Winter Pain For Summer Gain.
Febuary can be a month of dead lines, the main one being is make sure one is fully prepared for the spring season, it can mean lots to do but this work now will save time later and mean that nothing is missed out.
The first task is have I ordered all the seeds that I need for the coming season?
It’s not always easy because it’s not just a case of making sure ive gathered all the seeds for spring sowing but enough for the succesional sowing through out the summer and Autumn.
So planning is the crucial thing. I tend to use a seed-sowing calendar, this I have pieced together over the years to include all of the staple vegetables, leeks, onions, lettuce etc but also to include new varietys new types as well as new vegetables. The calendar or planner is rewritten each year with hopefully enough room for any slight alterations. These more often enough are frequent, as it’s all too easy to be tempted by another new packet of seeds that I have happened upon in some seed merchant or garden centre.
Most of the planning for seed sowing has taken place through the dark winter nights. Surrounded by seed catalogues, but more often now with the laptop.
Oh, the gardens and vegetables that could be grown in acres of garden in the imagination, where time and energies are limitless.
Any gardening is all about timing, not just sowing the right seed at the right time in the perfect conditions but the right job or task carried out under the correct weather conditions.
Febuary can be a dry month if the wind turns to the East so finish off any digging should the weather permit. If the weather is reasonably dry and frosty, leave heavy soils exposed - the frosts will kill pests and improve soil structure by the continual freezing and thawing of soil water. Improve drainage of heavy soils by working in lots of organic matter.
If on the other hand if the weather fronts roll in from the south west bringing rain, it is well worth spending time checking tools and other garden sundries are prepared for the coming season.
Spades and hoes should be sharpened with a file or grinder, this might sound strange but a sharpened clean well oiled spade cuts through the soil better than a blunt rust one. The hoe is fundamentally a cutting tool, so the sharper the better. When gardening on wet soils work from a plank of wood, rather than treading on the bed, to avoid compacting the soil.
So to reap the rewards next summer it is a case of winter pain for summers gain.
Last year I had some success in growing hardy annuals amongst the vegetables, cornflowers with the onions and pot marigolds with the carrots to help fend off carrot root fly, so this year I am dedicating a large part of the plot to the growing of cut flowers.
Some allotment purists would discount the idea, as they believe that
“If you can’t eat it it’s a waist of time and space growing it”
I feel that being able to take a bunch of flowers cut fresh from the plot home or as a present when visiting friends just cannot be beaten.
