<![CDATA[Planting Scheme Designer | Nottingham Leicester Derby | Secret Gardener

WEEDING:
It's been a mild winter (so far!)... so while it means plants that would have died last year, will almost definitely have survived this one - it also means the weeds are thriving!

That said, being winter it means that any weeding effort you put in now will be amplified -- because they won't regrow/reseed/return as quickly as other times of the year. So get out there and remove the little blighters - if it's a dry sunny (winter) day, then hoe them in the morning and let the sun bake them to death, if you can get the roots out - always do. That really will knock them back (if not knock them dead)!

Try to avoid trampling all over your soil while you're doing the weeding though - it will compact under your feet, and affect the air and water movement through it. If you can do it from arms reach - without trashing your spine, it's best to. If you do have to trample to get that pesky weed tucked away at the back of a bed, then churn up the soil where you've walked afterwards... to put air and drainage back into the compacted soil.

SLUGS:
If you have pots, a green house or a coldframe - then check around the rims and under the lids for the munching menace that is the slug (and of course snails too).

Slug pellets will kill them, but remember as much as we hate these guys they're part of the food chain so poisoning them means you could end up poisoning birds too... better (for birds, at least) is to just stomp on the little monsters. Harsh, but .... yeah it's harsh! But just think of every flower you're sparing from a fate worse than a slimey death.

If you're tempted to just hurl your slug over the fence instead -- think twice: there's on-going research to suggest they have a homing instinct and will simply make (munching as they go) their way back to YOUR GARDEN!

A fatal, final footprint on their head - is far better all round!

SEEDS:
It's winter, but that doesn't mean all of your work has to see you getting cold and wet - hell no. Brew a cuppa and settle down on the sofa with seed brochures (or even your laptop) and choose the seeds that you could plant next month.

I'm picking up seeds for biennials and perennials that will fill gaps in the border, flower for long periods and bring bees and butterflies into the garden: such as Verbena Bonariensis, Scabious 'Blue' and Digitalis Excelsior Hyrbids. Verbena and the foxgloves are tall enough to go at the back of the border, and then they'll self-seed to other parts - adding a bit of serendipty in later years.

KITCHEN GARDEN:
I've recently moved, and there's a bed down one side of the house that no-one ever sees. It seems pointless to plant it decoratively - so I'm planning to use it to grow flowers for cutting in the house, fruit and veg... a (really) small kitchen garden! It's about 1.5 metres deep and 5 metres long.

I've grown vegetables before, but only for two years - about eight years ago. So while I'm an experienced gardener and garden designer - when it comes to a garden to eat - in my head, I'm a newbie!

So this month, I'm weeding the bed to remove all the perennial weeds like thistle and dandelion (tho I'm leaving some in, as they're a salad crop too!) Then I'm going to dig the soil to loosen it up, add enough nourishing muck to give any new veg a great start, and get ordering my seeds/plugs.

I'm not going to get seduced by the seed catalogues - I'm ruthlessly ONLY planting veg I love, that I have tried and trusted recipes for and think me and my other half will definitely get through - hate waste. So potatoes in bags, butternut squash, pumpkin, beetroot, broccoli, lettuce, and runner beans - with tomatoes in hanging/fence baskets, raspberries canes and ... ok, when it comes to fruit I'm going to let the seed catalogues seduce me a little.

My aim is for a bed that's functional and edible, but still doesn't look unsightly - even though it's out of view of the main part of the garden. I'll take pics soon, as work progresses.

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