Am I too late to plant any veg/salad seeds to grow?

[lucysmam]

After a very recent diagnosis, I now have the entire summer to spend at home & an awful lot of time to (gently) fill.

I wondered if I'm too late to plant some seeds (maybe toms/cuc type things) to attempt to grow my own over the coming months?

I'll be using containers I already have, if that makes a difference. Thanks 🙂

I woke up wondering exactly the same, so following for advice!
I did think if it's too late to start seeds off I might buy a few plants. My growing attempts are mostly thwarted by slugs but I live in hope.
Best wishes for your recovery OP 🤞

I’m following! We loved house in April and I just haven’t had chance to get anything in the ground yet or make any space to put anything into the ground 🙈

So far we have 1 tomato plant in a pot that I bought from a supermarket. There were 2 others but they died. Haha it’s going well!

I think you’d be better off planting plugs. Our beans and courgette have been in a few weeks. Lettuce and tomatoes were planted yesterday.

I'm following the veg in one bed book and this week have planted Kale, chard, French beans and spinach.

I think I would buy seedlings or small plants, at the garden center or similar. They are then a bit bigger. These can then be planted in pots or beds, and should be fine. If you want to go with seeds, you might be best with something other than tomatoes. Beans and peas for example. I had some success last year with cavolo nero which I planted really late in a bit of garden.

Our local garden centre still has some seedlings available. The best thing is that they are all getting a bit leggy and in desperate need of planting out so they are mostly reduced. The good thing about buying seedlings now at the end of May is that they can be planted straight out and you will have missed all that faffing with overladen windowsills and hardening off. You might have a slightly later fruiting season.

Tomatoes, beans/peas, cucumbers, herbs, chillis would all work well now. And squash too as their fruiting is much later - but they take up a lot of space if grown in pots.

We did really well last year planting out tomato plants from the garden centre at this time of year. We have a sheltered garden so they were still producing in October!

Right, thank you. My friend is at Tesco at the mo picking up a few things - I wonder if they might have tomato plants 🤔 If not, I'll see if my dad might nip to a garden centre for me over the weekend (I don't drive).

@Starlightdarkness I'll have a look at the book, thank you. I always have it in my head to have a productive garden but never get there - maybe now is the time to start planning for future.

The veg in one bed book is really good, literally idiot proof. I'm a novice and I've got potato's, butternut squash, courgettes,tomatoes, pumpkin, garlic, 2x beans, reddish, spring onion Kale, lettice and more on the go. If your near a the range there own brand seeds are 50p a pack.

Definitely not too late. You’ll just be a bit later in terms of first harvest.

If you have space in a bed, plant some kale, chard, other greens (I really like broccoli rabe). These will produce loads for you and so much cheaper than buying a whole bag from the shop when you just need a few leaves. My chard from last spring is still growing and last year’s kale only got pulled up a couple weeks ago to make space for this year’s as was going to seed.

You can grow some climbing beans up a fence or wall. Radishes, carrots and beetroot are easy in small spaces too. And some herbs in pots.

And yes to squashes/courgettes too. They can grow into massive plants but you can train them up off the ground to give you more room, same with cucumbers.

Oh! @mindutopia thanks very much, I will make a start over the weekend in that case. The girls are likely to head to town tomorrow so I'll send them to Wilko for some seeds, and their dad to Lidl for compost for me.

I'm using containers, on a large table top, so I don't have to bend over to them for now. Hopefully I have enough 🤞

My friend's going to bring me some pots, and another is bringing me a strawberry plant.

I'd best look up how to deter pests too.

@Starlightdarkness just checking it's the book in my pic before I buy it?

Yes, that's the one. I've split my planting over 2 small raised beds, the cheap b&q ones and a couple of grow bags.

Brilliant, thank you.

I'll see how we go on with what I have this year & read in preparation for next. I'm quite excited now to get going 😊

You can plant fast growing salad plants like lettuce, radishes and rocket all through summer for successional crops.

You could buy some cheap herbs to eat with them.

If you buy those supermarket pots of parsley growing in soil, when you've harvested the tops, tip the roots out of the pot, cut the root in two and plant them out in the garden. They'll grow more leaves within weeks.

I have just bought some mint for Pimms this weekend and have put the long stems in a glass of water. Once they root, which is pretty quick, then I'll plant them out. Another good one to do the same thing with is basil. I saw Nancy Birtwhistle do this and it was really effective, but she used a pot of living basil.
You can sow lettuce for quite a while and probably carrots too. I am very late with all my seedlings this year as none seemed to grow, or I failed at greenhouse growing as it's very new to me.

Oh @longtompot I actually have a rather large basil (dd2 named it Bertrude 🤣) living on my kitchen window, smelling lovely. I wonder if I could split Bert into 2 🤔

I remembered about my rhubarb yesterday too - it's pot is overrun with weedy looking things so I will try and rescue that once it's higher.