- January is a wonderful time to get comfortable in your favorite chair with a cup of herb tea, a stack of garden books, catalogs or laptop and a pad of paper to make some notes. Use this time to evaluate your current garden and make plans for the New Year.
- In the kitchen garden, continue harvesting lettuce, radish, swiss chard, arugula, broccoli raab, parsley, cilantro, kale and other cool season veggies and herbs that are growing under row covers or in your cold frame or hoop house. Cover empty raised beds with black plastic to start warming the soil for early spring planting.
- Cut back liriope (with a line-trimmer) and ornamental grasses before new growth starts. Try an electric hedge trimmer to save time.
- Grow paper whites and pots of wheat grass indoors to exercise your green thumb. Force blooms of Winter jasmine or Pussy willow (when buds plump) by placing cuttings in a vase of water to bring a little garden inside.
- Winter is a good time to re-organize the garden shed or garage. Clean up tools if you didn’t have time in the fall. Throw out or repair broken tools, water wands, hoses and sprayers.
- Order or buy seeds, seed starting kits or trays and a seed starting medium mix to get a head start on the gardening season.
- House plants keep you healthy by cleaning the air so don’t forget them as you daydream of spring. Give your indoor plants some TLC with a gentle tepid shower to clean the leaves and avoid bug infestation, plenty of sunlight, fertilize when needed and preen away any dead or dying leaves.
January Garden Chores
January 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
