Winter armchair gardening
Late Winter is a quiet time in the garden. With so many plants asleep below the ground, it’s not a time of year when there is as much hands-on work needed.
But it is the perfect time of year for some armchair gardening… Planning changes for the year ahead, flicking through seed catalogues and deciding what to plant this year, and just generally daydreaming about the warmer months that are coming and the abundance of growth that is going to start in just a few weeks.
It’s also a great time to plan out any major changes that might be needed to the structure or design of a garden. During the Winter, when many of the plants are dormant and lots of trees and shrubs have lost their leaves, it is easier to see the “bones” of a garden – the way large plants and landscaping all knit together. Any major changes can be easier to plan out – could a tree be added for extra height in an empty corner? Has anything outgrown its space? Is new hard landscaping needed? This is a great time to take stock and plan ahead!
Our new land
We don’t have any big changes on the cards in our garden this year, apart from adding a few more plants, especially to our bulb lawn. But we’re really excited to be thinking about our new land: the 13 acres that we bought last year to give us more space for growing. We’re plotting out exactly how we will use it over the coming months. We’ve got so many plans that we’re so excited to get stuck into, it feels hard to choose which ones to start with first!
The main thing is going to be trying to reign in my enthusiasm with the seed catalogue. It’s so exciting to have so much space to play with, that the temptation to buy more seeds than I could possibly have time to plant is extra high this year.
But the extra space is a great chance to try out some plants that I have always wanted to grow but never had room for.
Top of the list is sweetcorn. The plants grow very high and need a decent amount of space, so we’ve never grown it before. I can’t wait to see how it does.
We’ve got plans for lots of potatoes in growing bags. This is a really easy way to get plenty of spuds for eating without needing any digging or taking up much soil space.
We started planting on our plot last year and I’m excited for much more in 2023…
Old favourites
We’ll definitely be making space for all of our usual favourites: climbing French beans, courgettes, runner beans, as well as kid friendly veg like carrots. Our little one loves to help sow seeds and pick vegetables and fruits, so plants that are easy for small hands to pull up are great.
We used one area of the land last year for our pumpkin experiment, and we’re definitely going to continue this in 2023, making a few changes and adaptations from everything we learnt last time, and adding in some new varieties of pumpkins too. We’re most excited about adding some white pumpkins and some climbing pumpkins. For white squash, we’ve been looking at varieties like ‘Custard White’ and ‘Butterbush’ as well as the intriguing-sounding ‘Mashed Potatoes’ squash – so named because when baked and mashed it looks just mashed potato! ‘Jill be Little’ is a great climbing pumpkin that we’ve used before in a small space, and we’ll try a few other varieties alongside it…
The polytunnel
We’re planning to get a polytunnel in by Spring, which will be the perfect spot for more tender plants.
Tomatoes, peppers and aubergines will be our starting point.
I loved walking round the polytunnel we designed at the RHS garden in Blaeneavon and I’m really looking forward to having something just as inspiring on our own land.
The poly tunnel at Blaenaevon
Don’t forget the flowers
Alongside all the veg, I’m planning on growing plenty of flowers too, and just may have got quite sucked in to the dahlia section of the catalogues…
I’ve ordered tubers for lots of varieties, some old favourites and some new ones to try out, so I am really looking forward to the abundance of jewelled colours we’ll get in the late Summer.
I’m also planning huge swathes of sunflowers. Both because they look utterly glorious planted en masse, all turning their heads towards the sun every day, and also so we can harvest plenty of seed. We’re planning on adding chickens to the space soon, so the seed can help to feed the chooks. And we’ll be saving some for ourselves too, to roast and eat.
2023 for us looks like the year we’ll really have the space to experiment and go mad! Finding a spot for all of the plants that I’ve always wanted to grow. We’ll let you know how it’s going throughout the year, and share all of our successes (as well as some inevitable failures!)
Here’s to an excellent year ahead in the garden. Hope you have great plans for yours too. Now, time for a cuppa, an armchair, and a browse through one of the many seed catalogues!
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