When is it suitable to start planting crops?

 


I was wondering, when would it be suitable to start planting things like
broad
beans, corn, french beans, sunflowers and other large plants?

The maximum temperature in my area is only around 14c during the day.




--
Maxim

 


|>
|> I was wondering, when would it be suitable to start planting things like
|> broad beans, corn, french beans, sunflowers and other large plants?

May :-(

|> The maximum temperature in my area is only around 14c during the day.

I wish - here it's much lower.  All of the peak, minimum and soil
temperatures are relevant.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 


Maxim;776577 Wrote:

suburban London? I

this page:

last banana plant which i tried to grow got infested with these

> little

annoying white bugs, around a millimetre big while i was away on

If you look at the key at the bottom of the page, you see he has
hardiness
symbols as one, two or three blue spider icons. In general
for suburban SW
London, I would look for a variety with at least one
blue spider (hardy to -5),
assuming you aren't in a frost pocket. In
fact the only one he sells which he
claims to have any hardiness to
that level is Musa sikkimensis.

Musa basjoo is the other well-known (root) hardy banaba, but he's not
selling it.

To choose something else, you will have to know your garden conditions
very well
and hang around on exotic plant forums where lots of banana
growers hang out,
who have recorded what is necessary to get particular
things to survive. I'd
have a look through the posts on the (now closed)
UKOasis site - lots of posts
about marginal bananas there.
Growingontheedge is the successor site, but it
hasn't been going very
long.

People don't usually grow these plants for the flowers. You have to
overwinter
the pseudostem for several years to get them to flower, and
then they die after
flowering. People usually grow them for the leaves,
and maybe don't mind if they
resprout each year from the roots.

To avoid the nasty-bugs-when-small phenonmenon, consider buying a
reasonable
sized plant rather than seeds. I don't think bananas are the
easiest thing to
grow from seeds. In fact, cavendish bananas (the ones
we eat) don't have seeds,
they can only be vegetatively propagated.




--
echinosum

 



Early broad beans (e.g. Aquadulce Claudia or The Sutton) can be sown as
soon as you like, better still last autumn.  Under cover ideally, but
they're pretty tough.

Sweetcorn and French beans are tender, so not until the last frost,
though you can push things a little bit by starting them off inside.
But starting too early is a waste of time.


Minimum night time temperature is also important (more important?), and
will likely be negative at the moment.

Peter