Gardenadvice on line calendar for growing your own vegetables
If you are into growing your own vegetables this year then you could do worse than to follow our new vegetable growing calendar that will show you all the tasks you need to undertake each week and all the sowing dates for your seeds. The calendar can be found by following this link http://gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/organic/cal/
This weeks calendar details the following
Coldframes
Any gardener with cold frames can, this coming week, begin preparing the soil by forking over and fertilizing ready for early sowings. After doing this put the lights (lids/tops) onto the frames to allow the soil to dry and warm up before sowing. Anyone with a greenhouse which has some heating in it can sow some early crops of Broad Beans now (suggested variety – The Sutton), either into small pots or module trays. Use a multi purpose compost.
Planting garlic cloves
Providing conditions are right not to cold or frozen ground this is the time to plant garlic cloves they will grow and be ready for harvest in mid summer
Applying lime to vegetable garden
This is the time to apply garden lime to the areas of your veg garden you are intending to grow cabbages, cauliflowers and other brassicas. These plants prefer neutral -alkaline soil and adding lime to your soil will help achieve this. To determine the amount of lime you need to apply you will need to carry out a soil test. creating a alkaline soil will also help control club root disease.
Create cloches for early veg sowing
The key to growing early veg at this time of year is to help the soil warm up as quickly as possible. By creating cloches at this time of year a few weeks before the first sowings of vegetable such as carrots the soil is warmed up by the winter sun and so aids the production of early crops. In your newly created cloches its a good idea to add a few old clay bricks to act as a kind or night storage heater. heating up in during the day with the action of the sun and releasing the heat at night as the air cools down so evening out the temperature helping the seedlings.