The Gardener's Journal
Sowing calendar
Issue 53 arrives Sunday
What to sow this week, and what to leave well alone.
One letter a week from a working plot, not a display garden. We sow broad beans now and forget about them until March. No advice we haven't tried ourselves first.
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This week's packets, sorted for the potting bench.
Jobs for August
This month- Harvest the garlic once the leaves start to yellow and fall.
- Sow spring cabbage for next year's hungry gap.
- Save seed from your best-flavoured tomato before the birds get it.
From the archive, written for August
Sunday, and only what the month asks for
Not a newsletter template. A letter, written plainly, that fits on one screen without scrolling twice.
The Gardener's Journal <letter@gardenersjournal.co>
Sow now, forget until March
Issue 49 · 4 min read
Sow now, forget until March
Morning. The nights have turned properly cold this week, which means it's time to get the overwintering broad beans in before the ground shuts up shop.
“We sow broad beans now and forget about them until March. That's not neglect — it's the whole method.”
Three things worth doing this week:
- Sow Aquadulce Claudia direct, five centimetres deep.
- Lift and store the last of the maincrop potatoes.
- Plant garlic once the soil drops below 10°C.
More on all three below, plus what to do if your ground is still too wet to work.
Until Sunday,
Marion
About the letter
One plot, twelve months, no display garden to hide behind.
This is written from a single allotment plot outside Sheffield — not a test garden, not a nursery. If something doesn't work here, we say so the following week, in print, for anyone to see.
We keep it short on purpose. One idea, the reasoning behind it, and what we'd do differently next year. No product round-ups, no sponsored seed.
Written by Marion Ashworth, who has kept this plot for eleven years and lost at least one full bed to slugs in every one of them.
From people who actually grow the stuff
“The February broad bean issue is the reason I finally stopped losing the whole row to frost. I do exactly what it says now, no improvising.”
“I run a forty-plot community garden and forward the September issue to every new member. It's shorter than our own handbook and better written.”
“Told me to stop watering shallow every evening and start watering deep twice a week. My tomatoes have never split since.”
The last six letters
- 4 min
№52 · December
The last turn of the heap
What a well-kept compost bin owes you by January.
- 6 min
№51 · November
Planting bare-root while the ground still gives
A short window, and how to know when it's closed.
- 5 min
№50 · October
What actually needs the greenhouse
A shorter list than you'd think, and one surprise.
- 4 min
№49 · September
Sow now, forget until March
The broad beans that overwinter and the ones that sulk.
- 4 min
№48 · August
Garlic tells you when it's ready
Reading the leaves instead of the calendar for once.
- 5 min
№47 · July
Watering deeply, twice, not shallow, daily
Why the hose every evening is doing less than you think.
Every Sunday, one thing worth sowing.
Free to join. We'll tell you what to plant, what to skip, and what we got wrong last time. No filler weeks.
