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As most of you know this is my first year of growing vegetables. Owning a greenhouse and making the best use of it is also new to me.
Like every new person I was excited to be finally growing my own, from seed.
This year I have learnt a lot by actually doing things some of which I know I will try to avoid next year.
I thought I would start a list of the things I learnt the hard way. Perhaps others could add to it?
1. Watering seed trays with rainwater grows more slime than seedlings.
2. Fit bubblewrap in greenhouse at the start of autumn before you do anything else. Moving loaded shelving is a real pain later on, when you can't put the plants outside to carry out the installation.
3. Sowing two seeds per cell in a large module results in large blank blocks of earth with nothing growing in them. The old method of sowing seed in a small pot and pricking out seedlings takes more time but gets better end results.
4. Starting off seed sowing in an artificially warm place before there is enough light for the new seedlings to photosynthesise produces week leggy growth. Seeds sown later catch up, as they have enough natural heat and light to grow stronger.
5. It's always better to sow more seed than you need, choose the strongest seedlings and throw the rest straight on to the compost heap. Pricking out seedlings you don't need leads to pots you have to care for that will never be planted out. If you only have room for ten tomato plants don't keep fifteen.
I would be interested to hear others lists of things, they have learnt the hard way.
Jax
Like every new person I was excited to be finally growing my own, from seed.
This year I have learnt a lot by actually doing things some of which I know I will try to avoid next year.
I thought I would start a list of the things I learnt the hard way. Perhaps others could add to it?
1. Watering seed trays with rainwater grows more slime than seedlings.
2. Fit bubblewrap in greenhouse at the start of autumn before you do anything else. Moving loaded shelving is a real pain later on, when you can't put the plants outside to carry out the installation.
3. Sowing two seeds per cell in a large module results in large blank blocks of earth with nothing growing in them. The old method of sowing seed in a small pot and pricking out seedlings takes more time but gets better end results.
4. Starting off seed sowing in an artificially warm place before there is enough light for the new seedlings to photosynthesise produces week leggy growth. Seeds sown later catch up, as they have enough natural heat and light to grow stronger.
5. It's always better to sow more seed than you need, choose the strongest seedlings and throw the rest straight on to the compost heap. Pricking out seedlings you don't need leads to pots you have to care for that will never be planted out. If you only have room for ten tomato plants don't keep fifteen.
I would be interested to hear others lists of things, they have learnt the hard way.
Jax
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