🎊 Starting a New Year 🎊
It sounds good doesn’t it? Putting the horrors of 2020 behind us, closing that door and forgetting all about it. Well when you are a gardener, at this time of year you’ll be planning out this years garden and that will involve reviewing the previous year.
I like to start with things that went well
What grew in abundance or what packed a huge flavour punch that I am itching to have again.
As usual our sweetcorn was just amazing, we grew twice as much and it still wasn’t enough! I decided that this year I am going to try a different variety so that I can save the seed myself to keep up with the demand!
I was also totally blown away by the Atena Polka courgette, I have never had such an amazing flavour from a courgette before. I intend to grow this again, I would prefer if it was something I could save the seeds from though.
Things that didn’t go so well
Once again my berries were a flop, I am hopeful for this year as I was able to pot everyone up and I have three times as many bushes now!
I also mistimed my winter greens, I left the sowing a little late and then when I did sow the mice got to the seeds leaving me Chardless. Though this did make me really appreciate all the fresh greens I would usually have.
Then comes everything in between
This was my first year growing leeks, I am still a little on the fence about it but have actually replanted the root section from each leek that I harvested so I guess I am growing leeks again!
I am not too sure about habanero peppers, they seemed to really attract a lot of pests which I haven’t had an issue with before and I really disliked the smell! But they were really prolific and the heat was good, I haven’t germinated any so far.
The jury is still out on a few things that are still growing and haven’t had a harvest yet, such as the purple sprouting broccoli. So far I am not keen to grow it this year because it needs so much time and space but maybe the harvest will knock my socks off and change my mind. I am also leaning towards not growing any tomatoes this year, I don’t actually eat them (I do cook with them) and I spent so much time last year pruning and staking that it left little time or energy to do anymore gardening!
What to do with all of this information?
All of this will be used to tweak the growing plan, maybe you’ll want to ditch that variety of lettuce because it doesn’t work well for you or maybe it needs moving to a different bed or grown at a different time in the season.
Because there are so many factors to take in to consideration, this time of year is kind of perfect for planning the garden. You can curl up with a big mug of tea and some seed catalogues, reminiscing about the barbeques that you had with fresh grown vegetables from your own garden and how your hard work paid off. Because my memory is terrible I also look back through pictures from the previous year, to help give me an idea of dates and harvests, this is also really nice because you’ll see lots of smiling faces and silly memories (and chicken and cat pictures if you’re anything like me).
When it comes to planning out the coming year, I’m quite partial to a spreadsheet, other people might like a calendar. I would encourage people to go with what feels right for them.
What can I get on with now?
Once you have an idea of what you want to plant you should also have an idea of when things need to get started, you can usually find the dates on the seed packets but if you can’t then you can look them up online from the retailer or the RHS website.
In January I like to start my peppers, aubergines and this year I am trying out Cape Gooseberries AKA Ground Cherries. All of these have a very long growing season and I start them off on paper towels, once the seeds germinate then I move them in to some compost under a grow light with a heat mat. They will stay indoors until the weather is significantly warmer when they will move in to the polytunnel, though all can be grown outside they do well with the shelter that the polytunnel provides.
January is also a great time to tidy up the garden, it might be looking a little sad or overgrown and in need of some attention. Apple and Pear trees can have a pruning at this time of year to keep them in shape but stone fruits shouldn’t be pruned yet as it can encourage certain diseases.
