WHATEVER your preferred garden type, from organised ornamental to messy natural, wildlife or fruit and veggie patch, January really is a time for planning.
On those occasional crisp sunny days, you can get out to the garden and finish any small leftover tidying up jobs and whilst most things are dormant you can dream again of what your garden or containers will look like in full growth in summer.
Now of course it doesn’t always work out the way we hope but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep dreaming! Every January I have grand ideas and every year I celebrate a few extra small successes along my horticultural journey.
I browse for seeds and place an order if I need any new seeds for the year ahead. If truth be told I don’t need any more seeds, but will I buy some? Yes, most likely! I like to try new varieties especially of salad leaves as there are so many to try.
I like ‘Tamar Organics’ and ‘Green Vegetable Seeds’ for veggies and they both deliver to Northern Ireland.
What to sow in January
You can sow sweet peas seeds in January, and we do this in some peat free compost in toilet roll tubes.
Sweet peas like to grow in something a little longer in length than a normal modular tray or small pot. You can buy special ones called ‘root trainers’ in garden centres or you can recycle toilet roll tubes, fill them with compost, plant one or two seeds per tube about 5cm deep in the compost.
I use an empty orange punnet or mushroom box to prop the tubes up in together and keep them on a sunny windowsill until they germinate which could take a couple of weeks. Water them gently and don’t completely soak them. It’s best to wait until April to plant them out into large pots or into the garden but it’s lovely to have something starting its new life on your windowsills in winter.
It gives us hope as we await Spring.
