December is always a dark month with the daylight hours being very short and having officially entered the winter season. But there are still things to do in the vegetable garden and things to harvest. This month we have harvested celeriac, parsnips, leeks and spinach.
We are growing red and white shallots this year which have already shown their heads and some garlic that is currently growing really well. The autumn king carrots are progressing nicely and the spinach continues to crop. The kale and sprouting broccoli are still a little small despite the feeding and attention they have been given. Hopefully, when we lay the manure for this year it will improve the soil because at the moment it does seem a little worn out.
Organic gardening is all about the soil and keeping a good supply of nitrogen within it, adding very well-rotted manure to the earth is a good way of doing this. We have spent some of this month double digging the empty beds as there is quite a lot of tree roots invading them. These need to kept under control because in the summer they will drain all the moisture and nutrients from the soil. We will leave the broken-up roots on top of the soil for a few weeks to let the frost kill them off. Then rake over the soil and remove them that way. If there are any stray roots left there’s a good chance that the frost will have got to them.
Our spring cabbages are growing nicely under their winter fleece protection, we have these planted in one of our superior raised beds. We have sown some little gem lettuces in a grow pod inside the greenhouse, these have already started to sprout so hopefully we should get a nice early crop.
In the rest of the garden it has all been about clearing fallen leaves as we are surrounded by trees there is always an awful lot of them and seems like a never ending task. The trees seem to be quite suborn this year and losing their leaves quite slowly looking around there are still quite a few trees that still haven’t fully lost all there leaves so I think we will be continuing to clear them through January.
