A year on the plot
As well as good gardening skills, effective allotmenting
requires good time management. There is always so much to do and so little time in which to
do it. This section sets out a month-by-month plan of action on the allotment so that you
will will always know what to do when.
January
- Order your seeds, onion sets and seed potatoes if not yet done
- Start off garlic and shallots in pots in a cold frame
- Give a potash dressing to strawberries, gooseberries and currants (white and
red)
- Sow sweet peas in a heated greenhouse
- If you have a heated greenhouse, you can also sow French beans in pots
- Start chitting your seed potatoes in pots in a cold frame
February
- Start sowing cabbage, lettuce, peas and cauliflower in a heated greenhouse
- Plant new rhubarb crowns just below the surface
- You can start sowing parsnip seed, but it may be too cold to germinate
- Plant broad beans in pots for an early crop
- Check your stored potatoes from last year; rub off any sprouts appearing
- Tie in new blackberry shoots as they appear and before they get too long
- Start successional sowing of summer spinach
- Start successional sowing of radishes
- You can start sowing your onion sets now if the ground is not too hard or wet
- Sow your first peas in pots in the cold frame or under fleece direct into the
ground
- Cover your strawberry patch with fleece or a cloche to warm up the ground
- Prune blackcurrant bushes
March
- It should be safe to plant parsnip seeds
- Start successional sowing of chard, beetroot and spinach
- Plant strawberries and raspberries
- If you've sown early lettuce, they probably need thinning now
- Lift all remaining leeks from last year to give you time to dig over the land for new
planting
- Plant sunflower seeds in pots in your cold frame
- Cover rhubarb crowns to "force" them
- Cut back autumn raspberries to the ground
- Plant out onion sets
- Sow cauliflower, summer cabbage and sprouts for summer transplanting
- If warm enough, sow leeks in a seed bed or in pots
- Dig, dig, dig to get your plot ready for spring planting
Back to top