Gardening in February

I don't profess to be an expert gardener, but I do enjoy getting my fingers in the soil and the sense of achievement when you have planted a seed and tended a plant for it to fruit some delicious treat to eat is second to none.   February has a buzz of excitement as a new year means preparing for new growth. 

One of the things I enjoy is going through and editing my seeds checking I have enough from harvesting the year before or buying more, I do get my seeds from all sorts of places Wilkos is good and cheap, Wyevale has a good variety but I find them a little pricey, I do like Marshalls seeds which I buy through their catalogue they always have some interesting variety's which make the bog standard staple more interesting to grow.  This year I'm growing carnival peppers you get the usual red yellow and green but you also get a purple too, I am also growing a cucumber which I grew last year called a Fatum a well deserved name, forget your usual long thin type this bad boy is short and fat and when I say fat we have had slices as wide as a large orange, they are like mini marrows but with a super crisp bite with little of the watery seedy jelly inside, always a pleaser in a salad.

So working out what staple foods you are going to eat through the year and planning your plots making sure you have crop rotation and something growing at different times during the year is for me a pleasure, I am the kind of gal that likes to organise and plan, I even draw little plans of our garden and write in where plants should be and when they grow and are harvested.  This also helps me communicate with my hubby as most women know men don’t really listen, but if you draw a little plan and pin it somewhere, (mine was next to the kettle as this is where he stands in the morning waiting for a brew) it gets your point across and there’s no surprises when you need your other half to pop his guns and get busy doing muscle work in the garden.   

Other jobs we get on with               

• Pot making see my post on thrifty pot making from old news papers  
• Weeding the beds while the soil is still moist from the winter and the weeds still tender and not deep rooted from the new year
• Cleaning out the green house and washing it down
• Planting loads of spring flower bulbs i think i did about 500 this year so I'm hoping the garden will be a riot of colour 
• I also planted Dahlia bulbs as i think these are big, bold, beautiful flowers where you have a large garden 
• Checking tools making sure they are clean no rust and able to do the grunt work for the next year, here’s my trowel I bought last year they don’t make tools like they used to, the metal has ripped and I was only digging up a bulb, so I have now gone for a more sturdy trowel I am hoping this one will last a lot longer than 1 year

Finally when all the jobs are done I can get on with the exciting part of potting seeds.  This year Sophie is of an age where she can be included and I think it is important that she is involved in the process of knowing where her food comes from even at such an early age of 18 months, plus her little fingers are kept busy and her mind occupied helping to fill the pots with potting compost and poking the seeds into the soil, I rather think she did a great job for her first go at potting.