January in the Vegetable Garden: Monitoring Seedlings and Winter Tasks 🌾
With the start of the new year, we continued closely observing the progress of our seedlings. Winter doesn’t always play in our favor, but it also offers moments for reflection and improvements in the organization of the garden.
🌿 Plant Growth: Light and Shadow
Some crops are progressing well despite the cold conditions and limited sunlight:
- In garden bed 1, the snow peas and peas are developing steadily and already showing signs that the first ones may soon be ready for harvest, with consistent growth and good health.
- In garden bed 2, the turnip greens aren’t especially abundant, but they are growing steadily and in a balanced way.
- In bed 3, the lettuces remain stable. The cold slows their growth, but they are holding up well and show no signs of disease.
- In bed 2, the kale definitely didn’t germinate, so we’ll need to try again next year.
- In garden bed 1, the snow peas and peas are developing steadily and already showing signs that the first ones may soon be ready for harvest, with consistent growth and good health.
🧤 Maintenance and Care in the Heart of Winter
Despite the low temperatures, work in the garden doesn’t stop. This month, we focused our efforts on maintaining optimal conditions for both the soil and the plants:
- We removed competing weeds from active areas to ensure that our crops have sufficient access to nutrients and sunlight.
- We carried out a thorough cleaning of the borders and paths, especially important during these damp days to avoid accessibility issues and overgrowth.
- We applied green nettle fertilizer again, which we had previously prepared by fermenting in rainwater. After 15 days of fermentation, we diluted the liquid (1 part fertilizer to 10 parts water) to naturally and sustainably nourish the soil.
- We removed competing weeds from active areas to ensure that our crops have sufficient access to nutrients and sunlight.
