Gardening Month by Month - January

JANUARY GARDENING

So you expected January to be quiet did you?
It's certainly the month where there's less to do in the garden, but there are lots of different jobs to do in preparation for the coming seasons, certainly enough to keep you active – after the New Years Hangover has gone, of course!

The main tasks and priorities this month are:

If the ground isn't soaking with water or frozen, January is a good time to turn the soil. This will help break up the earth for planting later on and also, exposing insect eggs will help reduce the number of pests in the garden in the warmer months.

Gardening and gardens aren't just about the plants either, feeding the birds at this time of the year will help them survive through the cold winter months and also makes gives you something interesting to look at and watch when the ground is covered in snow or the garden is fairly dormant.

If you haven't done it already, get pruning those shrubs and bushes to keep them in good trim, neat and tidy.

Indoor Hyacinths and Amaryllis should be in full bloom now adding a touch or much needed colour to windowsills or heated greenhouses. Other house plants will appreciate a feed with a good quality liquid plant food.

What I like best about January when gardening is that it's the month where I sit and plan out the garden and greenhouse plants that I'm going to focus on for the coming year. Planning out new areas of the garden can be done now when the nights are dark and it really kicks in the gardening buzz when I think about what I want to achieve.

Dig out those seed catalogues for inspiration if choosing your plants is a problem.

When planning out the garden, I like to use a small notebook to make rough sketches of borders and areas of the garden with quick notes about what I'm going to plant and when I'm going to start taking on the required seeds and seedlings to populate the garden.

And you thought January was going to be easy!