Spring to life
AFTER A LONG, DARK WINTER, THE NEW SEASON IS JUST WEEKS AWAY, SO NOW IS THE TIME TO PRUNE, PLAN AND PREPARE YOUR SOIL
THERE’S something about the end of January. Mentally, at least, it says goodbye to the darkest time of the year.
Oh, I know, the worst of the weather is probably yet to come, but at least the days are getting longer and spring is, technically, only weeks away.
It’s a comforting thought anyway.
There’s something satisfying (and tiring if you don’t take it steady) about preparing soil for things to be planted and sown over the months ahead. But there’s not much point in putting fertiliser on yet. Wa i t another month or chances are the fertiliser will simply be washed away by winter rain before it is really needed. Planning is what you are supposed to do before you plant, but I have never yet made a planting plan and stuck to it.
I make lists of the sort of plants I want to see in my borders and those that I find go in as t hey arrive, juggled around so they look good with their neighbours.
You can continue to prune roses up to the beginning of
March and overgrown wisteria can be tackled now too.
Cut back those long wisteria growths to finger length, unless you want to extend the plant’s coverage, in which case tie them to the support framework.
Outdoor peaches and nectarines on sunny west or south-facing walls come into flower ridiculously early and their blossom can be nipped by frost, which means losing the crop. Guard against this by draping the plants with old net curtains or fleece on nights that are forecast to be cold.
You can eat rhubarb sooner if you force it by covering a clump with a pot or bucket and straw, picking stems as soon as they are large enough.
Once you’ve dug over parts of the vegetable patch, cover them with polythene tunnels if you want to make an early start in four weeks’ time.
This protection will prevent the bed from being saturated by cold rains to come and enable earlier showings to be made than on open ground.