Jobs to do in January

Sowing and planting

Fruit

• Plant bare-root trees and bushes, as long as the soil isn't frozen.

Vegetables

• Sow broad beans in pots in mild areas, placing them in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse.

• Sow seed indoors for early crops eg: lettuces, summer brassicas (e.g. cabbages and cauliflowers), spinach, salad onions and turnips.

• Sow onion seed in a heated propagator.
  
   

Pruning and training

Fruit

• Prune apples, pears, quinces and medlars.

• Prune currants and gooseberries.

• Prune autumn raspberries.
  
   

Problems

• Place mice controls near stored vegetables.

• Protect early seed sowings from slugs.

• Protect brassicas from pigeons.

• Look out for grey mould and brassica downy mildew on brassicas.

• Remove all remaining plant debris from the vegetable plot. Do not compost any diseased material such as blight-infected potatoes, onions suffering from white rot and any crops with rust. Burn or bin the diseased material.

• Spray against peach leaf curl.

• Check apples for canker and prune out.
  
   

General care

Fruit

• Keep checking stored fruits and remove rotten ones.

• Ensure tree stakes and ties are firm and sound.

• Harvest citrus fruits once mature.

• Lower indoor grapevine stems for even bud-break.

• Apply winter washes to fruit trees and bushes.

• Apply a top dressing of sulphate of potash to all fruits and nuts.
   

Vegetables

• Stake or earth up Brussels sprouts stalks that look leggy and vulnerable to wind rock. Pick the biggest sprouts from low down the stalks first.

• Force chicory to produce plump leafy heads.

• Cultivate and prepare seed beds covering them with clear polythene, cloches or fleece to warm up the soil before sowing.

• If the weather is reliably dry and frosty, leave heavy soils exposed - the frosts will kill pests and improve soil structure by the continual freezing and thawing of soil water.

• Improve drainage of heavy soils by working in lots of organic matter. Grit will only be effective when used in conjunction with organic matter.

• When gardening on wet soils work from a plank of wood, rather than treading on the bed, to avoid compacting the soil.

• Save egg boxes as they will come in handy for potato chitting next month. Source your seed potatoes if you have not already done so.

• Plan a rotation system for vegetable plots to ensure the same crops are not grown in the same beds year after year to help prevent disease build-up.