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I know we are now busy watering, feeding and harvesting our summer vegetables, but we also need to be thinking winter. As soon as you have dug potatoes, used broccoli or beans have finished, pull them out, fertilize, add a bag of compost and then think winter. You can plant leek plants, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage plants and sow seed of parsnip, carrots, turnips, swedes.

You will need to protect the brassicas from white butterfly caterpillars, either by dusting regularly with Derris Dust or completely covering your crop with Microclima. A natural protection is to add Neem tree granules into the hole at planting.

Prune summer stone fruits when their crop is finished. Summer pruning is encouraged to stop spores of the debilitating silver leaf disease germinating in pruning wounds and infecting tree. Pip fruits can be left and prune in winter.

Spruce up patio planters with fresh potted colour now, it will last you well through to when it’s time to plant winter and spring flowering options, such as Viola, pansy and primula.
Now is the time to transplant spring flowering bulbs e.g. daffodils.
Watch your onions. When leaves start to dry and turn brown, it’s time to pull them up and lay them out in the sun to dry, then store in netting bags.

Pick your herbs now for drying and freezing .Regular picking encourages new growth form below. Pinch out basil flowers as they start to die off as they set seed.

Dead head agapanthus now to prevent them from spreading.

Gardening Jobs for January

Beans will be very plentiful from now on. Keep them well watered and continue picking every couple of days, as this will keep them flowering and cropping. If you have space sow some more seed. Climbing beans up a ring of bamboo stakes is a good idea. Vertical cropping!
Time to plant leeks and Brussels sprouts for the winter and sow carrot and parsnip seed. Dibble holes for your leeks. Drop a seedling in each hole, and cover only the roots with soil, by gently running the hose in each hole.