Gardening Calendar

Barton Fields Allotments
	Gardening Calendar*
January	February	March
Plan for the year ahead Clear new ground Finish digging in manure in areas where brassicas, onions and potatoes are to be planted. Prepare your new seed-bed(s).	Cover ground for early sowings of carrots (this helps warm the earth and seeds germinate more quickly). Start chitting your seed potatoes (sit them in old egg boxes and let them sprout). Plant some seed varieties under cloches or indoors (including tomatoes).	Many seeds need to have their first sowings made this month – carrots, early radishes, peas, early lettuces, etc. Onion sets should also go in the ground. Some weeds might be coming through - hoeing will get rid of seedling weeds and stop them competing with your plants for nutrients.
April	May	June
Chitted seed potatoes need to be planted, and gradually earthed up as their leaves show through. Keep sowing seeds. Make successional sowings of seeds already sown. Keep weeding.	Begin to harvest your early broad beans. Some lettuces might be ready to pick. Keep weeding, and make more succesional sowings of carrots, lettuces, radishes, etc. Does anything need watering yet? Sow swede seeds.	About now you need to transplant seedlings from your seed beds (or pots) to their final planting positions (leeks, Brussel sprouts, etc.) Are your early potatoes ready for harvest? Store herbs by drying, freezing or making flavoured oils and vinegars.
July	August	September
Feed your tomatoes once the first truss begins to form. Keep an eye out for blight. French beans should be ready to harvest. Garlic should be ready to lift.	Keep harvesting and watering. Onions should be ready to lift and store. Let them dry out in the sun before packing them away. Use those with wide necks first (they won't keep as well).	More harvesting. Lift root crops that you plan to store. Squashes and pumpkins are in season now. Start clearing plants that are finished fruiting.
October	November	December
This is the housekeeping month. Tidy your plot up, and begin to prepare for next year. Start digging areas over with manure, or sowing green manure. Prepare a bean trench for next month.	Plant a hardy variety of broad beans for harvest in early spring (cover them with some fleece). Leeks and parsnips should be ready for lifting (parsnips really do taste sweeter after the first frost).	Order your seeds for the coming year! Plant over-wintering onions and garlic. Enjoy fresh leeks, swedes and Brussel sprouts, as well as carrots, onions, squashes and potaoes from the store cupboard.

*Of course, weather conditions can put this calendar either forward or back, and everyone who grows vegetables will have their own preferred time and way of doing things – suggestions given above are a rough guide only!


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Back to home page		Last updated 12 March 2007.