Christmas

It will soon be 20th December, the day before the shortest day, when the nights are long and the sun is low and much gardening is largely redundant. Your last chance to pop to the vegetable plot to pick a few winter vegetables such as brussel sprouts, parsnips, or leeks, for Christmas dinner.

Nearly past time to get in a few late requests for presents. As a gardener, I will often ask for seeds, as there are some great boxes of seeds available to purchase and these will often have something you have not tried to grow before as a crop, or flower bed, so it will grip your gardening skills a little more than usual to try them out.

If someone likes you a lot, then perhaps drop a heavy hint about tools. Although gardeners, no doubt, have many tools, some may need updating or you wouldn’t mind trying your hands on some of the new idea tools on the market. There are some beautifully crafted tools on the market.

Winter time on the lawns of garden gives the grass of the lawn a hard time. Christmas parties are on the agenda and everyone wants a nice green lawn still at Christmas as they look outside from the window. If you have leaves that have fallen on your lawn, keep them clear as much as possible. Obviously large areas of leaves and debris left on the lawn will make the grass yellow and not get enough light. A leaf rake will do the job of clearing the lawn, or of course vacuum or blowers if you have a lot larger lawn.

Worm casts often appear this time of the year, but worm casts do not do any damage to the lawn at all. There is only two, or three, types of worm that make these worm casts, you can get a flexi rod to clear the worms casts away, or just a leaf rake will do as good a job.

This is often because this time of year, there is less light to the lawn and the grass cannot store enough energy to produce new leaves, it may also be to lack of ‘iron’, or a chill from cold winds and severe frosts. The shoots of the grass turn yellow and new leaves are not growing, this leaves the lawn looking yellow, stressed and tired. A good mixture of iron and seaweed feed will help replenish lost nutrients in the soil for the lawn. Lawn sand is the best approach to purchase for lawn care in winter, lawn sand is made up of three main ingredients. Sulphate of iron, sulphate of ammonia and of course the sand spreads it. This mixture spread over the lawn to the guidelines will keep your lawn green throughout the winter, plus giving strong shoots through to spring.

Christmas does give time for all gardeners to sit back and look over seed catalogues and planting ideas that you can find in various printed media, or internet platforms. It is a good time to reflect however and realise that however long you go on gardening, you can never exhaust yourself to master it. You can never stop learning about gardening, however long you have been gardening. This is because you can go into another’s garden and you will often see something they do to some particular crop, or flower, which you never thought of yourself and have never seen before. The fact of the matter is, there will always be someone who can grow a particular crop, or flower better than you. So this should give all gardeners something to think about on these dark evenings.

©Rob Knowlittle, December 2021 @drjohngardening