Advice for a hopeless gardener

[jansman]

So.... Peas in buckets?

Latest addition to my seed mountain are a couple of bags of pea seeds. Variant is 'Onwards'
Since I get hundreds of seeds for my money, I'm going to take a multi-sowing scattergun approach to see which survive best.

So, before I go crazy and start to murder them, let me run this by the experts....

Soaked some for 24 hours and now left in a ziplock with moist towel to pre-germinate for maybe 4 days. I'm hopeful that gives them a head start. Was this right or wrong? Charles Dowding doesn't seem to mess around doing that. He also sows two to a pod

I put some straight into pots in my cloche, but the nights are cold, so I don't expect much. Would they be better on a heated propagator, but without sunlight, in my garage (kitchen window is full )?

Proposing to try some in my cheap 2 gallon buckets. Should I try for say 2-3 seedlings to a bucket? Or is 2 gallon going to be too small?

Soil temp is only about 7C at the moment. Will that be too much of a shock for my sprouts, or should I germinate them longer in intermediate pots or pods?

Proposing to do 2 rows of 1.2m in one of my raised beds. Instructions seem to be to have them quite close together, 2-3 inches. Will that crowd them?


Meanwhile, back to my other sowings. Still very few seedlings. This damned frost over the last few days has had me keep bringing trays indoors.

Peas: just bung ‘em into your ground/ pots from mid April onwards. Unless you like work, don’t faff about sprouting them. A 2 gallon bucket you could get a dozen seeds in there, as a 3” spacing is about right.

They will grow. Don’t rush nature.

[jennyjj01]

Peas: just bung ‘em into your ground/ pots from mid April onwards. Unless you like work, don’t faff about sprouting them. A 2 gallon bucket you could get a dozen seeds in there, as a 3” spacing is about right.

They will grow. Don’t rush nature.

Cheers, Jansman. I'll pack them in.

I do rather expect a lot and I panic. If I were self reliant I'd starve to death.

The sprouting idea is mostly about letting me neglect them for their first few days, which is almost inevitable with me. Seemed to work with carrots where every other attempt to germinate was a disaster.

I do panic and seeing British Red's crop makes me worse. I suppose I ought to remember that I don't have a heated greenhouse or conservatory, so some things are just not going to happen.

Anyway... Great news: One of my courgette seeds has broken through into the world, literally within the last two hours. I've named him Curtis. Bringing them into the house might have triggered that.

[Arzosah]

Welcome to the world, Curtis

[jansman]

If your seed trays are outdoors at the moment, they won’t germinate. My neighbour and me were talking over the wall this morning, 90 years and still gardening. A very good plantsman. We both agreed that there’s no rush yet. My squash/ marrow/ courgette I won’t think about sowing for another month yet, otherwise they will have nowhere to go until the last frosts, which can often be as late as the second week in June.

[jennyjj01]

If your seed trays are outdoors at the moment, they won’t germinate. My neighbour and me were talking over the wall this morning, 90 years and still gardening. A very good plantsman. We both agreed that there’s no rush yet. My squash/ marrow/ courgette I won’t think about sowing for another month yet, otherwise they will have nowhere to go until the last frosts, which can often be as late as the second week in June.

Thanks Jansman, Damn this british weather!

We just seem to be careening into the year and I have so little to show for it. Meanwhile, I see British Red and yourself with trays and trays of triffids and I get a fear of missing out.

So, I could make the mistake of having lots of germinated small veg plants all raring to go, but not be able to transplant outside for fear of May frosts? Best I can hope for is to have them in buckets and bring them into the garage on nights where frost is forecast. Onions and Garlic like frost?

I see what you say about later sowings catching up: Some of my latter attempts have showed themselves above ground within a week, and my latter tomatoes already look stronger and less leggy that their dearly departed January brothers ever did.

What are the panel's thoughts on electric propagators? I have one, but can only really use it in the garage which has no windows. Any point, or should i just stick to the windowsill which is a pretty constant 21C?

In other News, Last year's strawberry plant (crop of 1) survived in it's bucket. I'm going to try to feed it up and revive it. That could be my biggest battle of the critters: A whole new facet to gardening.

[British Red]

Thanks Jansman, Damn this british weather!

We just seem to be careening into the year and I have so little to show for it. Meanwhile, I see British Red and yourself with trays and trays of triffids and I get a fear of missing out.



What are the panel's thoughts on electric propagators? I have one, but can only really use it in the garage which has no windows. Any point, or should i just stick to the windowsill which is a pretty constant 21C?
.

We use heated propagators - a lot of them. Then move onto every damned windowsill in the cottage (which is South facing). Stuff outgrows the windowsills ( like tomatoes ...bloody triffids) and we have to move them into a ( lightly heated) greenhouse - which is also full . We are working out what can move into the unheated greenhouse now.

Thing is that's how we live. Growing stuff, raising chickens, making soap and all the rest is our "job". It's hugely time consuming and our old cottage was set up to live like this. We have to start earlier than most because it's how we eat - most people's homes and gardens aren't set up for early crops.

As Jamsman says, there's still plenty of time and it's most definitely not a race

[jennyjj01]

We just seem to be careening into the year and I have so little to show for it.

As Jamsman says, there's still plenty of time and it's most definitely not a race

Oh Yes it is !
Frnc and I are on a challenge to get something to the plate.

I'll race you from seed to plate!

Race is on!!

[British Red]

Oh Yes it is !
Frnc and I are on a challenge to get something to the plate.

Oh, okay - can I play?

Tomatoes 03/04/22 by English Countrylife, on Flickr

[diamond lil]

I could do you a cress sammich ner ner NER!

[GillyBee]

I'm still pretty much stuck at the frost hardy veg only stage until things warm up due to an unheated greenhouse and no more room on the windowsills for the warm climate veg. Rather annoyingly I have a slug lurking on one windowsill I have not found where it is hiding yet but it ate all but 2 of my lettuce seedlings. Thankfully it missed the peppers. All seedling pots are now plastic bagged to isolate them while I hunt it down and dusted with cinnamon to try to keep fungus at bay.
I have decided to get some peas shoots going. The big attraction is that they should be ready to eat in just a couple of weeks. I usually use supermarket dried peas for this - but think I may need to buy some fresher ones. Am testing the ones I currently have to see if they are worth germinating - or not.
Also started this week - more lettuce, spinach, carrots and peas. All will be OK in pots in the greenhouse or straight in the ground with maybe a bit of fleece over the top and some cat-proofing.