December in your school garden
Now that all the seed catalogues are available, it’s an ideal time to decide what you want to grow next year and send off orders for flower and vegetable seeds, onion and shallot sets, and seed potatoes. This is a good opportunity to investigate vegetable families and delve into crop rotation – maybe you could ask someone along from your local allotment association to talk about how they plan their plot. If you prefer a high tech approach, take a look at www.growveg.com, an on-line planning tool. Do some budgetary planning too, and think about ways to raise funds, such as growing some extra plants to sell later in the year. There are lot more ideas in Finding funding, under Resources.
Jobs this month
• Collect natural plant materials to make seasonal decorations. As well as the traditional holly and ivy, good evergreens include eucalyptus, cherry laurel, Portugal laurel and many different conifers. Colourful home-grown veg such as mini-pumpkins, dried beans and dried chillies can also be used, together with dried seed heads jazzed up with a touch of glitter or metallic paint.
• When digging up winter vegetables, clearing debris or weeding try to work from wooden planks to avoid compacting the wet soil. Get round this problem in future by building raised beds.
• Harvest leeks which will make delicious soup along with some of your stored potatoes.
• Assemble your tool kit for a good clean and polish, and to check what may need sharpening, mending or replacing.
• Check all crop covers are firmly fixed in place and, if not already done, protect any leafy crops from hungry pigeons which will be bolder in the holidays when there’s no-one around.