What to do in December!

 

I do like December for gardening, which is a bit strange considering there's not a much you can do outdoors in the short days.  December is the month for reflecting on what went on last year and what  you think is to come, preferably indoors and warm by a fire.  I do find that gardening brings me closer to the seasons, the rhythms of the year. Although this is the darkest month with the shortest day of the winter solstice and the cold winter months of January and February are still to come, it's very much the time of renewal and starting rather than ending. After the shortest-day solstice on the 21st the days will be getting lighter again, which means spring isn't that far away. After two years of pandemic,  you would of thought 2022 was going to be a much better year. However it didn’t  turn out that way, Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine to expand his empire and the economic disruption that’s caused has made it a tough year for most of us. It is thought that the average family could save over £1,000 a year from a full allotment or a large garden. Even a small plot can make a significant contribution to the budget.  If you add hens, you would get a few eggs as well, which are not easy to come by because of Bird Flu

My best Crop every time.

 My best Crop every time.

Without fail, my best crop is Blackberries ........by that I mean: easy to grow/.big harvest /no pest/eat every day of the year.

In the winter I prune them and feed them with a bit of farm yard manure

In the spring I mulch them with a few wheel-borrows of wood chips

In the summer I feed them with chicken pellets and start to harvest

I freeze them and when I have no space left,I bottle them

I have enough to eat every morning with my smoothy.

I never water them.

A real dream crop.

Farm Yard Manure

 Farm Yard Manure

I buy a farm trailer of Farm Yard Manure ( FYM ) and store it in a compost bin for and year, before I dig it into my beds.

The way that I dig the FYM into my soil is to dig a trench and fill that up with the FYM and then cover it with the soil of the next trench.

This ensures that the FYM is where it is suppose to be, under the ground. If you just put the manure on the surface, in the summer it will dry out and in the winter, it will have all the goodness washed out of it.

Another tip: never put FYM where you are going to grow your next crop of cabbage. If you do this there is a danger of Club Root 

Home made rat bait

 I have a rat problem and I would think that most people who garden have the same problem.

I set traps, but most of the rats are too wise to touch them.

Poisons can become far too costly and so I make my own.

I use Plaster of Paris mixed with  bird seed, the rats do take it however I find that they take more of it if I add sugar.

The best way to get rid of rats is to, keep at them with various methods.

Lack of Worms:

 If you are a bit concerned about the lack of worms when you dig in your soil . This does suggest a lack of organic matter in the soil which is quite easy to sort out: just add manure or compost to your beds.

It is being put about that suggest that our soil is so deleted so much that it only has 100 years of growing left....to my mind this is rubbish and just to scare!

Into Winter

 You should be able to start harvesting your leeks now. There’s no rush as they’ll stand right through to March.  Love them because there are so many ways to enjoy leeks, one of my main stays on the plot.

As we go into Winter, my plot has got Leeks, Kale, Red Cabbage and Beet root. It is just a question of keeping the pigeons and rats away. 

Check your stored veg.

 

Check Your Stores 

It's worth checking any vegetables you have in store and removing anything that has started to rot before it spreads. 

Last year, I lost all my apples to mice. This year, I have set traps and have caught eight mice this week and going through my apples, found that I only needed to throw out three due to rot.

Potatoes especially need to be checked and watch out for slugs that have emerged from one potato to go and damage another one