1 - 12 January
There hasn’t been much gardening activity so far this month, the conditions are too cold and the soil is too soggy so instead time was spent assessing lasy year’s performances and choosing this year’s seeds.

If you follow my blog, I am posting about how the various types of crop have fared and how this has informed this year’s decisions about what to grow.

We are trying to avoid staying indoors throughout winter and have spent time at a couple of RSPB reserves nearby and also visited the RHS Harlow Carr Garden. Unfortunately out visit was cut short by a downpour but not before we spotted red kites wheeling around above the trees. We will be back on a more pleasant day. We managed a look around the alpine house and a quick look at the vegetable garden. Unlike our brassicas which are netted against pigeon damage, the ones at Harlow Carr were uncovered, This made us wonder whether the kites provided a natural deterrent.

We are managing to harvest a steady crop of fresh vegetables  - sprouts, carrots, beetroot, parsnips and leeks. Details of our harvest for this month are here.

Martyn has also started to spray our fruit trees with a winter wash which will hopefully cut down on next year’s pest problem.

In the garden there are the first signs of the new season being on the way. The hellebores are producing flower buds and bulbs are pushing through. At the moment though the ferns which by now have usually been turned brown by frost are still green and healthy.

January Our Plot at GLA blog posts

January Gardener’s Weather Diary posts

Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below

19 January
Gardening activities are restricted by the weather at the moment. We are still managing a harvest of fresh vegetables - carrots, parsnips, sprouts, cabbages, leeks and beetroot.

We also managed an afternoon on the plot. Another bed was covered with weed control fabric. This made keeping the plot tidier with less effort on our part least year and I also think the plants benefited. Not only did they have less competition from weeds for light, space and moisture but I think they also appreciated not having roots disturbed as they inevitably do when weeds growing amongst them are pulled out.

I also managed to prune the tayberry which isn’t a task I relish. More about that on my blog post here.

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