Allotment and vegetable gardening in winter

What you need to do in your allotment or vegetable garden over winter really depends on how much progress you’ve made up until now on clearing , preparing and digging over the garden and on how many over-wintering crops you’ve got on the go that might need harvesting.

So, first of all, the harvest.  Depending on the planting you undertook in the autumn, or earlier, you might well have some tasty leeks that are ready to be pulled.  Parsnips and Swedes can also be plucked from the soil when you are ready to eat them and if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon a fine day it’s probably wise to pull on those muddy wellies and get the root veg out sooner rather than later…. Leave it too long and you’ll be battling to free them from the frost.   Once the veg is harvested it will keep nicely in the garden shed but if you really can’t get it out, cover the ground with a fleece or some straw to prevent it from freezing solid.  You might also be tucking into some delicious winter greens, perfect for boosting the immune systems against the winter sniffles.

Ideally, your digging and mulching will already be done but if time has got the upper hand, January and February are ideal ‘catch up’ months on the allotment.  Digging over improves your soil, maximising the chances of planting success next year, and it brings all sorts of tasty bugs to the surface which will help keep the garden birds going throughout winter.

Unfortunately, unless you’re blessed with a warm greenhouse, now is not really the time to be sowing and planting but it can mean that you get a really good chance to sit down with a seed catalogue and think about next year’s harvest.

Just as important as choosing what to grow is deciding where to grow it.  In London garden designers are often called in to help create additional space in small gardens and with a bit of expert landscaping even the tiniest of back yards can be turned into a cottage garden.

If you have the space, consider asking a London garden landscaping business to build you some raised beds.  These not only make the growing process a whole lot simpler but they can look really attractive too, especially if you can get your hands on interesting raw materials such as old railway sleepers.  Don’t be too quick to rule out front gardens either.  Done properly, vegetable gardening can be really beautiful and seeking out some antique glass cloches or unusual containers can create your own, living and breathing work of natural art that you’ll be proud to show off to passers by.

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