Your garden needs a rest sometimes and you do, too…
Compared to the abundance and vitality of summer your garden will be moving into its winter dormancy, becoming a place of stillness and contemplation.
While we mostly advocate for our human bodies to go into some kind of winter hibernation in December we know that gardeners, growers and allotmenters will often have itchy, busy fingers wanting to spend an hour or two enjoying a moment of activity in the garden. Here are a few ideas that you might want to add to your December job list:
– It’s a good time to finish clearing beds, but you might want to leave some dead plants as habitat for over-wintering insects. Sunflower stalks are particularly good homes for bugs. As a general rule, what looks like untidiness to the human eye is great habitat for the rest of nature. It’s all about finding the balance, as with all things in life.
– Tidy up and fix tools, propagation areas and garden sheds.
– Check any roots or top fruit for mould or damage that you may have in storage.
– Lift and divide large clumps of rhubarb.
– Protect outdoor brassicas from pigeons with mesh.
– Mulch any bare patches of soil with leaves, compost or straw.
– Hang bird feeders to attract a wide range of different wild bird species to your garden.
– Go through your seed packets and start crop planning for 2025, contemplating this years’ successes and failures while the season is fresh in your memory