Planting for the polytunnel

This is my first January with my tunnel!
Any suggestions for seeds I can start off now?

Happy new year to all


Ariadae

 

Patience ... unless the tunnel is heated it is too early.

You can start Onion Seed in modules, but that is about it. Maybe some early Cauliflower and Over-Wintering varieties of Broad Beans shortly.

Here's my sowing schedule:

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/beating-rush-t31299.html?p=432666#post432666

 

That link doesn't work for me as I get a '404 Not Found' error message.

 

Chopper will tell you best, but he's given me lettuce from his unheated polytunnel a few weeks back & thats doing fine in a cold frame at the moment.

He's got alsorts growing in there right now.

Oh, Chopper, bought you a late Christmas present today, but i'm naughtily going to read it myself first :D

I tried the link too & got A303 message, but thats probably because I live in Somerset.

 

None of the links from the old vBulletin software work since the migration to MyBB. Nor any of their attachments. Dunno if TPTH are still trying to sort it out, or not.

 

I though that might be the case and tried comparing that link to a new one to see if if was a simple matter of partial substitution, plus of course searching for "sowing schedule", but neither worked.

But searching for portions of the link (that didn't work) I found this:

 

Hi Ariadae

This is also my first January gardening in a polytunnel. A lot of the plants I have growing in my tunnel were started off in late October or early November.

Something to bear in mind. When ever you get your tunnel ready to start gardening, you have to break into the seasons at some point. There is no real start and finish to the seasons. One blends into the next. It is up to you to fit into whatever time of year and the growing conditions.

My tunnel was finished in September 2010. No way was I going to let it stand empty and idle for 6 months waiting for the spring. I want to be able to grow lots of flowers as well as veg. I bought a lot of plug plants from a wholesale nursery and got them potted on immediately. Most have survived the winter so far.

I bought some seeds and started off a few lettuce, broad beans, onions, garlic, cabbage and cauliflower. The Broad beans took a battering with the frost. Cabbage and cauliflower have grown steadily. Onions and garlic are doing very well. I had enough lettuce to be able to give some to Ziggy. Ziggy and I have started swapping excess plants. He has some Aspargus plants for me. Works well for both of us and we get to have a chat about gardening and put the world to rights. Gardening brought us to meet.

There is a huge learning curve to climb for me and other folk just getting started with a new tunnel. My advice for what its worth is to listen to folk like Kristen and Ziggy. Don't be afraid to experiment or ask other much more experienced gardeners for advice and guidance. I am sure Ziggy and Kristen will agree with me that they were once novices too and none of us are inacapable of learning more.

I am really excited about what is happening in my tunnel and am really looking forward to the new season. Have fun and good luck with your new tunnel.

Regards

Chopper.

 

I want to be able to grow salad crops both on staging and in perimeter beds and was thinking of using some of my collection of those 400 x 300mm blue plastic mushroom boxes lined with weed control barrier (so they'll drain) and filled with potting compost. That will give a soil depth of 90mm (only 50mm in a seed tray) and enable me to shift them around from greenhouse (heated from March - April), polytunnel floor/staging, coldframes, outside. So what will grow in that depth of soil?

I'd also interested in which plants to avoid due to problems to pollination, being unsuited to indoor growing climate, etc. (french beans?), as I don't grow anything in my greenhouse during the summer because it gets shaded out by a large ash tree. Nothing huge, as it's only going to be a cheap 4.5 x 2m ebay tunnel (that's taking more time to devise some internal bracing than it'll probably take to erect).

 

Hey Chopper,

The asparagus I potted up for you survived the snow & is putting up small new shoots, they need splitting up into bigger pots though so i'll drop them down soon.

Oh, yes it takes a while for it all to sink in and you still learn more each season. Forget stuff & still make mistakes too.




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Hi Scrungee,

The mushroom trays sound good for small saladings, lettuce, radishes,rocket,chives etc. For deeper rooted stuff you could use 6" pots for baby carrots, sorrel, baby beets.

 

In that case I'd probably use some of my deeper, green, plastic vegetable crates (as used by market traders) to up the depth, as they shouldn't dry out as quickly and be easier to handle than multiple pots.

 

Thats a better idea than I had, I was thinking about putting the pots in the mushroom trays. Thats how I transport plants to car boot sales, but most of my plants for sale are in 3" pots.

If you sow your salad generously, then you can regularly make a "Baby leaf salad mix" that would cost you £1.20 ish in the supermarket, from the thinnings.

Probably teaching granny to suck eggs(damn, should have posted that in the old sayings thread:DOH

But remember to keep the carrots up high on the staging during and after thinning.