A January Spring

As I look out over my bare soil the opportunity to create anew brings great excitement.

Spring begins in my mind on a sunny day in January when I start to imagine the crops I can sow this year and the fruit and vegetables I can pick. I see all that empty earth stretching out before me and have great visions of the potential.

It’s time to get out those seed catalogues and plant brochures and start to plan and dream. There are pictures to salivate over, to inspire, to indulge the senses.

My husband calls it my ‘plant porn’ but the less said about that the better!

There’s room for shallots, broccoli, broad beans and sweet peas as well as many varieties of outdoor tomatoes. I’m going to attempt to grow outdoor cucumbers this year as I keep hearing reports of people having success with them. One crop I won’t bother with is chillies. I spent months last year nursing them from February seedlings right through to a successful crop, but the insects they attracted were more than I could tolerate. In terms of man hours spent removing bugs, it was far too high a price to pay!

Happy dreaming and remember, if you have any gardening queries, send them to me through this website and I’ll answer them in our next Garden Clinic slot.

Sue

The Kitchen Garden

Daylight hours are at their minimum now, a mere 8 hours a day, so even if the temperature is warm, there is too little sun to help with the growth of many plants. It’s time to harvest now and enjoy the crops you’ve sown, so get those leeks, root vegetables and winter cabbages dug up and eaten.

There has been plenty of coverage in the press this week about the poor season this year for forced rhubarb. It needs a sustained period of cold to become dormant before it throws up its ruby sticks and so far, the cold’s been lacking this winter. I think it’s one the best sharp-tasting crops available, and will be adding some to my patch. Rhubarb crowns can be planted at any time during the winter, spaced 30 – 36in apart, and after a couple of years should reward you with a low stress, high produce crop annually.

If you’ve dug over any empty vegetable beds in preparation for the year to come, then one job that you can begin in January is to build a traditional runner bean trench. My elderly neighbour Ron, who grew runner beans successfully every year until his death at 91 last year, used to be out in the cold digging a trench each January. He’d make it about 8-12 inches deep and wide and line it with newspaper to act as a sponge for any rain. On top of that he’d pile kitchen peelings and old vegetables into the trench in layers until it was nearly full. The point of this is to provide the beans with plenty of moisture in the soil, particularly while flowering and setting pods. Although it doesn’t look pretty at first, once it rots down you’ll not notice it, but it will give your beans a major boost.

Into the Border

I’ve learnt a lot this autumn and winter by observing my garden as it’s died down and the major gaps that are left. There are plants that give colour and shape to a garden in winter and it’s time to consider adding some so that the view from my window doesn’t look so bare next year. I can see now that my garden has been too dominated by spring and autumn plants. Summer takes care of itself but winter has left it looking quite empty in places.

As well as considering the obvious candidates such as Mahonia, winter jasmine, the witch hazels andVibunum tinus, think about adding trees that have a strong conical or twisted shape to add interest and structure in the border. If you plan your late summer/autumn flowering plants well then you will be rewarded with winter interest.

Perovskia

The airy lilac blue flowers of Perovskia, along with the mopheads of hydrangea and grasses all linger into winter whether through seed heads or adding a ghostly texture with their  magical stems.

We look at our gardens in all seasons throughout the year, and winter is the time when we most need a few plants to uplift the senses. Rather than have a garden with interest for eight months of a year, why not have plants to enjoy all year round? That’s my new year resolution.

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About Sue
Sue Thomas is an all round garden obsessive. Having taken a year out of her life to train as a garden designer, she is now busy building back up her PR business, 'Mellow Media' and looking to take on design projects. Based in Bristol, she is the mother of three children. Every other week Sue plans to run a web-based 'Garden Clinic'. If you have a plant that just won't respond or want recommendations on the best place to site your plant in your soil, then contact her through the 'Birds' site.
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