Speeding up or slowing down?

[Primrose]

I'm having this debate with myself. Do I move all my veggie seedlings from window sills out to a sunny patio on warm days to give them more light and more favourable growing conditions for a few hours, or leave them where they are?
.
It seems that more sun & warmth make them grow more quickly, only to get to the point where they've outgrown themselves before it's really warm enough to plant them outside.

What do those of you do who don't have greenhouses? I have planted out slightly leggy tomatoes in early May before now and covered them with individual large plastic water bottle cloches but often feel this has stalled their growth. Similarly climbing beans also sulk in the cold. I just find it so difficult to adapt sowing times to match the weather because it's so unpredictable these days.

[Beryl]

I think we all make the same mistake of perhaps sowing too early Primrose. If tomatoes are getting leggy I would pot them on to larger pots planting as deep as you can. Beans grow quickly when sown later, I see no advantage sowing too early even in my cold greenhouse. Much better to wait till the light levels are right to.

Beryl.

[Bal]

Beryl
I have the same dilemma as primrose.
When do you start sowing in your cold greenhouse. What do you normally sow in your cold green house and roughly when.
Bal

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've a similar problem, an unexpected holiday in the middle of what is usually my main potting up and planting out time. A nice surprise, but it will be too early to put anything tender out before I go and things will probably have outgrown their pots or the beans have tied themselves in knots by the time I get back. Plus hoping my greenhouse/hen minders remember to open the greenhouse and water everything. So I might have to start all over again.

[Primrose]

Know the problem! We're going away for the bank holiday weekend and as it looks like sunny weather, at least in part, I'm having to empty my plastic greenhouse & bring all the stuff indoors where the temperature will be more moderate in case everything dries out and bakes to death.
It's a real pain and quite time consuming. I need a Gardening Au Pair Have come to the conclusion that Gardening and Holidays are incompatible !

[vegpatchmum]

It's a real pain and quite time consuming. I need a Gardening Au Pair Have come to the conclusion that Gardening and Holidays are incompatible !

Lol, I know what you mean. It's finding someone you trust with your plants. I hear horror stories about people coming back to find that their plants have either been water too much or not enough, or that the plant sitters have very helpfully 'weeded' your beds for you

VPM
x

[Beryl]

Bal, I never start seed sowing anything in the greenhouse before the beginning of March. Depending on how cold it is I may get the tomatoes off to a start indoors on top of my combi-boiler but as soon as they have germinated they go out in the greenhouse with a plastic lid on them. I do find sowing a bit later and everything catches up. Even then I always keep the fleece handy to cover up at night. Too early and seeds rot and also the light levels are not good enough and I end up with leggy seedlings. Difficult when you are eager to get started but it does pay off to wait a bit.

Beryl.