I started my gardening this year on the 7th Jan. Apparently January and February is the time most people are depressed, but for the gardener it’s a time of excitement and anticipation! I am really excited about the garden this year.

First Job was to plant my garlic in pots in the conservatory. – Garlic was by far my best crop last year and I hope for another fantastic crop again this year. As usual, several different varieties planted this year (all supermarket bought). I am convinced they are exactly the same as the expensive seed versions form the garden centre! I have found the best method for me is to grow in trays of six or 12 indoors in January then put outside to get frosted and plant out after the last frost. If your late you can always stick them in the freezer overnight to cheat!

I am late with the giant onion attempt but it’s not going to stop me from trying. I will be planting seeds very soon. I am going natural this year with no artificial light or heat. – I was getting carried away!

The chickens are doing well and have survived the wet winter so far. We have a couple of new arrivals to add to the flock. I had the incubator out over Xmas and Two lovey big Black Orpingtons were the result. – 2/6 probably no too bad for January hatch rates. One is a cockerel so is being raised for the table! Not looking forward to the day…

I havent decided on what to grow this year yet but I usually just spend a few hours browsing seed catalogs and see what I end up with. I am keeping it simple this year and going for mostly trusted varieties with maybe one or two novelty varieties thrown in for good measure.

Would love to hear what you are growing and your plans for this year – Get in touch using the comments system below!

Happy Gardening,
Doug

What a wonderful weekend in the garden, just what we needed to recover from a slow start to spring. This weekend I got down to some serious sowing, Second round of Runners, Broad bean and Tomato were sown. Onions from seed were planted out. Potted garlic was finally planted in the Big bed.

The greenhouse although still not completely finished is coming into it’s own! – I love having a greenhouse!

I built myself a new container for the greenhouse. Its bigger than it looks at nearly 4ft long and should be a fantastic place to grow the peppers. This year i am growing “Big red” and “California wonder” I am wondering what else I should grow in there.. Any ideas?

Some of the late march sowing have started to come though this past week.  I am using last years peas and germination has been quite slow. Hopefully this hot weather will speed things along.

The greenhouse bench I made last weekend is nearly full! Time to put in some more shelves. All sorts of seedlings in progress. Squash and courgettes are looking good as are the chili peppers.

Hopefully the weather will continue though the week. There is always so much to do in the garden.

The chickens are enjoying their new run. They can now come outside even when we are not home.

Emse is the one with White plumage and Mertle has black plumage. They are both very tame and have no problem being picked up and they regularly come right into the house. They are brilliant pets and have very interesting personalities!

Chickens are an amazing addition to the garden, they not only provide great compost from their bedding but they are an invaluable tool when combating garden pests such as slugs and snails. This year I even used them to rotivate the plot by moving their run around the raised bed.

For those who are not up on your chicken breeds, these are Warrens. They are fantastic pet’s and great egg layers…