Greenhouse, no action.

This year has not been good in my green near London UK. Although I am an experienced gardener and i planted seeds in the greenhouse, in mid March, hardly anything has come up almost nothing has developed, even to two leaf stage. I have planted cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, pinks, aquiligia, hollyhocks, a variety of poppies both annual and oriental and more.

I just do not understand why? Usually all this stuff is far more advanced. My suspicions are for either cold nights (with expection of last week) or the compost. I know that in the UK Peat based has been more or less banned. I am wondering if the new compost is anywhere near as good?

opinions please

Z

 

Don’t know about compost, but I have had terrible germination rates on all sorts of things. I would normally leave things like broad and runner beans on damp tissue paper for a few days to start them thinking about sprouting before I put them into compost but this year hardly any germinated. New seeds, straight from new, in date, packets. I have seven plants out of dozens sown.

I sowed three varieties of courgettes, 3 seeds of each, and not one came up. I tried again, same thing. Finally, in a fit of pique, I threw all the remaining seeds down into a large pot and four came up. Because they were thrown down as a mixed mess I have no idea which ones are now growing. Again, new seeds. New compost. Clean pots.

Typically, by now I was getting cross, so I sowed a dozen cucumber seeds. They all came up! Ha!

Not bothering with tomatoes this year. Last year the taste of them was very unimpressive. Easier to go to the Co-op.

 

I've had the same issues, though I don't have a greenhouse. I'm blaming the rubbish peat free compost I bought.

Out of 36 cosmos, sown indoors in late March on a bright windowsill, as I do every year with success, I ended up with three plants . They were new seeds as well, two different varieties.

Couldn't get a bare root Rudbeckia to come up either, also planted into peat free. The echinacea bare root did come up but is struggling. I've put it in the ground slightly prematurely, in the hopes garden soil will help it along.

 

Mine were sown in the conservatory with underfloor heating.

 

I had a poor show from my first sweetcorn sowing, all in cell trays only about 3 seed germinated.
I bought some more seeds, two different types, one packet came up 100% the other ones were a disaster.
Having got a packet of 200 seeds originally I thought I'd give them another chance, just threw a handful in a big pot and they all came up.
Can't explain it.
I'm finding that the seedlings often come up in peat free but then stand still, my thoughts are it lacks fertiliser or possibly because of its structure it very quickly leaches fertiliser.

 

A couple of those dozen surprise cucumber seedlings got as far as poking out of the pot in that upside down U shape of a germinating seed and stopped there for about a week. They were green but motionless. I gave one of them a gentle poke this morning and it fell over. Cut off at ground level. That was the same with the next one I poked. I have two U shaped objects that appear to be healthy until they show you that they aren’t. I have never in my life seen that before.

 

That sounds like they rotted, damped off, to me.
I do wonder how sterile the peatfree stuff is.

 

I’ve had quite good results this year. Last year was dreadful.
The only seeds I’ve struggled with are cucumbers and sweetcorn, both years. I have none of the latter and only 3 sweetcorn.

Last year Spring was cold with low light levels. The opposite this year, which I feel explains the different levels of success. I’ve struggled with sweetcorn in the past, and I suspect it’s the cold nights which are still having an effect.

I’m sowing in an unheated greenhouse and using home-made compost and garden soil. I’ve used peat free compost for over 30 years with no problems. I suspect that the issue for most gardeners is getting used to a different product re feeding and watering. I do remember struggling one year when OH mistakenly bought a peat-based compost and the GC wouldn’t let us exchange it. However, I did find the quality hugely variable in that last few years when I was buying compost regardless of the brand.

I haven’t bought any for around three years as I am trying to reduce the resources/plastic I buy so using homemade compost and lucky enough to have a mature stack of old grass turves. Not quite sure what I will do when the soil pile runs out

 

I've had my usual mixed results with germination.

 

I have had mixed results, but I germinate both on the windowsill and in the greenhouse. My own seeds collected from last year have done better than some purchased seed.

But I have "mushrooms" springing up continually in all my pots and trays. Why are they in the peat free compost? They only last a few hours.

I think the weather fluctuating hot then cold doesn't help.

 

Sadly this seems to be an increasingly common trend. There are a lot of threads about peat free compost and problems. I think there is also an issue with some seeds. Apparently a lot of seed is grown in bulk abroad, and regardless of the name on the packet a lot is from the same limited supplier.
I have said this before but more gardening experts are all saying you can't use peat free compost straight out of the bag. It needs modification in some way. There is a good guide on one of the past Beechgrove garden programs, sorry I can't give the exact episode but it's a couple of years ago now.

 

I don't have a greenhouse so spring sown seeds are germinated on the back bedroom windowsill (radiator off but the boiler is in there and the pipes to other parts of the house run under the floor, and I close the window down to the night vent setting at night so it stays quite warm). No particular issues this year. So the problem is likely the cold nights if there's no heat in your greenhouse.
Non-peat compost straight from the bag can be a problem for seeds, I think because there tend to be a lot of coarse bits which can stop the seeds being properly in contact with the damp compost. I sieve it for seed sowing.