January: the gardening year reborn

So the new year is upon us, and we can start planning for the next harvest. I see some resolve in the tail of the December thread - what new plans do you have ?

One job for me is tearing up the front garden for a new soak away. I need to find a way of incorporating water storage that will pass the aesthetic requirements of Mrs C-H. It is so dry, the plan is to go for Mediterranean planting - herbs, I fancy a lot of rosemary. Maybe an Olive ?

Decided yesterday that the smaller raised bed will this year have dedicated chicken-greens. No other plans yet.

I suspect that 'so dry' isn't going to be a phrase I use very often now!

I'm hoping that this year I will be able to grow a few basic veg - I have one veg plot cooking nicely under composted manure and cardboard, and just little space in the greenhouse for a few tomatoes and perhaps a cucumber. If I am lucky, I will have a little soft fruit from the bushes I worked so hard to get in before winter.

Apart from that, I need to carry on creating the infrastructure that will support the rest of my fruit and veg growing ambitions.

This weekend's job of course is packing away Christmas. This means I can have the tree for shredding for the compost heap With any luck, I'll be able to collect some others to join it. Lots of kitchen waste form Christmas too, and of course corrugated cardboard. And I picked up two big bags of coffee grounds from a Starbucks on the way back home from visiting the Aged Ps, which can also add to the mix.

I do wish composting was an enthusiasm more widely shared !

I've spent the last 3 afternoons, with a hand trowel and loppers, excavating round the stump of my 21 year old blackcurrant bush. It finally came free yesterday. I've only got one smaller blackcurrant to get out then I should be nearly ready to erect the fruit cage. I've got to remove a fence first but as most of the posts and stakes are rotten that shouldn't be too difficult.
The polytunnel is all cleared except for the carrots and chard I'm still harvesting. I should have put in broad beans before the winter but didn't do I'll get some in now together with a new lot of carrots.

Hooray - the wretched hydrangea is dug up at last, and the two sacks and one gorilla tub* of roots and runners have gone to the tip to be shredded and composted. The cleared ground looks like a mud bath, so I'm leaving it until spring.
*Those big plastic tubs with handles. We've always called them gorilla tubs, but when I went to buy a new one the lady in Homebase didn't know what a gorilla tub was, and told me they were called 'garden trugs'. A trug to me is a wooden basket!!

Well done Ploshkin and Dandelion. It takes a lot of perseverance and grim determination to tackle really overgrown stuff. Reckon I've earned my stripes since we moved here.

Mr P does everything with a machine. Normally it would have been a case of attach a chain to the stump and rip it out with the telehandler. Unfortunately, there are 2 sheds in the way so I am having to do this plot manually. It's pretty claggy here too Dandelion.

Ploshkin wrote:Mr P does everything with a machine.  Normally it would have been a case of attach a chain to the stump and rip it out with the telehandler.  Unfortunately, there are 2 sheds in the way so I am having to do this plot manually.  It's pretty claggy here too Dandelion.

Ha! Welcome to my world.

As I am still recovering from orthopaedic problems I am relying on my eldest son to help me on the allotment. We are making good progress in preparing for the coming year, tidying and clearing beds.

Hope you make a good recovery. Useful to have some help on hand though - I don't think my son would be all that useful at the allotment !

What do you usually grow, will this limit your ambition this year, or will you muddle through ? I remember planting new potatoes into holes dug left handed with the trowel, no compost or anything added, when I broke my right wrist. They did just fine !

I grow staples: potatoes, onions, peas, cabbages, leeks, fruit, rhubarb, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, marrows and pumpkins.

To adjust to my medical condition I have converted the plot to mainly containers and raised beds.

I don't know where you are Frank, but I live in quite a dry part of the country (Well, usually ! not ATM), and I struggle to keep containers watered. I'm not very diligent, I guess. And I go walkabout too often.

I may pop to the allotment this weekend. I'm hoping to find time for cooking something with game, red cabbage (if the deer haven't found it), parsnip chips and leeks. That will be just about all that's left at the lotty !

Sounds good. I am in Stretford, Greater Manchester. We don't suffer much with dry conditions in what is known to be a rainy city.

Hello - quiet in here at the moment.

Just a reminder, in case anyone pops in, it's the Big Garden Birdwatch this coming weekend (26th/27th). Looking forward to doing it for the first time in our new home.

Yes, hopefully you'll see some interesting specimens!

I've enjoyed a morning out in the murk (some sun would be lovely!!) cutting back a pear tree and removing part of a large rosemary bush, both of which were stopping me using one of the paths between the raised beds. It's now fully passable for the first time in three years (there is so much which needs doing now that I am fully mobile for the first time in ten years, and it's lovely being able to do it!) I also planted out broad bean plants which I had raised in pots and over-wintered - it will probably all go horribly wrong, and we'll have snow, ice and gales with some nice big hailstones to top it all off, but hopefully I will get some beans in the spring. Some are in a cold frame, and the other planted around the cold frame with netting over to deter the pigeons, but I can throw a couple of sheets of fleece over the top of all of it if we get some nasty weather, so I'm hoping I've done enough. My book says not to mollycoddle autumn sown broadies, and that they need to toughen up to withstand the rest of the winter, but I'm just planning ahead in case we have another visit from the Beast from the East this year!

And the other thing I've done today to hasten the time until I can really start gardening is to move an old plastic dustbin into the greenhouse (OK, if I'm being accurate I asked Mr D nicely and he moved it...) so I can grow a few early potatoes. The dustbin is already drilled to help drainage, and I've used it outside for quite a few years, but I suddenly realised that I could have some even earlier potatoes if I grew them under cover. The seed potatoes are bought and chitting.

Ooh Dandelion, sounds like there'll be no stopping you this year - and retirement on the horizon.....