FULL MOON 6th February

Garden

  • Sow root vegetables such as carrots, beetroot, parsnips, radish, daikon, turnips and swedes. Important to get them sown to avoid a gap later
  • Liquid feed tomatoes, peppers and eggplants with liquid comfrey
  • Continue making liquid comfrey to feed tomatoes and peppers
  • Foliar feed three days after the full moon
  • Harvest rest of potatoes and store in breathable bags (hessian is good) bags, or boxes in dark as cool as you can find place.
  • Plant empty beds with carbon crops (check out the range available on our website). Check Garden Planner but I suggest if you are building soil and soil fertility then plant in carbon crops that are also legumes, and fork in 2.5cm of Ramial wood chip into the top 5cm of garden bed soil to use the cooler months to build your soil and fertility as well as moisture holding capacity and enormous fungal networks which hold the structure in your soil and enable you to become no dig and actually have it work!

Perennials

  • Take a break

Forest Garden

  • Plant spring bulbs in groups in orchard ground cover

LAST QUARTER 14th February

Garden

  • Prick out seedlings, transplant and weed
  • Check corn, quinoa and amaranth grains for maturity and harvest
  • Harvest, dry and store seeds from your favourite veges and flowers, ensuring you have followed rules of minimum numbers and isolation distances as in Kōanga Save Your Own Seed Booklet or the Kōanga Seed Savers Wall Chart
  • Follow instructions in above publications to know how to harvest dry clean and store seeds
  • Harvest Austrian hulless pumpkins when they have a deep yellow stripe on them, to process see Seed Saving Booklet. Leave to sit for 4 weeks before cutting to remove seed.
  • Harvest shellout or dried beans and process and store
  • Make sure all onions, garlic and shallots are harvested and stored well, with Mother seed set aside
  • Plan Winter garden and make sure you know which beds your, garlic and early peas and broad beans will be in. As summer crops come off these beds you could plant crops to dig in three weeks before planting the crop
  • Spray roses with seaweed, water roots well and liquid feed
  • Sow anemones and ranunculi for winter flowering
  • Finish planting all daffodils and flowering bulbs
  • Lift gladioli when foliage turns yellow
  • Water and feed dahlias for long, strong flowering
  • Take geranium cuttings
  • Layer carnations
  • Prepare beds for planting Autumn Winter flowers

Forest Garden

  • Tree energy is returning from the roots to the tops now ready to elongate the branches and set buds that will become next seasons fruit
  • Summer prune apricots, peaches and plums after the fruit has been picked. This makes winter pruning easier and there is less chance of disease
  • Do a second Reams soil test in preparation for second fertiliser application in late March / April. Unless you have exceptional soil, I would fertilise for 2 -3 years until ramial wood chip is decomposing on the ground all through forest garden if at all possible

NEW MOON  22nd February

Garden

  • Prepare, compost and feed if necessary, beds for Winter planting
  • A good time to collect seaweed and cow manure to use on brassica and celery beds and for any other gross feeders
  • Tomato, pepper and eggplant maintenance – mainly feeding and disease control. Stop delateralling tomatoes
  • Check grains for maturity and harvest
  • Plant seed for the winter garden such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, kale, lettuce, onions, swedes, turnips, parsley, welsh bunching onions, silverbeet, chard, orach, celery, peas, miner’s lettuce and corn salad
  • Use neem oil on tomatoes and beans if necessary for shield bugs
  • Plant flowers for winter and spring colour such as calendula, heartsease, stocks, chamomile, hollyhocks, sweet William, forget-me-nots, columbine and verbascum
  • Plant early flowering Sweet Peas
  • Think about fertilisers going forwards and check out our new online Making Regenerative Fertilisers workshop.

Perennials

  • Leave them until the rains come then cutback, feed and mulch

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Terminal bud set occurring then energy goes back down to roots
  • Irrigate all trees as required
  • Cut grass and release all trees planted previous Winter, in readiness for rain as well as to feed soil; fungi to feed roots as they become active again
  • Clean up herb banks and trim lavender
  • A good time to cut any coppicing trees in shelter or hedgerows for firewood or garden stakes
  • Make lists of tasks needing to be carried out in the orchard such as maintenance work on fencing, irrigation or drainage or this winter’s development before it gets too wet to carry out
  • Make a list to help organize winter planting and order any trees you need
  • Shifting nets to protect fruit from birds
  • Our Forest Garden Wallchart will help you keep on track

FIRST QUARTER 29th February

Garden

  • Plant green manure and compost crops as beds become empty
  • Check moisture levels everywhere as plants grow very strongly over the full moon period only if they have the moisture and nutrients to do so
  • Foliar and root feed three days before full moon for maximum growth
  • Use liquid comfrey on tomatoes and peppers
  • Prick out and transplant seedlings (there are heaps of tips here)
  • Sow heartsease and calendula for companion to garlic, onions etc over the winter

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Water subtropical orchard and apply fert to achieve strong autumn growth well before frosts
  • Coppice firewood and stakes from shelter hedgerows
  • Last chance to get a Reams soil test, in time to apply fert at optimal time for tree health.. no use putting on fert when energy is in the tops of the trees and roots are dormant, some will be lost to tree roots and wasted