January 2020 - Weeds, Weather, and Winter Crops

 It's the start of a new year and we are getting back to the plot after a couple of months where we were too busy to do anything with it. We still have winter veg to harvest, including spuds, kale, and turnips, but quite a few of our plants show signs of slug damage. Snails hibernate over the winter, but slugs keep munching all year round. We try to avoid using slug pellets because we want to encourage birds to our plot, so there is nothing for it but to pick them off by hand and squish them, gently rake and hoe the soil to expose them to birds, and to destroy any eggs we find.

Watch our January 2020 Allotment Video: https://youtu.be/VeTt9KysPyg

Winter Weeding

Winter is sometimes seen as the season of "nothing to do" in the garden, but for my part it is one of the busiest times of year. Thorough preparation in Winter helps to keep the weeds down throughout the rest of the year, and ensures that the soil is at its best to support healthy plants that need less attention during the growing season. Spring is busy with new planting, and in Summer I want to spend most of my time harvesting my delicious crops and planting new crops, so Winter is the time to set the stage.

November and December are my busiest months at work, so I get virtually no time at the Allotment, so by January the plot is always a bit overgrown. To get it ready for new crops, I work through the plot section by section, very thoroughly removing all weeds. This is more time consuming that simply digging them in, but by hand-weeding I am sure I have removed all the perennial weed roots, and I'm also removing any seeds that are still attached. My Mother used to tell me that "a stitch, in time, saves 9". I guess the gardening equivalent is "a weed pulled today saves dozens down the way".

Beds to be weeded

Asparagus roots are very shallow, so the bed needs to be carefully hand weeded before I apply organic pelleted chicken manure and a very thick mulch of well-rotten horse manure.

The mulch is my secret weapon, as it really helps to reduce weeds, and over time our thriving population of Allotment worms will pull all that lovely organic matter into the soil to continually nurture the roots of these long-lived plants. Worms also improve the soil by leaving tunnels through which water and nutrients can penetrate the soil more deeply.

Giant Earthworm at Ards Allotments

And finally I remove the old leaves from the Strawberry plants and destroy them to prevent fungus and viruses carrying over to the new season, and cut back herbs like mint and lavender to make room for new growth. Next the whole plot is going to get a dose of fertilizer appropriate for what is in or going to be put in the bed this year (lots of pelleted manure for hungry legumes, potato fertilizer for the potato bed, very low nitrogen fertilizer for carrots etc.), and all the perennial plants will get a thick layer of mulch to keep moisture in and weeds down.

It's going to take a few more weeks to get the whole plot ready for the new growing season, working in a few hours over the weekend in between rain showers, but it's time well spent. This little bit of preparation now is going to save me so much time later, it's an essential part of my gardening year.