What I’m Sowing and Growing in January
I don’t generally recommend sowing anything in January. It’s easy to germinate seedlings at home of course, but then you will find that it’s too warm and the light levels are too low, so you will get leggy seedlings. If you move them to an unheated greenhouse, they will grow slowly, but then where will you plant them, that’s not too cold.
However if you have protected spaces like a conservatory, cold-frame, low tunnel or high polytunnel, then it might be worth it. I have all of these so I will be sowing quite a lot. It means I get things growing and free up window sill space that I will need in February. I also get a few things earlier than I would otherwise and for us – being self-sufficient in veg – early is a real treat.
Now for a quick update, we had a very wet November and early December, not much light and so not much growth, but late December has been great and it looks like early January will be too. As a result growth has been quite strong and we’ve had lots of opportunity to fill gaps that have opened up in the beds, with new seedlings – sown in Autumn – that will be ready in spring.
In summary then I have a good balance of planting this year. Lots of mature plants for winter harvests and plenty of new plantings that will be mature in spring. It’s a good position to be in. I’m also pleased to report that all of the fruit and veg for storage is now processed and in the garage and the preserves cupboard and freezer are full to bursting.
In the video I also spend a few minutes on the computer to show you the databases that I’m using to capture all of my knowledge about the 250+ varieties of fruit and veg that I grow and also the details of what I’m sowing.
Before we get to the video though you might like to check out my latest tour, which shows everything that’s growing, I’m afraid I forgot to do a December tour, but everything looks almost the same as it did in November.
So finally we get to January’s sowing and growing video:
What I’m Sowing and Growing in January
This video shows several databases that I’m using to manage my allotment this year.If you would like to find out more about these databases please take a look at the following video, and it’s associated description:
If you want to get a copy of the tools that I demonstrate in this video please click on this link and create an account. Once you have an account then click on this link to browse all of my databases, if you want, you can take a copy of the databases to use for yourself.
If you want to download any of the following views to a spreadsheet you can clock ‘download CSV’ to get your own private copy, or use the web based database I’m using by watching the video above.
When looking at these databases please bear in mind that they are live views onto rapidly evolving data. The content and design is being constantly improved. If you want to look at snapshots and/or take your own copies, please look at the video above and it’s associated description.
Here’s a complete read-only view of the sowing log and varieties database with all of my data: https://airtable.com/shrzYBHUBoyDtSN1F
Here’s what I’m planning to sow in January
Here’s what I sowed in November
For completeness here’s a view of my sowing database for 2019 with all the details!
Here’s a complete list of the varieties that I’m planning to sow in 2020
Watch out for the next video showing what I’m sowing in Febuary, here’s a hint A LOT!
Keep up the good work Steve. I watch your videos but these posts on what you plan to sow in the month ahead are incredibly useful to help keep me on track. I can tell you used to work as a project manager or something similar. You talk like one :). I’m so disorganised so these do genuinely help. Though I don’t quite share your fetish for the vast quantities of lettuce you seem to sow as nice as it is haha. You must eat about 20 a week.
Hi Simon, actually I didn’t work as a project manager, I’m a strategist/technologist/programme manager, but I did manage a few big early stage programmes, up until the point that they got boring and the project management team got too big. I do however like things to be organised and since I’m naturally lazy and disorganised (short attention span) I put in place systems to do the organising for me! Anyhow – lettuce – yes, I eat a big salad every day and the rest of the family put together eat about a salad a day, so that’s 14 a week, Salad harvests wax and wane through the year, so I need a relatively huge amount to pick enough for 14 meals a week in winter, but I only need about 4 beds in summer, but then we grow a lot of radish, purselane, spring onions, tomatoes etc etc to make up the full salad mix, not just the lettuce.