The Gardener's Journal is a free monthly gardening guide delivered direct to your inbox.

Each month, receive tips on the top jobs needed in your garden as well as a wealth of information on a range of gardening topics. From sowing seeds to picking fruit, each month get access to information on the care and maintenance of your flowerbeds, vegetable plot and lawn. As with your own gardening diary, the journal is split into separate sections, each covering a different area of garden care.

Friday 4 January 2019

Gardening for the over 60s


Retirement brings with it one obvious advantage for the keen gardener… time. Depending on your
lifestyle, you can devote as many hours as you wish to your favourite pastime and finally achieve the garden of your dreams.

This Month in Your Garden – January

‘New Year’s day is everyman’s birthday.’ Charles Lamb


January is named after the Etruscan word janua, meaning door. Whilst often the coldest month, it heralds the New Year ahead and as the days lengthen nature senses it’s time for growth.

Welcome back to the Gardener’s Journal where we begin our journey and open the door to a new gardening year. If it’s cold outside we can sit by the fire with the seed and plant catalogues, plotting what plant where in the coming months.

Wednesday 2 January 2019

The Lawn Care Guide: January

Care and repair


You can repair and adjust turf levels this month by peeling back or cutting and lifting sods using suitable tools and then add a good soil to dress the depression. Use a soil similar in quality and texture to the top soil in your flower beds and borders.

It’s a good time to establish lawn edges using a half moon edger and, weather permitting, you can lay turves to create a new lawn if you already have the area prepared. Weeds that appear on the lawn can be picked out by hand using a hand fork and pressing the grass and soil back down.

Lawn Care: Questions & Answers

Q. We have a lot of moss in our lawn. What can we do to get rid of it?  

The Vegetable Plot – January

Every good potato deserves flavour

 

Off to the garden centre with you and pick up your seed potatoes, because there’s nothing like the taste sensation you get from home grown spuds.

You don’t need a big patch to grow them in, you can even use a large trug or bucket or even a stack of old tyres. But first you need to chit and that’s done by placing the miniature tubers into empty egg cartons with the eye area facing up.

The Big Glut Recipe – January

Persian lamb tagine


Ring the changes after the festive season’s food with a winter warmer for eight to ten people. BBC Good Food.

Ingredients

  • 2kg lamb neck fillets
  • 5 tbsp mild olive oil or sunflower oil
  • 3 medium onions, cut into thin wedges
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 tsp ground cumin
  • 4 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp hot chilli powder
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • large pinch of saffron
  • 2 cinnamon sticks