As the old years fades and the new one sleepily stirs, our allotment guru Caroline Foley offers her suggestions to making the most of the slow-grow days of January...
Start the year on the right foot by recycling the Christmas tree. If your council doesn't offer a recycling service, maybe get together with other plot holders and hire or borrow a shredder. Then you can have a good chipping session - not only of the Christmas trees but of any other woody material and prunings that are lying around. Get the biggest and best one you can afford as the smaller ones are inclined to rattle and roar. Don't forget to take the tinsel off the tree first and to wear protective clothing, including ear defenders.
As long as the ground isn't frozen or waterlogged, you can be even more virtuous, and get digging. If you have heavy soil, leave the soil in clumps to get broken down by the frosts. If it's light, cover it with black polythene to keep the worst of the weather off and to warm it for spring sowing. If you are making new beds a 120cm/4ft width is ideal for reaching across from both sides without the need to tread on them.
While you are working, remove the roots of any perennial weeds - ground elder, docks and bindweed - taking care to get every last bit out. Bury the annual weeds as you go. Chase after chickweed (commonly known as 'Mischievous Jack'),
couch grass, bittercress and dandelions as they carry on growing right through winter.
Mix in well-rotted compost or manure (which is on the acid side) on dug beds except on land set aside for root crops and brassicas or the cabbage family. Root crops like light soil on the alkaline side, so you may need to lime it in February or six weeks before sowing. Brassicas are also grown in alkaline soil as it gives them some protection against clubroot.
Carry on with winter pruning of apples, pears, all the currants and berry fruits but leave the stone fruits, particularly plums, until summer when they are less prone to attack by silver leaf fungus. Make sure that tree ties are secure but haven't got too tight. Check apple trees for canker. It shows as roughened and raised patches and sometimes the bark splits. The treatment is to prune back to healthy tissue. http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1200/apple_canker.asp
By the end of the month give fruit trees some slow-release fertilizer. Seaweed meal is ideal or blood, fish and bone.
Every allotment should have a hazel in a corner for a supply of home grown peasticks and stakes. January is a good time to take them as its's before the nesting season and the tree is still dormant. If you just want a few, cut what you want off right down to the ground. If the hazel is more than three years old and you want more, or if it is looking tatty and needs a new lease of life, you can do a 'full coppice' and cut the entire tree down to ground level. Grade the sticks and stakes by size and sharpen the points ready for use. Birch also makes great pea sticks. If you gather them now or in early February they will be pliable as the sap is just beginning to rise.
An interesting January challenge is to make a 'hot bed'. Widely used by Victorian gardeners, it is not as cranky as it sounds. If you can find a good source of fresh manure, it is an environmentally friendly PC way of propagating plants free of charge. The hot bed can be made in the cold greenhouse, in the cold frame, in a compost bin or in a pit. The bottom heat comes from the manure. You need a quantity of three parts very fresh manure in straw to one part of John Innes No 3 (or a mix of top soil and compost). To get a good heat up, the manure needs to be 60-90cm (2-3ft) deep. The growing medium needs to be 2-30cm (8-12in) and is laid on top. Leave it for a week to heat up to about 24°C/75°F. If it gets too hot leave it a little longer or cool it down with water. Then you can sow directly into the growing medium. With a cloche on top, it's ideal for New Year salad crops, cut-and-come-again orientals, or for making a head start on peas, beans, turnips and autumn cauliflowers.
If all this sounds rather energetic, or if the weather is too bad to go out, you could try sprouting - a panacea for frustrated allotmenteers. Sprouted seeds - freshly germinated cereal or vegetable seeds - are power packed cocktails of antioxidants, trace elements, vitamins, valuable plant enzymes and minerals. Eaten regularly, they are credited with the power to improve general health, to boost the immune system, and combat tiredness and stress. Any edible grain or vegetable seed will produce a nutritious crop within the week without the need for you to stir from your kitchen.
You can buy 'sprouters' - towers of perforated plastic trays - or manage with an ordinary glass jar and a fine sieve. Soak the seeds overnight. Strain them off in the morning. Rinse, strain and return them to the jar and cover with cling film, or a lid, so they don't dry out. Keep them in the kitchen at room temperature (aprox. 20ºC/68ºF), on the windowsill if you want them to be green, or in the dark if you want them to be white. Rinse and strain twice a day through the sieve until you see some root and shoot. Then you can add them to salads raw, stir-fry or cook them in other ways. They are at their most nutritious when eaten fresh tand can be kept in the fridge for a few days. Seed merchants, garden centres and health shops stock seeds for sprouting or you can use up your old vegetable seed. You can also try growing dried pulses from the supermarket. There is quite a good chance that they will work if they are not too old. Favourites varieties are alfalfa, aduki beans, wheatgrass, and buckwheat.
We are on the home stretch now with a few more minutes of daylight every day - an extra hour by the end of the month.
Here's wishing you a fertile and verdant New Year.
