It was going to be a matter of principle for me this year to follow the general advice and wait patiently for the right time to start planting. I have read so many articles and books emphasising that it is better to wait one more week than to plant too early because it won’t affect the results too badly and planting too soon can be a big mistake.
At first this wasn’t too hard to do especially when we had a couple of spells with a few days of snow and some very low temperatures overnight. More recently it has been getting harder especially as I’m very aware that March is rapidly approaching – I happily choose to ignore the fact that I live in the North East, UK where spring comes a little later than most!
I had been doing so well but I eventually gave in to the temptation and opened some seed packets yesterday which I had bought over the last few weeks. We have had a few consecutive days of relatively good weather (for the time of year) plus I had prepared some seed trays which have been “warming up” in the house for the last few weeks.
This was only a very small sowing just to ease me in so only 1 tray has been used and no more than 10 of anything was planted. This first batch includes:
- Onions from seed as I’ve only grown them from sets before
- Beetroot because I’ve never tried growing that before
- Squash because I’ve never tried it before (and I bought the seeds in a sale!)
- Lettuce just because the seeds were cheap and I didn’t want to risk any other seeds yet
There’s not much to show for the effort yet of course but I’ve included a picture anyway and I feel more like spring is on the way at last.. (just until we get the Easter snow of course!)
I’m feeling the same, with the sun starting to shine and the days getting longer, I feel I want to sow some herbs and tomatoes.
It must be hard wanting to start planting but feeling as though your life is on hold until you move. I hope it all works out for you and quickly. You could maybe do some potatoes in bags that would move with you. We were lucky when we moved to Ireland from Spain, we had already bought our small holding here and were able to get over to get the veg started for our first year before moving over for keeps.