Need help with leaving plants over April...

Hello everyone,

This may be a bit of a strange request for advice - please bear with me...

Myself and my partner are taking some accumulated leave from our jobs and are fortunate enough to be going on a 6 week holiday toward the end of March. We'll be gone for the last week of March, all of April and the first week of May.

Obviously, this is more or less right in the middle of an important period for growing my vegetables (I have a small plot in the my garden and use a lot of troughs, containers, hanging baskets, etc on the patio).

I'm worried that for a lot of veggies that require early starting (chillies, aubergines, tomatoes, peppers, etc) my holiday will be right when I should be getting the young plants out into the sun. If I start them (from seed) when I get back in May it will probably be too late.

As a solution (sort of) I started the seedlings very early this year - most of the above mentioned plants I started from seed early Jan in heated propogators. They are now mostly small seedling size - mainly 5 to 10cm in height. Some are a little leggy due to being started when there wasn't a great deal of sunlight, but they look healthy enough.

My question is really what to do with them once I go away. My intention originally was to start the plants very early in the hope they would be big and strong enough to put out into a large container trough on the patio before I go away at the end of March. I thought if I could get them big enough they may be able to withstand the cold and any potential frosts that happen in April.

They'll need to go outside as they obviously need water and there is no way to keep them watered indoors over such a long period of time. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that the weather is kind to them - providing enough rain and sun over April and hopefully not too much cold. I could possibly cover them with individual cloches and put a fleece around the troughs and containers to try and mitigate any cold snaps.

If anybody has any ideas though i'd be very grateful to hear them. I realise I probably should've posted this story back in December when first planning my trip, but hopefully its not too late to do something about it.

Thanks everyone,

Tom

 

Do you have a friend or relative who could visit a couple of times a week to keep an eye on things? Or how about a neighbour?

Steve...

 

Thanks Steve,

I do have a friend who lives in Bristol but it would be a bit of a trek for them so they could probably only come over once a week. I guess that would help in generally keeping an eye on things, maybe watering if things look a bit dried out.

What i'm looking for (I think) are suggestions on any kinds of 'systems' I could set up to try and keep the plants alive. I'm worried that they just wont be strong enough to go outside mid-March and they'll die unless they're taken extreme care of. Maybe i'm worrying a bit too much.

I built a big trough out of decking about 2.5 meters long and 50cm wide (so it should fit quite a few plants in). Its full of compost and soil and ready for the plants to go into. I'm thinking I could put individual cloches over each plant so that they are kept warm, but they'll still get water because a lot of the compost in the trough will still be exposed to the elements. I could even wrap the trough in a blanket or large fleece to keep the cold out? What do you think.. is that a silly idea? Should I just put them out into pots and not worry about them?

 

Tom

If you're back in this country by the first week in May, you've still got time to start plants from seed and have a really good growing season. In fact, I used to find that veggies which I planted later in spring usually caught up with stuff that I'd sweated blood to get started really early! And although I used cloches, I found them tedious to remove for watering which had to be done regularly. I can't see plants surviving under cloches without water for six weeks.

Soooooo, if I were you, I would abandon the early stuff and just go off and have a really good holiday. You don't want to be fretting about your garden when you should be enjoying a very expensive investment like a six week holiday. You can start anew when you get back.

 

i found that my plants under a plastic cloche (a cheap one) didnt need so much water or weeding as, i think, the water evaporated and then some fell back down onto the soil- if your friend could then water well when they visit this might help

or what about trying to rig a solar watering panel?

just a thought

loopy

 

Thanks for the advice guys - very much appreciated.

Flinty - would it be ok to start those plants that I mentioned in May? I was under the impression that things like aubergines, peppers, hot chilli plants, corgettes, etc really need to be started by March/April time as they require loads of sun so you need to get them ready by Spring? But I am very new to this so I could well have got completely the wrong end of the stick...!

 

Hi Rocket, if I were you I would take Flinty's advice. There are times when you can't have everything and I think this is one of them. Seedlings put outside in March and left for 6 weeks are pretty well doomed. Starting in May might not be the ideal world but you will have a better chance of success. I would start in May and hope for a good autumn to get your crops ripened.
Enjoy your holiday.

 

Hi Tom

Yes, plants like aubergines, peppers and chillies which benefit from ripening would normally be started early. But as Alice says, I suspect this is one of those times when you can't have everything.

However, courgettes are a different story. Whenever I've started them early, they've keeled over with dreadful mildew before midsummer. So a later planting may be beneficial, particularly if we have a lovely long autumn like we did last year.

I guess what I'm saying is that since this year is an exception for you, you may have to choose your varieties on the basis of what will grow from a later planting.

 

If you REALLY want to get them started and have plants to come home to rather than sowing seeds, is there a school close by to you that have a green team? For a small donation, or maybe for a donation of some of the plants....(sow extra seeds?) they may be willing to care for your plants at the school? Just a thought......our local grammar school has a green team with a greenhouse and a small vege garden in the quad. Another local comprehensive has an allotment and they do all their own plants from seed at the school greenhouse. I know I'd have no hesitation in asking my son's school....but I do know them very well (and we've cared for their chickens over summer hols too......)but just a thought you might want to investigate.