The January Garden

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Our January garden is growing well. January is usually our coldest month and we still have about 6 weeks until our average last frost date. We’ve had to cover the garden 4 or 5 times so far when the temperatures have dipped just below freezing for the night.

My hoop house was somewhat of a flop…literally, the wind just blows it down. I do think that this is an area I’m still going to explore in the future since we’ve enjoyed having a few tomatoes this winter. I just need a better design.

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As you can see, we need to clean out several beds. We’ll be making boxes for most of them to do raised beds. I’m really loving the raised beds that we have.

At some point in January, we’ll be pruning our trees. The lemon tree is in serious need of a some branch removal and so are our pecan trees. Of the eight fruit trees we planted last year, 6 are doing well. We lost one apple and one plum so those will need to be replaced this month. The others will get a little pruning to encourage some growth.

We will also be planting a couple more blueberry plants of another variety…I haven’t decided which one just yet. Our blueberries are grown in pots and are doing well. Our soil isn’t acidic enough to grow them in the soil so that’s why we do them in pots. Gardening is a funny thing in that so much depends on your climate. For instance, blueberries need full sun. Everyone knows that, every book about growing blueberries says that, every blog post says that, even the tag that comes with the blueberry bushes says that. But what I’ve found is that our blueberries do better when they are in partial shade for the summer. Maybe it’s because they’re in pots and I’m not watering enough, I don’t know, but if I don’t move them under a tree for some cover all the new growth gets burned up. Something about having day after day of 100 degree weather tends to burn up young plants. So this year, I’m going to just try them under the tree all year and see what happens.

We’ve been preparing an area for strawberries since last year. Strawberries have been on our wish list for a long time. We’ll probably plant a couple of varieties to determine which ones do best in our area. It’s suggested that we grow strawberries as an annual plant instead of a perennial because of our summer heat. We’ll just have to experiment some to see if it’s worth trying to get them to survive the summer.

I also want to mention that if you are interested in living a more self sufficient lifestyle filled with whole foods you might want to consider taking part in the new Coffee Table Conversations online conference. This is a 12 week conference that will cover all kinds of topics such as cooking with whole foods, using essential oils, fighting fatigue, alternative and home remedies, allergy free cooking and (my favorite) gardening. Each session will last a week and there will be a live online component and a facebook page for you to interact with the speakers – I’ll be one of the speakers for the gardening session. The live component will also be recorded so you don’t HAVE to do the live part each week.

Are you doing any gardening or garden planning yet?

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12 thoughts on “The January Garden”

  1. You have pecan trees! So jealous! ;0D
    For your hoops, do you have anything weighing down the sides? Seems like if you staked them or put bricks on the ends it would stay in place better.
    Enjoy the work in the garden! It beats shoveling snow!

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  2. So jealous of your garden! The snow is nearly deeper than me. So happy to have a post to share with some of our readers that aren’t currently drowning in snow! If you ever wanna make a trade for some pecans… I’m your gal. 😉

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