Although I’ve been complaining about the rain recently, compared to the rest of the country we seem to have got off lightly. Even so we’ve had our issues: we have a leak in our kitchen due to heavy, continuous rain, penetrating the render above it. We have an intermittent, currently unresolved, leak tripping the power to our utility.
The access to my allotment plot is flooded, as is my allotment shed and the ground water level is only a few mm below my polytunnel floor. All of the under cover beds are saturated, so we have lots of losses. Finally slugs are loving the wet/mild weather! That - unfortunately - is nothing compared to some people, so I shouldn’t complain.
Instead of complaining, I’m watching my old tour videos, for late February and March, not very far away now. Old tours are so useful as a way to keep my spirits up, reminding me of what’s to come! I’m also enjoying the greenhouse, packed with plants that are just waiting for planting weather. I’m anticipating lush, healthy abundance and sunshine soon!
I’ve also ordered my slug nematodes! It’s too cold to use them now, but in March I will be ready for battle, after last year’s slug explosion and a mild winter, I think this year is going to be a challenge. It’s going to mean investing 2 weeks of harvest savings during spring, but it’s worth it. Just to show you that I mean what I say, here’s two of my weekly harvests from April last year:
I’m also eagerly scanning the long range weather forecast, which is looking remarkably spring like. So maybe next week, I will be back living in The Best of Times.
This is the nature of gardening over winter, the harvests are welcome now, but really it’s all about anticipating an incredibly productive and joyous spring, which for me usually starts in mid-February, but each year I try and improve!
Allotment safety
Every year we have an open day and I know that a hundred or so people are going to be walking around my plot, looking at fruit and veg and not paying much attention to their footfalls. As I prepare for this day I’m always struck by how unsafe my plot is, so many containers, bricks and stones, cold frame supports and other sundry hazards. As I clear up after myself, I try and remind myself that I need to keep the plot - at least - clear of trip hazards!
This week I was drilling into data on sarcopenia (muscle loss as we age) and it struck me that this muscle loss is not a smooth decline. Spend a week in bed ill and you loose 3% of muscle, work hard after and you might regain 2%. Sprain your ankle and you loose another 1%. Trip and break a bone, that might be another 2% gone. My mum just had an operation on her foot, laying her up for 6 weeks, maybe 3% lost. It adds up.
Preventing sarcopenia is one of the most important risks to enjoying a healthy old age and you can do a lot to prevent it with an active lifestyle and strength exercise. BUT you can more than undo this prevention if you get ill or injured, so perhaps, avoiding injury is THE most important exercise objective we can have.
Now that I’ve set the scene, I fell this week, I tripped over a wooden cold-frame support, it caught my toe and then jammed itself between the cold frame and a blueberry planter. I fell face forward, with quite a bit of momentum (I walk fast) and I hit my left shoulder on another big blueberry planter, my right hip slammed into the wooden edge of the cold frame, my shin hit a block of wood on the way down and my ankle was cut open on a bungee chord hook. The right side of my face hit a brick and somehow my upper lip was split open. It was hard to get up as I wriggled myself out from being jammed between the cold frame and blueberry planters. Talk about a bruised ego!
I walked away with no permanent damage, but a lot of nasty bruises and a lot of blood, but it could have been much worse. I could have easily been laid up for weeks, lost more muscle that I would never be able to recover at my age. Instead I’ve just suffered a few painful and restless nights sleep, because every sleeping position hurts.
Moral of this story: be vigilant about trip hazards anywhere in your life
Winter Planning Overview
My eldest daughter has subscribed to this newsletter because she wants to get back into gardening this year and encourage her one year old into the garden. My usual target audience is the year round, passionate grower, who’s - at least - day dreaming about self-sufficiency, not very useful for her.
So I’ve decided to write three overviews for the rest of winter, one for a small garden, one for a large garden and one for a gardener with a polytunnel/greenhouse.
I will update these for each season and add them to my ebook.
Small garden: veg growing in winter
I’m assuming the small garden is all open beds, no covers, except a little fleece and bird netting
Most small vegetable gardens will be fairly empty now, Brussels having been harvested for Christmas, leaving perhaps, the odd cabbage, a few leeks and root veggies. Parsnips are ok left in the ground, beetroot and carrots less so, but if we enjoy a mild winter they often pull through. Salad onions, garlic and kale are probably the only things that are going to be left in the ground by the time we get to spring.
More adventurous gardeners might have claytonia and lambs lettuce and I recommend them both, because they are planted in October, giving you plenty of time to finish harvesting your summer crops. They will both go to seed by spring though.
Most small vegetable gardens will probably be looking very empty now though and everyone will be itching to start sowing and planting, but my advice is to wait, there’s really nothing that you can sow in January, that won’t do better in February, unless you have grow lights. Similarly there’s very little that you can plant in February that won’t do better planted in spring, except maybe garlic in February, unless you plant under plastic/glass.
In February, things start to look better, but you will be more successful if you have a cool and bright spot for your seedlings, most ‘sunny window sills’ in a house are too warm.
If you have a small space you need to be choosy about what you grow and take care not to grow things that won’t thrive, or that don’t offer much value/taste advantage compared to the shops.
So what can you sow in mid February?
Salad/spring/bunching onions. These are at the top of my list, fairly easy to grow, very expensive in the shops and much better picked fresh and of course you get to eat the greens. Germinate at about 18c and then move somewhere cool and bright, but ideally frost free
Lettuce. Lettuce is a fantastic veg to start in mid February, provided you can cover it with fleece, when you plant it out in March and keep it protected from slugs!
Pea shoots. Again started in mid-February and planted out under fleece, these will help you make a delicious salad in spring, much earlier than peas too.
To add a bit of variety to your salads, you could try Asian greens, there are so many to choose from, but I like Komatsuma, This also needs to go under fleece, but slugs and snails love it and you might find that you have an issue with flea beetle, if so consider planting it in hanging baskets.
For an even better salad mix, sow spinach in mid-February and plant it out in March under fleece. Spinach is slightly less bothered by slugs. Pick the baby leaves for your salads and leave some to grow on for cooking
By late February you can sow radish, these grow faster than your other salad ingredients, so they will be ready to add to your salads, again sow these in modules and germinate in the house. You can eat the leaves too
In late February you can start beetroot, but avoid the golden varieties, they like it a bit warmer. Choose Pablo or Boltardy, as these are reliable for early harvests. Remember that you can pick a few beetroot leaves for your salads too, perhaps one per plant, every two weeks.
If you have a warm and sunny window sill with space for chilli’s then you can start some in early February, but if you plan to grow your sweet peppers/chilli’s outside then leave them until late February or early March.
If you forgot to plant garlic in autumn, you can plant it in February, for a later harvest and you can also plant it a bit closer together and harvest it green. If the ground is very wet and soggy, start it in modules and plant out in March, once it’s about 6” tall, with good roots
You might be tempted to sow leeks and bulbing onions, but in a small garden I’d sow my leeks later in spring, ready to plant after lettuce/spinach. I wouldn’t even bother with bulbing onions, they take up too much space, for too long and they are so cheap in the shops. Grow salad onions instead, early in the year choose varieties that bulb up and pick them young, so you can eat/freeze the greens! Don’t sow early chard either, it will probably go to seed on you, concentrate instead on faster growing spinach and eat those beetroot leaves!
Remember that houses are generally too warm for the low light levels in February and early spring, leading to lots of leggy growth. If you have a south facing unheated room, that would be your best best place inside and cover some cardboard with kitchen foil and place it behind your seedlings to reflect the light back at them. Alternatively get a grow light, but even then it might be too warm in a heated room.
The general rule in February is to only sow as much veg as you will eat in a few weeks, because March sown veg is generally much better and will soon catch up.
Big garden: veg growing in winter
Wait for next week
Under cover: veg growing in winter
Wait for next week
Greenhouse progress
I’m starting to empty my greenhouse now, getting my ‘hungry gap’ brassicas planted out, over the next month and making space for my alliums, which I grow a lot of and my follow on brassica successions and lettuce/spinach.
I will soon transition my greenhouse into dining room mode, without the crockery though
More exciting though is considering how I’m going to grow my early peppers and early tomatoes, when I move them into the greenhouse in April. I have four issues to consider:
Heat, I need to keep my greenhouse well above zero in April. Ideally I’d keep it above 11c, but it’s a big greenhouse and I don’t think that will be practical, even in April, so I will probably manage 6c. Although if it’s really cold outside maybe I will move them into the conservatory. It should be easier to keep them warm in May.
Light, I have the two old grow lights in the greenhouse and I won’t need these for brassicas, lettuce, alliums etc in April, but the tomatoes and peppers will still benefit from some increased light intensity, basically I’m trying to recreate June in April and July in May. I won’t be extending the day length though, because I don’t want to confuse my other crops. So my plan is to give them extra light from 7am to 9am and form 4pm to 7pm, these are the shady times, at this time of year.
Height, by April the plants will be too tall to stand on the trestle table and fit under the lights, so I’m going to push the table into it’s ‘dining room’ configuration and stand the peppers and tomatoes on one of the bench seats.
Space, space is going to be at a premium, but I’m planning to have small seedlings on my 14’ of high shelving. Beans and cucumbers in large containers in the two empty corners (apricots and peaches in the other corners). More mature plants, like the brassicas on the trestle table and early potatoes and early courgettes against the far wall. That leaves one 10’ bench on which I should be able to fit all of my early peppers and tomatoes. This should still leave us with a place to sit out in spring and space for strawberries in hanging baskets.
Sowings for January
Sowings for the week
Given the rainy weather I decided to sow more seeds than I’d planned, so as to not be stuck inside when the sun’s - hopefully - shining next week.
Not surprisingly none of the seeds I sowed have germinated yet.
Germinated this week
Nothing
Pricked out
Nothing this week, although my December sown peppers are ready to be pricked out.
Potted on this week
Nothing this week
Planted this week
Nothing this week, although I have beds ready and waiting for a sunny day. I avoid planting on sunny days as a rule, but not in winter!
I’ve got everything that I’m planning to plant in the greenhouse or the polytunnel, with the doors open, so they are hardened off and ready to go under cold frames and low tunnels. Even so if frost threatens I might add an extra layer of fleece over small lettuce and Asian greens for their first week.
Waiting to be planted out
I have a huge collection of plants, waiting impatiently to be planted out now. January and February should be fun, because I love planting! Here’s the full list although the peppers are a long way from being planted!
Sowing’s for next week
No sowings planned for next week, instead I will be planting, cycling, hiking and taking a few day’s holiday.
Growing guides for January
This link takes you to all of my monthly guides, where you can find a lot more than just my growing guides. I particularly like the list of videos produced in the relevant month in years gone by. Click here for January’s guides.
Get ready for February
I’m well rested now and February is such an exciting month for the year round gardener, the existing plantings start to come alive and I’ve so much to plant and even more to sow, here’s my preview.
Downloadable resources
Last year I experimented with providing downloadable versions of my database, I’ve updated these below with the latest information. Please feel free to give me feedback on these.
For even more details and a more up to date list (I’m always tweaking things) check out my live data for January and February
Bulk harvests
Bulk harvests are over now!
Weekly Harvest
It’s great to be back to abundant harvests and it only gets better from here!
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I like the new extra focus on some hints for the small, possibly more fair weather gardener, thank you. I have dreams of self sufficiency, but a normal sized back garden and poor stamina. There are still parsnips left in the ground ( well in a raised bed ) and a single red cabbage which will be harvested in the next week or two. I am always thrilled to watch the veg grow and arrive on the plate so I hope your grandchild enjoys getting muddy growing things this year. Sorry about your face plant into the planters - ouch!
I like the new extra focus on some hints for the small, possibly more fair weather gardener, thank you. I have dreams of self sufficiency, but a normal sized back garden and poor stamina. There are still parsnips left in the ground ( well in a raised bed ) and a single red cabbage which will be harvested in the next week or two. I am always thrilled to watch the veg grow and arrive on the plate so I hope your grandchild enjoys getting muddy growing things this year. Sorry about your face plant into the planters - ouch!