Kitchen Garden - February

Vegetables

• Complete winter digging of new plots and empty beds when weather permits. Don’t go on the ground if it is very wet or frozen. If you haven’t been able to start digging and the weather is awful try to cover the soil with a mulch of homemade garden compost or New Horizon Organic Garden Compost. This will stop the soil becoming too compacted and will also boost the level of worms and microbes.

• Lime your vegetable beds with J Arthur Bower’s Garden Lime if necessary. Brassicas – cabbages, cauliflowers and sprouts – all prefer an alkaline soil. The lime needs to be added at least two months before planting, so doing it now will allow the lime to work before you plant out the young plants in May. Check the tables on Liming in our Green Fingers Guide to find out how much lime you need to use.

• If you have raised beds, fork them over when weather allows, to aerate the soil. Fork in some J Arthur Bower’s Fish Blood & Bone or New Horizon Organic Poultry Manure.

• Prepare some beds for sowing early seeds by covering the soil for two to three weeks first to warm it up. You can cover it with cloches, a cold frame or a double thickness of horticultural fleece pegged down. Seeds that can be sown early include lettuce, summer cabbage, broad beans, salad onions, early peas and spinach. Peas and broad beans will need to be protected with netting to stop mice digging them up.

• Before sowing, rake the warmed soil to a fine tilth. Sow the seeds in fine drills (you can take these out with a cane) to the depth and spacing recommended on the seed packet. It is a good idea to water the drills before you sow – this ensures tiny seeds don’t get washed deep into the soil. Firm down the soil and replace your chosen cover. For more information see our Guide to Seed Sowing. 

• If you plan to grow runner beans, now is the time to dig out a trench for them. The beans can be grown up a wigwam or in a row. The trench should be 45cm. (18 inches) deep. Fill it with homemade garden compost or well rotted manure if you have it. If not, use a 50/50 mixture of J Arthur Bower’s Blended Farm Manure and either New Horizon Organic Garden Compost or New Horizon Mulch & Mix.

• Sow early vegetables under cover (see Under Cover section).

Fruit

• Finish pruning apple and pear trees before the sap starts to rise. Wait until spring to prune plums, cherries and nectarines as pruning now could allow the fungal disease silverleaf to take a hold.

• Feed all fruit trees and bushes with J Arthur Bower’s Sulphate of Potash. This will help set a good crop of fruit. Scatter the feed in a circle around the tree at the rate of 35 grams a square metre (one ounce a square yard). Water in if the soil is dry and mulch.

• Finish planting bare-rooted trees and bushes.

• Split up large rhubarb plants and replant. Dig some J Arthur Bower’s Blended Farm Manure into the soil before replanting. New rhubarb crowns can also be planted now in the same way.

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