I know, I know...it isn't even Christmas, but I am still thinking ahead to my next garden. How far ahead do you usually start your veggies, if you plant them indoors first? I look at all those big, well-established young plants the nursery sells in the spring when my little peat-pellets are displaying little stringlets of sprout and can't help but wonder when they were started to be like that in time for planting.
For one thing Prim, all those nursery plants are given growth regulators that make them so stocky and well established. I usually start mine 6-8 weeks before the last expected frost date for my zone. Of course if I then put them in the ground and an unexpected frost comes a calling they have to be covered.
Do you mean you are sowing them outdoors in winter, or indoors? Or do you live in a warm place? Best of luck, either way!
Outdoors. I found a website and it seems like a good idea . . . Don't remember if I'm allowed to post links on this site, but forgive me if I goof: Check out www.wintersown.org Interesting ideas.
I start seeds eight weeks in advance. They are slow to sprout sometimes even on a heated mat. Plants themselves sow seeds in the winter. :idea:
Between Christmas and New Year I will sow my onion seeds which will live in the greenhouse until mid spring when they will head out to the allotment. In the conservatory in January I sow my tomatos, peppers, chillis and aubergines. These need lots of heat and it is financially unpractical to heat the greenhouse that much when I have a heated conservatory I can use. In February I sow a couple of courgette/squash seeds which I have to molycoddle, but it means I get a slightly earlier crop. In March I go mad and everything that says sow in Spring under cover starts getting sown indoors! April I start sowing outdoors with hardy things, mid May with tender things.
Planted peppers last weekend put them in the heated greenhouse and hoped for the best (last frost mid march!) will plant eggplant this weekend!!!! come on spring!!!!!
when I had a veggie garden(its now all shrubs and flowers)I even used to start my carrots and parsnips in the greenhouse(cold)and was very successful the only veg? i grow now is toms in between the flowers and trees and you might find the odd pepper in there too. G.
I am considering getting one of those heated mats for seedlings as I consider this - anyone use those? Do they really make much difference?
I always put my seeds on top of the frige, it is warm up there. As soon as they germinate I move them out into filtered light. If that is not an option because of the cold you will need lights to grow them under to keep them from getting too leggy, unless you have a nice sunny window. I've never tried a heat mat.
We used a heat mat in the big greenhouse where I worked as a teenager, made quite alot of difference in how many germinated and thrived. We did lots of cuttings in there too, just dipped them in roottone and poked them in perlite spread over a heat mat, & had a regulating device to keep them misted. I ran into an old friend who claims that he uses an old heating element from a waterbed and that it works great!
Thanks guys - I have my mat now and it has happily helped me sprout three trays of seedlings so far, then gone on to do double-duty as a mild heater underneath my parakeet cage as one of them is moulting and needs the coddling. Very nifty thing! I wish I'd gotten one sooner. I have jalapenos, tomatoes, sunflowers, summer squash, lemon cukes and a small assortment of flowers going on my counters and under my grow-light now. What fun!
