Beat The Blues

Pass a winter’s evening by planning your garden year

- Kim Stoddart

You can help beat the January blues by thinking about (and getting excited by) the edibles you are going to grow for the year ahead. Flicking through seed catalogues, looking for inspiration as you sit by a roaring fire on an abysmal, cold, dark, wet and windy day is good for the soul.

That said, I’m all for experimenting with interesting new fruit and vegetables but, in the grand scheme of things (and as busy smallholders), there’s not a lot of point growing produce that you are unlikely to end up eating as anyone who has grown Asparagus peas will undoubtedly testify. Nice idea, and they are good nitrogen fixers for the soil, but the harvest is hardly worth the effort and, if you want asparagus flavour, then there’s nothing to beat fresh asparagus itself; so really, why bother?

With our ever changing climate, I highly recommended looking to incorporate perennials and hardier varieties of plant onto your veg patch at each and every opportunity as they are more likely to stand firm and still thrive against harsher extremes of weather. Their resilient tendencies also makes them a low maintenance choice as, once they are established on your plot, there is often little fuss or effort required.