Urban Gardener's Journal - January 2025 tips

Dear Growers,

Happy New Year! 🎉 We hope your year is off to a bright start and that you're as excited as we are for the new growing season ahead.

For those of you who started growing last year, take a moment to celebrate your journey—you’ve navigated a challenging year for urban gardening, and that’s no small feat, especially given the lows of last year! In my own gardens, the No Dig method continues to help with weather challenges, and provide a bounty of vegetables, proving there’s always something to harvest, even in the colder months.

For new sowings, ensure your fleece covers are ready for frosty nights and have sturdy support systems in place for windy days.

Here’s to another year of growing, experimenting, and enjoying fresh, homegrown produce!

1. What to Sow / Transplant this month?

Indoor sowing

• Broad Beans: Sow indoors in January to transplant in February under fleece. Broad Beans sown earlier in December can also be transplanted under cover now if the ground isn’t frozen. Late sowing is always an option, but starting early sets you up for earlier crops while helping reduce pests like black flies.

• Peppers, Chilis, and Aubergines: These long-season crops thrive with an early start indoors around the end of January/early February, only to be transplanted after the last frost of the season, to ensure a fruitful summer harvest. Start seeds indoors in a warm location. Note that you will need to re-pot to larger containers, so make sure you have the space and time as they will be transplanted outdoors around late-May. They need not only frost-free but also true warmth to thrive.

• Bulb and Spring Onions: I like to begin sowing indoors around the end of January/beginning February, to transplant after 6-8 weeks for healthy transplants. These are frost-hardy compared to Aubergine and Peppers, and can be planted around mid-March outdoors. The reason for early sowing is that they have a long seed-to-harvest period, therefore if you have indoor space you can start sowing earlier to transplant in spring.

For outdoor transplants, you can still directly transplant garlic cloves if you didn’t get the chance in December, but do it asap for larger bulbs.

A photo of our broad bean sowings from November, transplanted after 4 weeks.

2. What seeds to get ready for February?

If you have indoor growing space, you can get the following seeds ready to sow indoors to be transplanted after 4+ weeks:

• Spinach (cold hardy types - i.e., not the Malabar or New Zealand summer type)

• Lettuce for heads and leaves

• Brassicas that are suitable for spring such as Radish, Turnip, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Kohlrabi

• Cold-hardy Herbs such as Parsley and Dill

• Peas, mainly for shoots but potentially for pods in case of a milder winter

• Fennel for bulbs to minimize chances of bolting

3. Jobs to be Done

• Garden planning: It is a good time to do some drawings as part of your new year planning. Here are some inspiration garden bed designs with Sowing & Succession calendars for each vegetable on the bed. We are offering these for ***FREE*** for our community with code: STARTGARDENING to be used at checkout

• Maintain your soil with compost: As we start the new year, if you have not yet had the time, it is still a great time to maintain soil health. You can do so by adding 2-3cm compost to empty spots. Check out our post here for tips on how to apply compost in your beds.

• De-weeding: This is a good time to be on top of your weeds, by removing them small before next spring. If you are starting new this season - check out No Dig Method to smother the current weedy areas with cardboard and compost, while minimizing soil disturbance.

4. Harvests & Seasonal Chef tips

• Radicchio Salad: Brighten up your table with this vibrant radicchio salad. It’s packed with bold flavors and the perfect balance of bitterness and crunch. Full inspiration here.

• Pumpkin Feast: Embrace the season of pumpkins with these cozy, flavor-packed dishes! Our pumpkin winner is the Pumpkin Butter Sage Gnocchi A must-try for gnocchi lovers, this dish is rich, creamy, and utterly satisfying. Recipe inspiration here. Second in line is the Pumpkin Curry. Perfect for cold winter nights, this comforting curry is full of warmth and spice. Find it here.

• Kohlrabi Bean Wraps: Crunchy kohlrabi paired with a creamy bean filling makes for a wholesome and satisfying wrap. Check out the recipe details here.

5. BYG Updates

We have just launched our new seed catalogue in December with all seeds you can find here. For us, it is important to bring you clean seeds - that are open pollinated, organic and mostly with Demeter certification for a bio-dynamic farming methods.

We have also started with monthly seed selection - first one January Seed Pack. These six vegetables are perfect for small to medium sized urban growers, and we will also be sowing them with you that we can keep sharing our updates!

In the new year, we will continue on announcing exciting developments with building new gardens, new content, continuously adding our favorite gardening products, as well as some secret behind the scenes developments - so don't miss out!

See you in our next newsletter in February 2025!

In case of any questions in the meanwhile, feel free to reach out.