January in the Garden
The Christmas festivities are over and the New Year has been welcomed in. The weather is still somewhat uninviting, but the days in early January are already beginning to stretch out a little. This is a time for planning and preparation as Mother Nature slowly begins her awakening.
The Kitchen Garden
Veg
- Consider early digging of your vegetable plot if the weather is dry. A simple turning over of the soil in large clumps will allow the soil to dry out and make it easier to prepare seedbeds later on. Cover the bed with clear plastic, allowing the soil to warm up and deflect any heavy rain.
- Prepare a bed specifically for perennial vegetables like rhubarb, artichokes and asparagus and order some tubers and crowns for early planting.
- Plan your vegetable plot for the coming year allowing for rotation of crops, thus preventing a build-up of diseases and pests.
- Plant out garlic in a dry sheltered corner. Garlic bulbs benefit from a period of cold weather, prompting them into early growth.
In the greenhouse
- Wash down polytunnels, greenhouses and cold frames to increase light levels.
- Check your winter onions, water sparingly and hoe occasionally to keep weed-free.
- Carry out winter digging and incorporate well-rotted organic matter into the soil for a bumper crop.
- Start sprouting(chitting) your early potatoes. Varieties such as Charlotte, Sharpe’s Express and Homeguard are proven ‘earlies’. These chitted potatoes can be planted towards the end of the month in the prepared ground or in special potato grow bags. Have some horticultural fleece available to cover emerging shoots on frosty nights.
- Sow early carrots and radishes towards the end of January if the weather is not too cold.
- Plant strawberry runners in your tunnel or greenhouse for early cropping. Remember to pot up runners each year during the summer and leave outside until January.
- Continue successional sowings of winter salads.
Harvesting
- Enjoy your parsnip crop
- Harvest leeks, scallions, small sweet peppers, and carrots from your tunnel.
- Savour your cut-and-come again herbs for warming winter stews and casseroles.
- Any swedes may be left in the ground until they are needed. A little straw or fleece will protect them from the frost.
Fruit
- If you would like to grow your own fruit, order fruit trees now for early spring planting.
- Prune autumn-fruiting raspberry canes to ground level.
- Take sturdy cuttings of fruit bushes, gooseberries,black,red and whitecurrants.Trim the bottom of the cutting horizontally below a bud and trim diagonally above a bud at the top, this will make it easier to remember the correct positioning for planting the cutting. Press the 10-12inch cuttings into the soil to about half their length.
- Dig up old rhubarb crowns and split them with a sharp spade. Don’t replant them immediately, leave them for a few weeks, some cold weather will benefit them and prompt them into early growth. Try forcing existing rhubarb crowns by placing a bucket or other container over the crown and securing same with a weight, this will ensure beautiful tender stalks in a few months.
Other jobs
- Keep your bird feeders topped up and provide some water during snow and frost.
- Continue to collect any leaves from driveways, paths and lawns. Make a simple cage by wrapping some net wire around four posts driven into the ground. Leave it for 12 months and you will have excellent leaf mould to act as a mulch for your garden, suppressing weeds and adding organic matter to the soil.
- Check any stored crops, onions, potatoes, apples for any sign of rot or disease.
- Start a garden diary, noting the dates and varieties planted, what successes you had and what might be improved. This will be an invaluable tool as you look back on your notes.
- Check supplies of seeds from previous years, arranging them in a proper seed box and discarding old seeds. Check your diary for special notes/seed varieties before ordering your new seeds.
- Consider purchasing raised vegetable beds. They make vegetable growing so easy. They are easy to cultivate and maintain. Because they are raised over ground level, they don’t become waterlogged and the soil heats up quicker. They have an aesthetic feel and look fantastic when full of delicious vegetables.
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