Post by murrayc on May 2, 2016 8:27:57 GMT
Some very good sense, even if he does have a special interest from Paolo Arrigo of Franchi's Seeds of Italy in his always entertaining newsletter:
"Yesterday I was outside all day at the Parliament Hill Farmers Market with the RHS and it was chilly. Speaking with customers to our stand, many have still either not sown or have sown very little and many were keen to sow today their beans and courgettes and I was screaming NO NO NO - there is no rush to sow these heat loving varieties. it looks like spring is arriving now so lets get sowing but remember:
Sow with the seasons, not by what it says on the packet and it is too early to sow beans and courgettes if it is too cold to sow them and it doesn't matter what time of year it is as each year is different so long as you are still in season which we are, being it is Spring.
Remember a tomato dropped in the soil in the summer would germinate ONLY when the time is right, and the time is not right. So if this tomato germinated in a week or two, of course it would still produce tomatoes yet there are still people who doubt this because they are used to sowing in Feb or Mar protected which you can do also, but you can still plant tomatoes till the end of May, that is their season late or no."
In my unheated greenhouse at home it has taken 4 weeks to germinate some beans and I still have a number of trays of different seedlings, inclusding courgettes, cucumbers and different types of bean that are either ungerminated, or are still at a very early stage of growth.
How are others getting on? Are you also finding it a late planting season?
"Yesterday I was outside all day at the Parliament Hill Farmers Market with the RHS and it was chilly. Speaking with customers to our stand, many have still either not sown or have sown very little and many were keen to sow today their beans and courgettes and I was screaming NO NO NO - there is no rush to sow these heat loving varieties. it looks like spring is arriving now so lets get sowing but remember:
Sow with the seasons, not by what it says on the packet and it is too early to sow beans and courgettes if it is too cold to sow them and it doesn't matter what time of year it is as each year is different so long as you are still in season which we are, being it is Spring.
Remember a tomato dropped in the soil in the summer would germinate ONLY when the time is right, and the time is not right. So if this tomato germinated in a week or two, of course it would still produce tomatoes yet there are still people who doubt this because they are used to sowing in Feb or Mar protected which you can do also, but you can still plant tomatoes till the end of May, that is their season late or no."
In my unheated greenhouse at home it has taken 4 weeks to germinate some beans and I still have a number of trays of different seedlings, inclusding courgettes, cucumbers and different types of bean that are either ungerminated, or are still at a very early stage of growth.
How are others getting on? Are you also finding it a late planting season?