January on the nursery

On the nursery in January

The start of the new year, after Christmas it always feels a bit quiet, so we try to take some time off to recharge the batteries.
January is also a good time to carry out some maintenance, we clean the glass and benches, check over the potting machines and heating system.

In the past we tried to keep the greenhouses full all year round. In January azaleas, hydrangeas, begonias, fuchsias and geraniums would be growing having been delivered just before Christmas. To make them grow we had to heat the greenhouses and use artificial lights, during the coldest part of the year, this was to produce early crops but in practice they often didn’t make enough money to cover the extra costs.
In reality growing plants in January with its short days and low sun is always difficult, the crops needed a lot of expensive energy to make them grow. Using the figures from our nursery computer we realised that if you add up all the sunlight in January it is equivalent to just one sunny day in July. If you are lucky enough to get some sun in January it is not powerful enough to warm up the greenhouses, so now we have moved our summer plant potting back to February and they are still ready on time. When you are sowing and potting at home don’t be in too much of a hurry, wait for the sun, you will have better plants.

Towards the end of the month we started to sow some seeds, peppers, chilli, tomatoes and aubergines need an early start if they are going to be ready for April sales.

It is expensive to heat a green house to 25 degrees in January so we have a heated insulated cupboard to start the seeds growing, we check them every day and when they germinate we bring the tomatoes into the green house to grow on at a lower temperature. The chilli and peppers need to be kept warm so we use some artificial light in the cupboard to keep them growing.