Things to do in January
Weather and soil conditions permitting plant garlic outside, otherwise wait a month or two.
Use old wood that does not have preservative to make wood ash.
Wood ash contains up to about 3% potassium (younger wood like apple tree cuttings contain more potassium than older wood and hard wood contains more nutrients than softwood).
Wood ash also contains phosphorous, manganese iron and calcium (calcium carbonate which is chalk). The calcium will make it act like lime so do not apply to blueberries, raspberries or acid loving plants.
Wood ash like lime will make an acidic soil more alkaline releasing some unavailable nutrients from the soil which are locked in when the soil is too acidic.
Sprinkle some wood ash around your fruit trees/bushes and strawberries to encourage flower buds to form or wood to ripen (avoid getting it on leaves).
You can also use it on your plot as a fertiliser (it does not contain nitrogen as this is turned into oxides of nitrogen which are gases when the wood is burnt).
Do not use it on potatoes as it will encourage scab.
You can scatter wood ash in your compost heap to make it less acidic and improve your compost.
You can store your wood ash in a waterproof container for use later. Water will wash the nutrients out of the wood ash
Prepare your plot for next year and get a head start if the ground is not too wet or frozen.
Indoors in a greenhouse or polytunnel
If you have a polytunnel or greenhouse you can sow broad beans in pots to transplant out later for an early crop.
In guttering sow an early variety of peas to plant out later. The peas can be slide into shallow trenches around March time.
Sow radishes in modules or pots, under cover if you can keep minimum temperature above 5 degrees C
Whats going on in your soil
Looking after your soil is key to successful growing. This is precisely what your plants do whilst they grow! More about how plants do this will become clear later.
Soil is very slow to form it takes 500 years to grow 1 cm of top soil. Soil forms from the weathering of rocks, rain freezing and thawing breaking up the bedrock into a fine dust becoming the mineral part of the soil. The type of rock decides what type of soil is formed e.g. clay, silt or sandy soil.
The rock dust contains minerals like calcium, magnesium phosphate etc. However it’s a solid and plants cannot use it. It forms about 45% of a soil. The other components are air and water both 25% each. The last 5% is the most interesting that is organic matter that is material made from the remains of living things after their death. 4% of the 5% is hummus. The other 1% is decaying plants, animals and micro organisms
Plants capture carbon from the air and make sugar from it; they are very good at it. It’s a process called photosynthesis where the plants capture carbon dioxide gas and water using the energy from the sun to form sugar. The plant uses this sugar for energy and as a building block to make plant tissue.
40% of the sugar produced by the plant is sent to the roots of the plant. A quarter of this is passed through the root hairs into the soil. Sometimes the plant may send up to 80% of the sugar it produces into the soil!
So why would plants spend all that energy to make sugar and do this?
Plants are very good at capturing carbon from the air; they are very poor at absorbing minerals and also cannot absorb minerals from rock.
Bacteria in the soil are very poor at capturing carbon but very good at converting minerals like phosphate and potassium from rock dust and decaying matter into a form that plants can use.
The plants give the bacteria in the soil the sugar as a carbon rich energy food to make them multiply and become more active so that they produce the minerals that the plant needs.
When the plant dies this is returned to the soil as it rots down or if the plant is eaten when the animal dies or produces dung.
It’s believed that the plant may control the bacteria because in times of plenty it stops passing sugar into the soil.
One kilogram of soil contains one thousand billion bacteria and one teaspoon of soil contains 10,000 different types of bacteria. Some capture nitrogen from the air and give this to the plant in exchange for the sugar the plant donates; others extract the nitrogen from organic material
The other reason plants give up some of their sugar is because they cannot transport and absorb minerals very well.
Plants can pass into the soil a hormone that will make microrrhizal fungi germinate from their spores.
The fungi like bacteria are poor at capturing carbon that they need for growth but excellent at transporting nutrients across long distances.
The microrrhizal fungi tap directly into the root of the plant to give minerals to the plant. The microrrhizal fungi can stretch for miles so capture minerals from afar.
Plants can also use the fungi to communicate with each other sending chemical signals to warn of predators’ or sharing resources.
1 gram of soil contains enough microrrhizal fungi to stretch over half a mile. They act as the long distance transport and communication system.
Adding organic matter like manure or compost to the soil adds nutrients for the plant and improves soil structure and increases water retention.
However it also stimulates these bacteria and fungi to provide a factory to release minerals from rock dust and a courier system to provide plants with minerals
Weather and soil conditions permitting plant garlic outside, otherwise wait a month or two.
Use old wood that does not have preservative to make wood ash.
Wood ash contains up to about 3% potassium (younger wood like apple tree cuttings contain more potassium than older wood and hard wood contains more nutrients than softwood).
Wood ash also contains phosphorous, manganese iron and calcium (calcium carbonate which is chalk). The calcium will make it act like lime so do not apply to blueberries, raspberries or acid loving plants.
Wood ash like lime will make an acidic soil more alkaline releasing some unavailable nutrients from the soil which are locked in when the soil is too acidic.
Sprinkle some wood ash around your fruit trees/bushes and strawberries to encourage flower buds to form or wood to ripen (avoid getting it on leaves).
You can also use it on your plot as a fertiliser (it does not contain nitrogen as this is turned into oxides of nitrogen which are gases when the wood is burnt).
Do not use it on potatoes as it will encourage scab.
You can scatter wood ash in your compost heap to make it less acidic and improve your compost.
You can store your wood ash in a waterproof container for use later. Water will wash the nutrients out of the wood ash
Prepare your plot for next year and get a head start if the ground is not too wet or frozen.
Indoors in a greenhouse or polytunnel
If you have a polytunnel or greenhouse you can sow broad beans in pots to transplant out later for an early crop.
In guttering sow an early variety of peas to plant out later. The peas can be slide into shallow trenches around March time.
Sow radishes in modules or pots, under cover if you can keep minimum temperature above 5 degrees C
Whats going on in your soil
Looking after your soil is key to successful growing. This is precisely what your plants do whilst they grow! More about how plants do this will become clear later.
Soil is very slow to form it takes 500 years to grow 1 cm of top soil. Soil forms from the weathering of rocks, rain freezing and thawing breaking up the bedrock into a fine dust becoming the mineral part of the soil. The type of rock decides what type of soil is formed e.g. clay, silt or sandy soil.
The rock dust contains minerals like calcium, magnesium phosphate etc. However it’s a solid and plants cannot use it. It forms about 45% of a soil. The other components are air and water both 25% each. The last 5% is the most interesting that is organic matter that is material made from the remains of living things after their death. 4% of the 5% is hummus. The other 1% is decaying plants, animals and micro organisms
Plants capture carbon from the air and make sugar from it; they are very good at it. It’s a process called photosynthesis where the plants capture carbon dioxide gas and water using the energy from the sun to form sugar. The plant uses this sugar for energy and as a building block to make plant tissue.
40% of the sugar produced by the plant is sent to the roots of the plant. A quarter of this is passed through the root hairs into the soil. Sometimes the plant may send up to 80% of the sugar it produces into the soil!
So why would plants spend all that energy to make sugar and do this?
Plants are very good at capturing carbon from the air; they are very poor at absorbing minerals and also cannot absorb minerals from rock.
Bacteria in the soil are very poor at capturing carbon but very good at converting minerals like phosphate and potassium from rock dust and decaying matter into a form that plants can use.
The plants give the bacteria in the soil the sugar as a carbon rich energy food to make them multiply and become more active so that they produce the minerals that the plant needs.
When the plant dies this is returned to the soil as it rots down or if the plant is eaten when the animal dies or produces dung.
It’s believed that the plant may control the bacteria because in times of plenty it stops passing sugar into the soil.
One kilogram of soil contains one thousand billion bacteria and one teaspoon of soil contains 10,000 different types of bacteria. Some capture nitrogen from the air and give this to the plant in exchange for the sugar the plant donates; others extract the nitrogen from organic material
The other reason plants give up some of their sugar is because they cannot transport and absorb minerals very well.
Plants can pass into the soil a hormone that will make microrrhizal fungi germinate from their spores.
The fungi like bacteria are poor at capturing carbon that they need for growth but excellent at transporting nutrients across long distances.
The microrrhizal fungi tap directly into the root of the plant to give minerals to the plant. The microrrhizal fungi can stretch for miles so capture minerals from afar.
Plants can also use the fungi to communicate with each other sending chemical signals to warn of predators’ or sharing resources.
1 gram of soil contains enough microrrhizal fungi to stretch over half a mile. They act as the long distance transport and communication system.
Adding organic matter like manure or compost to the soil adds nutrients for the plant and improves soil structure and increases water retention.
However it also stimulates these bacteria and fungi to provide a factory to release minerals from rock dust and a courier system to provide plants with minerals