December Garden Tips

December Garden Tips
It's the festive season and a great time to get out in the garden with the family. Spuds are ready, plant leeks and pretty up the outdoors with some potted colour - plus protect those berries from the birds!

In the Veggie Patch

  • Christmas spuds: early potatoes may be harvested when their foliage starts to yellow - perfect for Christmas dinner!
  • Plant out swan plants ready for when monarch caterpillars are hatching and hungry!
  • Bird Netting over the strawberries, raspberries and blueberries - or that's Christmas Day desert gone
  • Plant leeks - the seedlings are best dropped into a hole the width of a pencil, or a long trench. Nature tends to fill in the soil as it drops around the leek after watering. A good tip is to trim off half of the green tip to encourage the growth

The rest of the Garden

  • Pretty up your pots for summer outdoors - geraniums, impatiens and petunias make excellent displays and have fun teaming them up with some basil, parsley or thyme - nice aromas around outdoor eating areas
  • Install a birdbath and keep it topped up with water to help feathered visitors get through the summer heat
  • Going away? Deep water, then mulch pots thickly and move them into shaded areas

Lawn

Best rule for summer mowing is to cut grass by one third of its length.