Motivation

Mark's February Allotment Update

At this time of year, I don’t know about you guys, but I sometimes need a little push to start off the gardening year. The weather this winter has done nothing but coax me to stay in the warm confines of my home and the memories of last summer seem eons away. I need to remind myself that spring is around the corner and there are jobs that need to be done.

One of my favourite late winter ‘jobs’ is looking through seed catalogues, trawling the internet and visiting garden centres to find new and interesting varieties (as well as the old trusted ones). I always grow several new types of flowers and veg each year to recapture my love and excitement for the growing process. It always works……… no matter how cold and gloomy it all is in January and February,as soon as I clear my plot and have the seeds to hand I cant wait for  the soil to warm up.

I have to admit that I have several days of hard work left before my allotment is ready for anything ! What with one thing and another it feels a little neglected and in need of some TLC. First job to tackle is to get rid of all the material that is too woody to compost. For some people this could mean hiring or buying a chipper/shredder, which would result in a heap of stuff to compost, or it could mean a bonfire or two.

 

I will go for the latter, as usual, but please remember to check the heap for wildlife before lighting and make sure that the wind is going in an optimum direction (I’m sure we have all encountered driving through  someone’s bonfire smoke on the road before).

Pruning my fruit bushes and weeding shall be next on the agenda. Thanks to my diligent weeding during the Autumn it shouldn’t take me long to get that ‘just dug over’ effect. That reminds me, as I have raised beds and my soil is light I have no digging to do. Result. All that is required is to add compost from my heap to a depth of a couple or so inches and then just lightly fork it over and add a few handfuls of a general fertilizer about 10 days before I sow.

The last big job to undertake is the tidying up of my herbaceous bed. I must say that this is one of my favourite late winter jobs. Just seeing those tiny shoots emerging through the soil is enough to prove to me that the warmth and joy of spring is just around the corner. Wow,writing this article sure has worked for me as I now want to get out into my garden and prune,weed,burn,fork-over,repair and makes plans for the coming seasons………let’s dream about summer barbeques . Roll on June.