GARDENING TO DO LIST IN FEBRUARY - ALLOTMENTS AND VEGETABLE GARDENS

Tidy the Shed!

GARDEN AND ALLOTMENT TO DO LIST FOR FEBRUARY?  I HATE TO DO LISTS!

Yes I make To Do lists myself, I am a great list-maker,  I have a collection of old notebooks littered with mouldering To Do lists which still need doing, from years back - sometimes I use the empty pages of old diaries. 

I also try MIND MAPS, thinking this would be the answer to my lack of time management, but they don't work either.

JANUARY CROCUS

TO DOS

You see I can never  make the supreme  effort to tick off all my To Dos, at any time of year, let alone in February. 

Garden writers love putting lists of what to do, in the media on or line, just to make us guilty, I guess.

There is a What to do this Week,  in The Sunday Times.  Today we are instructed to:

1 Start chitting potatoes (I think this is much too early, unless you like egg-boxes full of dusty potatoes littering up your living area).  I think outdoors in a greenhouse or shed is too cold.

2 Sow broad beans outside unless ground is too wet (well, it is)

3  Protect plants that 'pop up early' with fleece or an old sheet (should look very fetching in the back garden, this)

VEGETABLES WERE HERE!

ALAN TITCHMARSH, in Waitrose Weekend, suggests:

1 "Take time to make a potting tray now" (no, not potty, potting, as in plants)

2 Cover "rhubarb with a large tub or special rhubarb forcer" and insulate the outside the the 'forcer', which you previously insulated inside with straw or other material.

3. "Prune wisteria….check the support and repair as necessary"- good idea but you need to get the step ladder out, which is possibly in the shed which you have yet to tidy.

4 "Harvest Brussels sprouts, leeks, parsnips and turnips" (unfortunately I had some parsnips but they are now lost in wet soggy soil, and the pigeons are finishing off the sprouts, and the leeks, well they never really got going last autumn, so that lets me out of this particular To Do.

TIDY THE GARDEN SHED  !!!

The shed on the plot

Inside the shed shown above

I hate being told to tidy the shed, suggesting this is a good time of year to do it, as you are not very busy.  Of course everybody is very busy in February, just like at other times.  

Probably this is because you can catch up on stuff, stuff that never gets finished in the nice weather, like, well, in my case its looking for a very cheap and wonderful holiday bargain.  Or worrying about interest rates.

Or tidying the accumulation of newspaper cuttings about very cheap and wonderful holiday bargains, or equally wonderful recipes for delicious cheap meals.

Allotment shed to store everything

SHEDS

So I resolve every autumn to tidy the sheds, during the winter when I am not so busy.  Do I do this?  Not on your nelly.  The weather is cold, windy, wet and the days are dark.  Much nicer to stay in the warm.

FOUR SHEDS TO DO, 

TWO LITTLE ONES, TWO A BIT BIGGER

Allotment shed, tiny one

Little garden shed 

You may be surprised to see that a mess they are in.  Wait a moment, what does the inside of your shed look like in February?

Inside the striped shed for garden stuff only!

Are you one of those admirable people who wash out and stack all their empty flower pots and trays in the autumn?  Someone who clears out the overgrown plants in the pond, just when the water is freezing cold?  Who cleans and oils the handles of their spades and forks?  And washes down the glass in their greenhouse, so as to let in as much light as possible?   

Well, joint the club, I don't do these things either.

Please let me know about the state of YOUR shed this month.

The shed for everything

I MADE SOME MARMALADE IN JANUARY - HERE IS RECIPE

TWO NICE THINGS HAPPENED INDOORS THIS MONTH OF JANUARY

1  I made some marmalade and then

2  I made a second lot of marmalade because it has to last the whole year and we love it.

HERE IS THE METHOD I USE

I used my old Preserves for all Occasions book (Penguin) which I find indispensable where jams etc are concerned.

Preserves for all Occasions

The author Alice Crang (back in 1953) says you can use a pressure cooker to cook the oranges, if you have a pressure cooker.  So:

you need that, some clean jars and lids (old pickle jars is what I use), about 1 lb 8 oz Seville oranges and the same weight of sugar (plain white granulated),

Cook the whole oranges (washed of course) in about 1 and a half pints of water, in the pressure cooker for about 15 minutes.  Allow it to cool and then remove lid of cooker.

Marmalade, quantity from 1lb 8 oz Seville oranges

Take out the oranges and keep back  the water on one side.  

Next, the time-consuming bit, and you need a sharp knife and something good on the radio.

Cut the orange peel into thin strips, and also put the pips and any orange flesh in a piece of muslin cloth (which  you might have to go out and buy specially!)

Tie the muslin into a bag shape.

You can do the next bit in the pressure cooker pan but I prefer to use my old preserving pan as it is bigger, has sloping sides and a spout thing.

Add the sliced orange peel and the bag of pips and orange flesh to the water and  heat them, then

Gradually add all the sugar, stir till sugar has dissolved.  At this point you:

boil the mixture vigorously

Takes about 20 minutes till it gets to the "setting point".  Remove the muslin bag of pips

Test for setting by putting some marmalade on a cold saucer, do this several times if the first drips of marmalade do not seem to have set (the marmalade makes a film and flows very very slowly when the saucer is tilted).

Allow the marmalade to stay in the pan about 20 minutes, then stir it carefully, to mix in the peel throughout, as you don't want all the sliced peel to stay at the top of the jars.

Then you know it is OK to put in the warmed jars, and cover.  

I find it helps to put labels on with the date you made it, then you can eat up last years marmalade before you start on this years!