For our kitchen garden, March is a key month for sowing seeds. This month we’ll be sowing sweet and chilli peppers and tomatoes (at the end of the month) in heated propagators, brassicas, beetroot and peas in an unheated greenhouse and possibly carrots and parsnips in open ground. We sow peas in root trainers and the young plants will be planted out directly from the trainers.

Peas ready for planting out

For almost everything else we will sow in seed trays and prick out the seedlings and grow them on in cells or small pots before planting out, this is to help make sure that when the plants go into open ground they have really strong root systems and can get going quickly. We use a teaspoon to help with pricking out to avoid root disturbance and damage.

Aubergine seedlings

Chilli Peppers

Sowing carrots and parsnips is weather dependant for us. There needs to be some warmth in the soil to get good germination, but there also needs to be moisture, so our sowing tends to be driven by the weather as much as the time of year. A warmish forecast with rain in late March/Early April means that we’ll be sowing these root crops. If you have limited space, carrots will do well in a container. A deep pot (the sort that roses come in is ideal) filled with sieved compost will work perfectly. With no stones the roots should be long and straight all you need to do is keep the compost watered regularly.  The picture below shows one of the re-cycling boxes that was replaced by a wheelie bin that we planted up with carrots.

Re-using a re-cycling tub for carrots

We will also be planting our seed potatoes during March. Both the early and main crop tubers are currently chitting and will be planted out in mid-and late-March respectively. We will also have planted some seed potatoes in pots in a greenhouse by the end of February for an early crop.

Potatoes chitting

We’ll also be doing a little bit of harvesting this month. Most of the over-wintering crops have finished by now, but purple sprouting broccoli is coming to its best now and the first crop of the new season is likely to be rhubarb.  We force a little bit of rhubarb using an old composting bin that has been replaced by much larger pallet-based compost heaps on the allotment, but most is grown openly to give a staggered harvesting season.  Later in the year we’ll write about planting new rhubarb patch.

A belated Happy New Year everyone. For this year’s monthly tips we’re going to go back to our first gardening love – growing edibles. We’re planning to cover all sorts of growing from windowsills, through pots and containers to larger gardens and allotments, so hopefully there’ll be something for everyone.

With the new year having been both wet and cold so far, there has not been much venturing outside. However, there are things that can be done indoors at this time of year to get ready for the growing season ahead. We start sowing some seeds in the winter. These are the plants that will need a long growing season such as chilli and sweet peppers, aubergines, leeks and onions and it is not too late to get these underway in early February. It is also not too late to get seed orders in with the mail order companies, or to head to a garden centre to see what takes your fancy.

Leeks Feb 2024

Chilli seedlings Feb 2024

You can also sow now for a quick indoor crop by growing either sprouts or microgreens. Beansprouts (usually mung beans) are well known from oriental cooking. They can be bought from seed suppliers and sown on a tray where the bottom is covered with a layer of well-dampened material (e.g. a tea towel) or cotton wool. Wash the beans and soak them overnight in cold water. Wash again in cold water before spreading evenly on the damp substrate. Cover with polythene or clingfilm to keep humidity high and then with brown paper or newspaper to eliminate light. The sprouts should be ready to eat after about a week when just over 2cm tall. Remove the sprouts from the beans, rinse thoroughly and cook for a couple of minutes.

There is no doubt that most gardens don’t look their best in December and January, but “not at their best” doesn’t mean that gardens can’t still look good through the winter. Vibrantly coloured stems, evergreen trees and shrubs, statuesque silhouettes, frost-rimed seed heads and winter blossom can all contribute to a winter aesthetic that offers drama and interest.  We can’t all have a statuesque tree like the one in the photo below, but there are lots of practical options for small gardens.

A classic silhouette

In our very small front garden a heavily pruned crab apple forms a centrepiece that will give a lovely silhouette later in the year, but right now is covered in berries.

Crab Apple

Also full of berries, but also evergreen is this Cotoneaster.

Cotoneaster

For any readers who are looking out of their windows at a largely brown garden and wondering how to start introducing some winter interest our initial advice is to plan some trips and go and have a look at other gardens. Any garden that is open to visitors over the winter will have areas that are specifically designed for this time of year, so there will be plenty of ideas to inspire you. Take photos, record plant names and make notes (especially about plant sizes) and then have a look at your own plot to see what plants might work best in your space. A bit of further research will soon show you what plants look like in the rest of the year, so that you can be sure that any new additions will work in other seasons as well.

Leaving seed heads can have an unexpected bonus of colour, like the goldfinches feeding on this verbena.

Goldfinches on Verbena

The amount of planting in larger gardens can be intimidating for those of us with smaller spaces, but lots of ideas are scalable. For example, although Wisley may have a whole border planted for winter stem colour, a couple of specimen plants can brighten up a much smaller space in the winter, while retreating into the background over the summer.

November tends to be a bit of a tidying up month, although we try to avoid the phrase “putting the garden to bed”. That suggests that gardening is done and dusted, but through the winter there will still be lovely days when a bit of time spent in the garden will do you and the garden good.

If you’re lucky enough to have trees near you, then this month you’ll be seeing the fallen leaves from deciduous varieties. If you have the space; collect and store the leaves in leaf mould bins and in a couple of years, you’ll have a really good soil conditioner. If you don’t have the space, it is still a good idea to clear leaves from paths (to keep them safe) and lawns (to maximise the light that reaches the grass over the winter) but leave them on borders as a natural mulch.

Last month we suggested investing in next spring by planting bulbs and you can still do this now and November is the perfect time for planting tulips. A pot of spring bulbs by the front door is an inexpensive way of adding cheer to the late winter and early spring and heralding the arrival of longer days.

Tulips in April

You can also get planting in the kitchen garden. November is an ideal time to plant onion sets, garlic, over-wintering broad beans, rhubarb crowns and fruit trees or bushes.

Emerging Garlic in November

We’ll finish on tidying up again, if you have a pond, then try to clear fallen leaves and dead vegetation from the water. Always leave material by the pond for a day or so to make sure that any wildlife can make its way back into the water.

The beginning of October often feels like summer hasn’t quite departed as the weather can still be quite warm even though the amount of daylight is now reducing pretty rapidly. Whether or not there is still warmth in the air, there certainly will be in the soil. In fact, soil temperatures will be considerably higher now than in the early spring, making autumn the perfect time for planting trees and shrubs. The roots of newly planted trees and shrubs should establish quickly in the warmer soil and the likelihood of autumnal and winter rains should help this establishment.

Planting holes should be ideally about three times wider than the existing pot or the root run for bareroot plants, but not too deep. Try to plant to the same depth as in the pot or in the case of bareroot plants you ought to be able to see the previous planting depth on the stem. Mycorrhizal fungi applied to the roots will also help establishment, but don’t improve the soil that you backfill with too much. You don’t want to create a small cosseted area, but rather encourage roots to reach out searching for nutrition. The better the root growth the better the feeding capacity once growth starts and the greater the stability of the plant.

There is a great article about planting trees on the RHS website, which illustrates how simple the process can be.

The other great planting opportunity in October is spring bulbs. If you’re one of those people whose mood dips when the clocks go back, getting spring bulbs into the ground is an investment in optimism and cheery signs that spring has arrived next year.

Harbingers of Spring

By the end of the month the days will be markedly shorter and we may be facing our first frosts so get ready to start protecting more tender plants.

This piece was written a couple of weeks before the village’s annual celebration of all things grown. This year the village show is scheduled for Saturday 16th of September and there are cooking, handicraft classes and a special children’s section as well as the traditional fruit, vegetable and flower classes. The more entries there are, the better the display in the hall.

2022 Show

As usual, we growers have complained that it has been too hot, too cold, too dry and too wet at various times of the year. However, the general rule is that every year some things will thrive while others won’t. Right now, we don’t know whether it will be flowers, fruit, roots, brassicas, squashes or the greenhouse crops that will do best, but something will be OK.

The show only makes a spectacle in the village hall if there are plenty of entries, so have a go and support the fantastic band of volunteers who make it happen. You never know you might just end up with a prize winner’s certificate or two. Don’t forget that if you’ve struggled with a particular crop this year then it is very likely that so has everyone else – you’ve got to be in it to win it and your disappointing harvest might just be the best. There is always the oddest shaped vegetable class for the things that went really wrong.

Prize Presentation

Entry Forms are in the Cookham Dean Fete programme or available from the organiser Helen Philip (07549 519246 helenphilip@hotmail.co.uk). Entry forms need to be with Helen by 6pm Thursday 14th September at 50, Whyteladyes Lane Cookham Berkshire SL6 9LP with entry fees (50p per class).