By February most keen gardeners are itching to get back outside and get involved in the garden, The weather can still limit what you can do at this time of year but you should certainly be starting to plan what crops you are aiming to produce, As long as the ground isn’t frozen, the key job for this month is to cultivate and prepare seedbeds, covering them with clear polythene, cloches or fleece to warm up the soil before sowing.
The Weather this winter has been so mild with daytime temperatures regularly reaching 10 – 12 so getting fruit and vegetables growing is not going to be a problem right now in fact we have been mowing our turf on the farm right through the winter including Christmas week unbelievably! The rain could however be a problem as trying to dig up wet ground can be a nightmare, you have to use an opportunistic approach to your outside projects this time of year.
February is a great time to think about adding a strong soil improver to turbo charge those borders in time for the growing season, these wet periods are especially useful if you have very heavy and stiff clay type soils in your garden because they tend to be very hard to cultivate and work in your soil improver in the dry months once the ground gets hard.