Sunday 3 January 2010

Gardening 2010

At the beginning of a new year, thoughts inevitably turn to the garden in 2010. Not so much the making of new year resolutions as the drawing up of new schemes and plans.

There are fundamental decisions to take, such as where to place a new compost heap and polytunnel, how best to source a steady, and hopefully free, supply of manure, and what is the best approach to see off the rabbit plague.

I have been making lists - what vegetables to grow in 2010 and when to sow them, new additions to the flower garden, big jobs to do etc.


Of course, such plans don't come cheap. Already I have bought an 'allotment vegetables collection' (onions, shallots, garlic), as well as horse radish, jerusalem artichokes, beetroot (bolthardy and a cylindrical variety), and broccoli calabrese. Still to come are seed potatoes and a few exotic seeds such as cobaea scandens alba.

The temptation with vegetables, as always, is to start plants early. I have put in a few peas and broad beans in pots in the greenhouse, in an attempt to get early crops.

Sweet peas are similarly in the mind, although we seem a long way from the fragrance and bright colours of summer. I did manage to start some ‘White Ensign’ in late October and have a number of healthy plants. I also have grown seedlings of two perennial sweet peas (lathyrus latifolius) from seed I collected in late autumn – pink and white. The dilemma will be what to do with so many seedlings.

Today, I started off a number of other varieties of sweet pea, including 'Mrs R Bolton', 'Beaujolais', 'Noel Sutton' and a mix called 'Elegant Ladies'. I germinate them indoors on blotting paper in various containers and contraptions, then transfer the germinated seed into tall juice/milk containers full of good compost. The tall containers allow the roots to go deep.

I am not one for new year resolutions, disliking the artifice of making them and perhaps lacking the will-power to see them through successfully. However, if I were to make a new year resolution, it would be to buy less at B&Q in 2010... It may be relatively cheap and nearby, but the quality of plants can leave something to be desired. I made the mistake of buying garlic there just after Christmas, and yesterday stumbled upon far bigger and better cloves and more interesting varieties at the Mid Ulster Garden Centre.

Like the sweet pea, garlic should really be planted in late autumn, to make sure they get a month of temperatures below 10 degrees centigrade, which they need to form cloves. I will play catch up by starting them off in pots in the greenhouse, then transplant. I have three varieties - a big supermarket garlic (Sainsbury’s), garlic Casablanca (small cloves) and garlic Thermidrome (big cloves). Which grows and tastes best will only be decided at the end of the year.

Outdoors, the cold snap continues and the garden remains icy and snow bound. But the first (tiny) snowdrop has still managed to poke its head out.

David Lewis