Sowing in January

[rary]

At the moment I have tomatoes, peppers and cabbage seedlings going on a propagation bench I want to try for early tomatoes and I have found that sowing peppers in March/April does not give me a long enough growing season for a decent harvest, the problem comes from lack of heat both beginning and end of cultivation,and as I think it is easier keeping small plants warm than large ones, I have sown them now, as for light again easier at the start of the year than the end

[becky_jo]

Hi Becky,

I'm from the North East (Close to Huntly) and worked in Inverness and the North East for many years. Inverness whilst milder has the same last frost date as Forfar, Aberdeen, Huntly - 2nd week in May. Best Idea might be to go to Garden Focused web Site, Set your location and go to the Vegetable Calendar and pick what you plan to grow. Then for crops you'd like to grow in you polytunnel take a couple of weeks off the sow outside date or use the sow under cloche dates. You could try more if you have plenty of seed and wish to experiment.

The biggest problem about growing seeds early (if you can't get them into your polytunnel) is lack of space. A tray of onions sown now might require 4 trays space before temperatures will allow planting outside. Only sow what you absolutely need to. Crops will soon catch up. I tend to wait too.

Thanks so much - I will check out Garden Focused, sounds very useful!