Month by month – gardening in February

I always remember back to a job I had years ago when I used to drive up the motorway home every night. I benchmarked February 10^th as being light when I hit the slip road. It doesn’t always happen on that date though but in February I basically live in hope of the light! At the end of this month I’ve usually managed to get up to my allotment after work and I start airing and cleaning the BBQ ready for March, when cooking and eating my evening meal up there becomes normal. This month could bring more snow and bad weather though, so we’re not out of the woods yet…

1. Buy your seed potatoes and start ‘chitting‘ them by standing them up in trays (egg boxes are perfect) on your windowsill or anywhere light so they start sprouting.
2. Start warming up the ground where you’ll be planting this year. Cover in polythene, mini poly tunnels or net boxes.
3. Keep protecting pots of bulbs that haven’t come up yet from squirrels and water-logging. Keep them in your greenhouse, cold frame or a sheltered spot.
4. Divide up any big clumps of bulbs after they have passed their best – snowdrops are the ideal candidates followed by clumps of grape hyacinths and daffodils next month.
5. Start sowing chilies, peppers and early tomato varieties indoors or in a greenhouse that you can heat if temperatures plummet.
6. Once they’ve finished flowering, prune winter flowering shrubs.
7. Carefully prune fruit trees and certain types of clematis – don’t hard prune anything that flowers in spring.
8. If your ground isn’t frozen or waterlogged you can plant garlic.
9. As above, sow broad beans and/or plant out any well-established young broad bean plants that you’ve previously sown under cover.
10. Go shopping for onion and shallot sets ready for next month, if your ground looks good though you could plant shallots in February. I tend to wait. You can also start sowing onion seeds now, although I prefer planting sets.

If it snows, clear it off tree branches and shrubs (Adam finds this hilarious but just shake the shrubs and use a brush if need be to clear it from tree branches) and if all else fails stay inside and do some sowing! My seed sowing list this month is:

• Chilies – Anaheim, Jalapeno, Cayenne and ‘Hot Thai Culinary’ from World Kitchen
• Peppers – Californian Wonder and Ingrid sweet pepper varieties
• Lobelia – String of Pearls
• Tomato – Black Russian from Seed Parade
• Cucumber – Beth Alpha
• Broad beans – I’ll be sowing straight into the ground outside and planting out the ones I started off in December

The important thing to remember about planting out is that the ground must not be frozen or waterlogged. Don’t do any pruning or planting out just before a period of very cold weather – check the weather forecast for the week ahead first.

The most comprehensive guide I’ve seen this month is on Woolly Green. There’s a video on pruning wisteria if you’ve not done that already and some advice about lawns. I know that some bloggers pruned their wisteria before Christmas. Not Just Green Fingers also has a great guide for the kitchen gardener.

Talking of bloggers, Sue from Green Lane Allotments has listed what she’s sown so far and also done a great post about her new seed delivery. Jo from the Good Life has sown her pepper seeds and onion seeds. My complete seed list for the year is here. 

Please feel free to add your own February tips and advice. What will you be doing this month?

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Ideas and inspiration from garden visits

When I renewed my RHS membership last year I made a vow to visit Harlow Carr at least once a month. This isn’t just so I can have a nice wander and a treat from Betty’s but it means that I can pay far more attention to what they’re doing each month and come away with some good ideas.

I find Harlow Carr really inspirational and contrary to popular belief I do feel you can get ideas to take back to your own gardens and veggie patches. For example, their alpine greenhouse has always inspired me to keep my own little alpine area and get more involved with alpine plants. I also joined the Alpine Garden Society last year as a result of a growing interest that stemmed from Harlow Carr.

The neatness of their veg planting is something I also aspire to achieving and with my new row markers that I got for Christmas I have no excuse!

During my visit last weekend I saw them creating new pathways. Marking them out with sticks and laying black anti weed membrane down first. Another really neat job but definitely something anyone could do. They’ll no doubt weave willow between the sticks to create nice borders.

It also gives me yet another opportunity to plug the wonder plant Kale, still looking pristine even though 2 days earlier we had the biggest snow dump of the month. Their planters of pak choi, which I first saw in November, have lasted perfectly. I’d have never thought about growing pak choi if I hadn’t seen theirs.

I was delighted to see their pots of garlic in cold frames. Last year I struggled to get my garlic planted due to water-logging so to solve the problem I planted some in pots as a bit of an experiment, but I see they’ve done the exact same thing!

It’s great seeing how they work and I think visiting gardens, big or small, professional or amateur is a must for any keen or budding gardener. If they can do it, so can you!

Ok, so I don’t know how they have a strawberry in January?

Have you ever tried doing new things as a result of a garden visit? Have you got any good tips that you picked up from a garden visit?

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Gardening in January – what’s growing on?

This month I’ll mostly be…

Did you ever see the Fast Show? If not, the line above will mean nothing but if you did then you might have visions of a funny old man emerging from his shed saying, “this week I’ave mostly been…” This month that’s me, except I’m a short ‘youngish’ girl and at some point this year I will have a new shed!

So, this month I’ll be sorting through all the seeds I’ve collected and been given and I’ll be compiling a list for 2013, which I will post in due course.

I’ve also already got some seedlings on the go in various places around the house. I’ve got broad beans germinating on the top windowsill (Karmazyn and Aquadulce Claudia). I’ve sown them in modules this year. You can start sowing these from November onwards although it’s usual to take a break after November and start again in February but this is only really if you’re sowing directly into the ground. If you have space to sow them indoors you can do this anytime.

I’ve covered mine with polythene bags to get them going. These are the ideal candidates for sowing in the cardboard tubes you find in the middle of toilet rolls or homemade newspaper pots and planting directly out in those at a later date. Once these get too big for my windowsill I’ll transfer them to my cold frame and assess the weather situation then. If it remains mild into February I might plant them out and cover in fleece if we get some cold snaps.

As planned for January 1st I’ve also sown my giant leeks! I’ve used a blanch variety called Mammoth from Seed Parade. I’ve put these in my heated propagator to give them the best possible start. I’m growing them for a competition so I’ll post updates as I go along. I’ve never grown leeks like this before and really I’ve got no idea what I’m doing to be honest! I’m also going away on holiday next week and I’ll have to turn the propagator off then so they could be a bit of a flop. Watch this space!

I’ve also got some sweet peas germinating. Four different varieties, again from Seed Parade, there is a theory that getting them going earlier can lead to better plants so as 2013 is my year for experimentation I’m going to try this and sow some in spring too so I can compare.

I continuously sow salads and have a new experimental batch growing. Four varieties again from Seed Parade, Mixed Baby Leaf, Organic Lettuce Bowl, Arctic king and All Year Around. Even though I grow a lot of salads I am unsure what will happen with these. I sow all year round but have never done a fresh start like this before in December. They are looking a bit leggy and would benefit from having the top windowsill spot really but that’s been claimed.

Other than that I think I’ll save sowing anything else until February, or at least until after I get back from my holiday. I did a bit of pottering at the allotment on New Year’s Day, just tidying things up and making the place look at bit more presentable. While I was there I had a bit of a snoop and spotted a giant cabbage on one of the plots! I don’t think my photo really highlights just how big it is, quite beastly.

What have you got growing on?

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Fancy a Pot of Spring Bulbs?

I was over the moon when I started my new gardening blog because Spalding Plant & Bulb Co. accepted me into their bloggers club.

As a welcome gift Spalding sent me 100 spring bulbs. They recently arrived and strangely enough I’m feeling rather guilty at accepting them? It seems I much prefer to share the love and give things away in the hope that budding gardeners or keen readers will benefit, after all gardening is my passion and I just love it when others find enjoyment in it too. Anyway, it got me thinking about what to do. Should I just give these bulbs away? But I’m already giving away some seeds. Then a flash of inspiration from Pinterest and suddenly I’m thinking about teapots and Christmas presents! Yes, there’s the answer. A teapot or other unusual vessels and nice pots will be given to family and friends as Christmas presents pre-planted with Spalding spring bulbs! After a shopping therapy trip to Leeds I returned with a selection of interesting items including a classic Wedgwood milk jug. All guilty feelings have now gone.

Then a few days ago I received another email from Spalding asking me to take part in their challenge to pick 5 of their bulbs that I think would make a lovely Spring patio tub display. On further inspection of the fabulous bulbs they sent me, they seem like the perfect bulbs already.

My 100 bulbs consist of:
Mixed Iris, Mixed Darwin Hybrid Tulips, Grape Hyacinths – my absolute favourite bulbs of all time and one of the first I ever grew in my little garden 10 years ago, Tete-a-Tete Daffodils (which must have sold out on Spalding but they have a wide selection of very interesting Daffodil varieties left), Mixed Anemones and Mixed Alliums – again, these must have gone but check this out for an unusual Allium!

So this is how I’ve planted them up – the little Wedgwood jug and the Greek teapot simply contain the Anemones and the terracotta teapot is planted up with the Tete-a-Tete and the Mixed Iris.

Thinking specifically about the patio tub, I have omitted the Anemone’s and used the remaining 5 varieties from my 100 spring bulbs pack. Now this is somewhat of a challenge because these bulbs won’t all come up and flower at the same time. Either a problem, or an opportunity. I see this as the latter, a way to keep a container of bulbs in bloom for longer. So I planted two large terracotta containers with Grape Hyacinth round the edges interspersed with Tete-a-Tete but with those flowing in towards the middle and the Iris, which will throw up greenery but flower later, then the Alliums and Tulips as the primadonna flowers in the middle. Now I predict that the Tete-a-Tete will come up first with a flash of greenery, if I look after them and keep them partly shaded then before they fade the Grape Hyacinth should follow suit along with the Tulips. If I’d planted the Grape Hyacinths earlier though these would be up now because they’re already confused and coming up in my garden. The Iris and Alliums will be the last to flower. I think the combination of colours will look great and I think my pots will last me right up until the end of July. What do you guys think?

I really enjoy planting bulbs as you will know if you read my recent night planting post. So, thank you Spalding for the lovely gift. All the bulbs are absolute beauties and I can’t wait to see them flower. I just need some ribbons now and to choose who I will give them to….although now I’ve planted them I’ve got rather fond of the pots and think they would look great in my garden. Hmm? Can I keep them? ;)

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It’s Blooming Marvelous in Amsterdam

I’ve had a quiet week on the blog front because I’ve been enjoying a short break in Amsterdam with Adam and some friends. I must say, there’s a lot more to the city than just ‘lads on stag weekends’ and the red light district. There’s also plenty of greenery and some delightful parks and gardens too!

Initially we tried booking an apartment but when it was unavailable we jumped at the chance to rent a houseboat on one of Amsterdam’s many canals. Having our own little garden was a big draw for me and I was intrigued to see what would be in flower. Seeing ducks float past the kitchen window on my first morning was pure joy!

As well as eating pancakes we visited two markets in the lovely Jordaan area where there was an amazing abundance of Squash and Pumpkin. My homegrown attempts didn’t work out for me this year, yet it seems that everywhere I go I see the most incredible and weirdest varieties imaginable.

 

We also took a walk to the iconic Vondelpark where the colours of the trees were stunning.

Our trip wouldn’t have been complete without visiting the city’s botanical gardens. It’s not exactly the best time of year though so the outside area was a little disappointing but inside the greenhouses proved interesting. From the little butterfly house to the canopy walks through the big tropical house. We made packed lunches every day and enjoyed eating them on a bench inside.

I was really impressed with Amsterdam. I loved the fact that people were successfully growing plants in the smallest of places. It has given me some great ideas for my small garden at home and some ideas for vertical planting at my allotment.

Okay, so it’s not a real garden, but it is cool!

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