enough to cope.
It would be better?
I would wait until April to direct sow preferably