When To Sow My Veg Seeds In My Propagator

I'm seem to get this wrong every year, I'm always too late.

Please could you good people give me the benefit of your experience.

When would be best time to sow the following seeds in my propagator, tomato, sweet and chilli peppers? The plants will eventually be transferred into an unheated greenhouse and I live on the south coast.

I suppose I am always worried about being too early for transfer into the greenhouse, so much so that I usually end up being late.

You can sow the chillis now, because they can be slow germinators/growers - but you'll have to keep them inside til the weather warms up properly before they can go into an unheated greenhouse.

You can sow the sweet peppers in a couple of weeks and then in mid March sow the tomatoes - with the view to putting them in the greenhouse at the end of April, beginning of May. Keep your eye out for late frosts though!

Thanks  :happy:

Forgot to ask when to sow my cucumbers for the greenhouse

4 days time then! 

The last 2 years I've been too late with just about everything so I decided not to hang about this year. As a result, I've got got a whole kitchen windowsill full of chillis and tomatoes just coming up.
The chillis have been really quick this year. I got some Carolina Reapers from the States and they were up in about 2 weeks.
I've not got them in a propagator, they're just in a South facing window, and I'm hoping that they'll have the benefit of an early start but won't shoot their bolt (as it were).

They're all looking pretty good. I just hope I don't get pulled up for a false start!

Cheers.

I know I always used to say 'read the flipping seed packet' - but some of them seem to be far from clear nowadays 

eg - tomato packets say sow Feb - April without explaining what to do with Feb sown ones when you only have a cold greenhouse to put them in 

I think it's about time the seed companies actually got a gardener to check the instructions before they get the packets printed  that's probably asking too much 

sorry, rant over 

Hi All,

Yes, all the tomatoes I've sown say "late Feb. to early April" on the packet, but I did mostly select the varieties that are supposed to be early. As for the Chillies, quite a lot of the enthusiasts talk about getting them in in Jan., and occasionally Christmas gets a mention!

I know that last year we started the tomatoes off in late March, and they were just getting into their stride about blight time, but I guess it was a bit of a weird year wasn't it.

eg - tomato packets say sow Feb - April without explaining what to do with Feb sown ones when you only have a cold greenhouse to put them in 

So, what do you do then?

Cheers.

I don't have a greenhouse so will not be sowing tomato seeds until sometime in April.  They will get leggy on my windowsills and overly weak before I can plant them out at the start of June.