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The start of the gardening year

As the festive cheer of Christmas fades, the prospect of returning to the garden can ignite a refreshing sense of purpose and anticipation. January is a perfect time to start preparing for the upcoming gardening year.

This month, focus on planning: envision the layout of your garden, decide on the varieties of plants you wish to cultivate, and start ordering seeds. It’s also an ideal time for maintenance tasks, like cleaning and sharpening your gardening tools, checking the health of your perennial plants, and preparing your soil. Additionally, indoor gardening activities like starting seedlings on a windowsill can provide a head start for the warmer months.

Embrace this quieter time in the garden as an opportunity for reflection and planning, setting the foundation for a flourishing and rewarding gardening year ahead!

  • Plan your vegetable beds. Click here for our top tips
  • Spread our soil improving mulch around the base of plants in flowerbeds as well vegetable beds that are to be prepared for seeds.
  • Order seeds from mail order catalogues
  • Spread Woodchip on slippery paths after cleaning from leaf debris and moss
  • Plant bare-root roses, shrubs, hedging and ornamental trees (checking the ground isn’t frozen)
  • Pruning of apple and pear trees, wisteria, ivy, virginia crepper and climbing hydrangea
  • Take root cuttings of perennials such as oriental poppies, acanthus and verbascums
  • Establish snowdrops and hellebores – buying flowering plants and chose the best varieties
  • Take hardwood cuttings from deciduous shrubs
  • Clear up the garden from autumn debris and soggy stems of perennials to be added to your compost heap
  • Deadhead winter bedding plants
  • Clean and sharpen garden tools like shears and spades, ready for use.
  • Service your lawnmower and check over the general condition of all garden equipment

About Apsley Farms

Sustainability and efficiency is at the heart of everything we do at Apsley Farms. We’ve adopted cutting edge technologies and turned low value crops into renewable energy. We focus on a circular economy by returning the nutrients in our digestate products back to the land as a fertiliser. Our process of generating green gas and other important by-products ticks three important boxes: it displaces natural gas (fossil fuel) in the gas grid to heat people’s homes; it displaces CO2 made by the fertiliser industry, which is essential in the food industry; and it simultaneously generates natural fertiliser in the process!

Apsley Farms in Andover, Hampshire