Stuck inside?

It may be too much to ask, for you to look forward to a day stuck indoors, sadly pining at the back door, but there are tons of things you can do to better your garden from the warmth of your home.

I reached out to the community and have put together their feedback for you to enjoy.

Binge watch videos

Ok, starting on a particularly lazy one here but there is a whole internet of information out there to digest while keeping yourself dry and warm.

I like videos from those who are clearly passionate about gardening and have useful tips to share. I would recommend focussing primarily on growers from your country or region, as their advice will be linked to your growing conditions.

• Huws Nursery: Huw is very informative, he keeps his videos nice and short and he’s also quite handsome.
• Self Sufficient Me: Mark is brilliant. He’s funny, he loves growing his own food and he’s very practical with his advice. Like Huw, there is no waffle in his videos and he has great advice for growing in raised beds. Do be careful if you don’t live in his climate that timings or conditions need to be researched.
• Charles Dowding: Charles is very endearing and he is a huge advocate for no dig gardening. He makes growing food in his kitchen garden look super easy and he also busts lots of myths which we all seem to have inherited. I would especially recommend his videos on multisowing.

Try not to get too inspired though, you’re still stuck inside.

Reading

Many of us in the community subscribe to a monthly magazine or two and, if you’re anything like me, I have a hard time getting through them quicker than they come through the door. Today on this raining day, you can grab the hot beverage of your choice, shift the cat or dog off your comfy chair, put your feet up and simply read.

"I would sit down, coffee in hand and go through this month's magazine (again!) cross reference with my journal, re-read the back of all packets of seeds and happily check where I am and make notes of what's coming up... to make sure I'm really clear on the next steps with my plants - absolute bliss" - Momma Thorny-Pot

We have an excellent high street here and their second hand bookshop is rammed full of gardening books. My top three books, if you can get your hands on them are:

1. Gardeners World: Geoff Hamilton - This is the bible of looking after a garden. It’s not dedicated to growing food but has great general advice.
2. Grow vegetables: Alan Buckingham - I like structure and this book is well ordered and has a wide range of fruit and vegetable advice. Alan describes how to care for each plant, throughout its whole process from start to finish and also highlights what could go wrong.
3. Veg in One Bed: Huw Richards - I wrote a short review on this book which holds your hands through growing a large amount of veg in one (relatively) small plot.

Cleaning & organising

Today would be a perfect day for getting your seed packets, tools and (if you have one) growing cupboard organised and cleaned.

Take a look at what seeds are out-of-date or, if you have multiple packets of the same seed and don’t want to throw them away, organise them so you use up the oldest first. We made a simple seed organiser, which has divider for each month which helps us to see at a quick glance what is due to go out or what should be on the windowsill.

Our brains need organising too every so often. Whatever your method is to ordering your thoughts, get into a good routine of making notes of what worked, what didn’t and what did you learn from the last time your planted a certain plant. My favourite methods are:

• Microsoft Todo: I’m not great a keeping handwritten notes but this free app allows me to create simple lists of notes. I then use these to write up the fruit and vegetable pages on the website.
• Gardening journals: You could either buy a gardening journal or a simple notebook and keep all notes on each fruit and veg, on its own separate page. That (along with this website obviously) will then become your vault of knowledge on that particular plant.

You could also paint your own stone labels if you have some brushes and paint laying about.

Sowing

Is there anything you can get started on the windowsill today? Pop some newspaper down, get your labels out and make a morning of it.

This could be a chance to test to see if multisowing produces more or less crops than single sown, or test to see which windowsill your seedlings prefer in your house. It’s all learnings.

Maybe in the future, if you’re expecting a rainy day, hold off the windowsill jobs until you’re stuck indoors.

You could also make a windowsill plan, which I describe in my “Creating your own year planner” guide. This will remind you which months you need to get seedlings going indoors.

This article was put together using the feedback, thoughts and advice of the thorny pot community. Thank you to everyone for your input and your valuable time.

If you found this useful or want to be a part of our growing community, come check us out on Twitter @athornypot or add a comment below.

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Article written on Apr 28, 2020
Updated Apr 28, 2020