Clear and tidy

Our plan for the first part of this month is to just clear and tidy the plot so we can start planting as soon as the weather warms up enough. 

Clear out old veggies or flowers and dig over the ground or if you are following a no dig method, you can top your beds with compost.

Edge borders and redefine paths, lay cardboard on your paths and cover with bark chip or matting or if you are sticking to grass paths just keep them short and well edged to stop grass and weeds creeping into your beds. 

This year we have cleared the entire back section of our plot at West End Allotments and divided it up into 10 manageable beds. You can grow along with us (warning we have been doing this for 17 years and we still wing it!) 

Chit your potatoes

You can buy your potatoes now and leave them out to chit ideally in egg boxes, ready for planting in late March, early April for ‘first earlies’. A good rule of thumb is to leave your potatoes to chit for approximately 6 weeks.

Seeds

Dust off your seed packets and organise them into the months they need to be sown.  If you don’t have any seeds yet, write a list of what you would like to grow and pop down to Squires or Garsons or online at Thompson & Morgan or Suttons to order a fresh batch of seeds for the year. 

Things to sow in February

If you look online a lot of people recommend you hold on until mid Feb before sowing to give everything time to warm up a bit more. Maybe look at sowing your seeds at home in a spare room. I often end up using one end of the kitchen table or popping seed trays in the bath tub.  For indoor sowing you can start with tomatoes, cucumbers, and chillis. Outdoors you could sow early peas, broad beans, parsnips, carrots and cabbage. Prior to sowing outdoors it’s worth laying some cloche over your beds to help warm up the soil and cover the seeds with cloche once planted.