February
Starting mid month, around 14th
If you live in a warmer area of the UK, you can start broad beans outside, but sometimes, if the weather is still very wet and cold, they’ll likely struggle to germinate or become mouse food, so any gains are negated.
Sowings of broad beans, calabrese, coriander, cabbage (early varieties), cauliflower, dill, Florence fennel (bulb), kohlrabi, lettuce, onion, peas for shoots, parsley, radish, spinach, salad onion, turnips.
These are good to sow in modules, although the broad beans are better sown into root trainer modules, or just good old toilet rolls, anything that lets the tap root grow down quickly.
Pop them in a warm place once sown, cover with a piece of glass, or perspex or into a propagator, check them every few days.
Brassicas can be incredibly fast to germinate, so keep an eye on them.
As soon as the seeds have germinated, they’ll need to be kept in a light but much cooler (but not frosty) location, this will reduce the chances of them getting leggy (etiolating).
Unfortunately many growers keep them too warm, which with lower light levels, leads the new seedlings to stretch.
Spinach and turnips don’t like too much root disturbance, so if growing these, take care to keep the module soil with the root as far as possible.
Some of these cultivars can also be multi-sown, as in three or four seeds per module, they will grow in groups when transplanted and seem to do quite well using this method.
Onions, radish, salad onions and turnips from this list are all good candidates for this method. there are others which we’ll highlight in future posts.
The Greenhouse Plants
In a warm place – aubergine, pepper, chilli – sow these by the end of March.
These will all need good steady heat to germinate, <20C but can be as above, grown on in cooler conditions once they have germinated. They need a relatively long season, especially the higher Scoville rated (very hot) chilli’s and it helps for the plants to be mature at the height of the season to produce the best crop. However, don’t forget that they will grow, and will need to be able to move to a position which helps them until the season catches up.
Please feel free to email or leave comments on your experiences with sowing these cultivars.