Welcome to Gardening with Ben, the podcast where we dig into the soil of
our gardens and the depths of our green funds. I'm your host, Ben,
here to guide you through the joints of gardening, from sowing seeds to
reaping bountiful harvests. Each episode will explore tips, tricks and tails from the
garden and allotment, sharing insights from ourself and stories from our own back garden
adventures. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just getting your hands dirty for the
first time, there's something here for everyone, So grab your brew and gardening
gloves and let's get growing with Gardening with Ben. Hello everyone, and welcome
back to Gardening with Ben's podcast and today's episode, we are going to be
talking about what to plant in February. Yes, so we're going to be
literally looking at all the different things you can plant in the vegetable garden,
in the flower garden, or in the fruit orchard so as winter grips begin
to loosen, February offers a unique window for gardeners. It's a time when
the quiet of the garden starts to home with positivity as springs starts to approach
from the allotment to the backyard. We're on the cusp of spring's revival and
it's time to lay the groundwork for a bountiful year. In this episode will
delve into the seeds that far in February is cool. Embrace whether you're wrapping
your fingers around a packet of onions, leaks, or perhaps a vibrant pansies
and snapdragons were here to guide you through each step. So sit back,
carry your seed trays, and let's begin gardening with Ben's February Planting podcast.
So in this episode, as we always say, because these are very popular
episodes, these are what to plant each month, and they usually get a
lot of listeners to and rather than having to keep coming back and listening to
it, which you can do if you want to, is gop yourself a
notebook and we'll make some notes on what you can plant this month. And
remember obviously this is the UK timings as well, so if you're listening to
this, this is what to plant in February in the UK timings. So
hopefully we'll get through all this episode. First off, we'll talk about what
to plant in the vegetable garden. Then it will be what to plant in
the fruit garden, and then what to plant in the flower garden, and
some of these things obviously you'll need some heat to grow them because obviously it's
cold weather at the moment. But yeah, hopefully you will be able to
start growing some seeds or plants in February, and I know I'm looking forward
to it. It is warming up a bit here in the UK, but
they have tipped that snow is on the way again. But you know what
the weather forecast is, it can change for one minute to the other minute.
So make sure you've got your notebook, grab yourself a cup of coffee,
and let's look at what we can start sewing in February. So right,
let's start with what vegetables we can start to grow in February. And
there's quite a lot. I didn't realize how many seeds there actually are what
we can start growing in February. And yeah, this could be quite a
long list for us to write down, but we'll go for it, or
step by step and talk about what we can start sewing in February. So
first on the list is auber gene. These do take a long time to
get growing, but they'll need some heat to start them off. So if
you're wanting a good crop of aubergines, now is the time to be sewing
them so that you get an earlier crop and you can get them rightening faster
towards the summertime. So if you're wanting to grow aubergeens this year, now
is the time to be sowing the seeds for them. Beetroots. If it's
warming off in your greenhouse, why not start some seeds off now and get
them planted ready for planting ones to Frost has gone, so start an early
crop and get some beet growing. If you fancy it, broad beans,
you can plant out hardy ones this month. So if you've got some hardy
broad beans, feel free to start planting them outside, but make sure that
they are the hardy variety and not the ones that will get affected by frost
and snow, because, like I said, snow could be on the way
pretty soon. Brussels sprouts, did you know that these take nearly all year
to grow, So if you're wanting to grow some Brussels sprouts, this is
the month to start your seeds off sewing, or you can start them off
next month as well, So either February or March for growing your Brussels sprouts,
And I'm tempted about growing the purple variety this year. You'd never know.
They might actually taste nice. But yeah, have a look around and
see what Brussels sprouts you want to start growing. If you wanted to start
some summer variety cabbages, this is the month to start your cabbage off.
Whether you wanted to start them out to get them planted out after the frost
has gone, but now is the time to be growing summer varieties of cabbage
carrots again. If it's warming off in the greenhouse, why not start some
sewing of carrots now? And if you sew some now, then you can
keep doing a continuous crop throughout the year and get them growing with plenty of
crops coming throughout the year. And carrot seeds are pretty cheap as well.
They're not the most expensive and you get absolutely thousands of seeds in a packet,
so it's worth off giving them a try. Cauliflower, why not start
sewing some cauliflower this month and next month I will definitely be growing mouth Favorit
variety again. It's purple cauliflower, not the white cauliflower, but the purple
one if you have a look on Amazon. It's not a fake one,
it's a real one, because sometimes you get fake seeds and stuff like that.
They say, or you could grow purple watermelon, but their cons But
there are purple cauliflowers out there, and my purple cauliflowers grow a lot better
than the white variety. Something I won't be growing next. Celery. If
you're wanted to start grow some clery, this is the month to start sewing
it. Chickerray. If you want a summer harvest of chickray, you can
start sewing these this month in the polytunnel or under clotters. Garlic if you
haven't started your garlic coffee yet, start them off now in the greenhouse and
start planting them out in the soil this month, because you still need that
cold weather to help make them split and to grow a proper garlic bulb.
Jerusalem artichoke. Have you ever tried growing jerusalem choke? I know I certainly
haven't. Maybe I should give that a try as well this year. If
you want you to grow some plant tubers this month in the ground. Leaks.
If you're wanting to grow some whoppers like your seat in the shows and
stuff like that. Now is the time to be sewing the leaks. Get
them sewn in the greenhouse this month for big massive leaks in the garden peace.
If you're wanted to start some early piece off, you'll need to sew
these undercover in pots. Just remember to protect them from mice and rats because
they do love to come and find them. So if you're wanting an early
crop of peas, start sewing them in pots now. But obviously we don't
plant them outside yet, but just start them off in pots undercover where it's
nice and warm, and you can start an early crop off peas off peppers.
Again, these are light aubergines. They need to be grown nice and
early and started. So if you wanted them to germinate, you'll need to
start them off in somewhere really warm because they need about twenty four degrees to
get the germinated peppers doe. So if you want to grow peppers, start
them off this month inside in a nice warmth. But remember that they don't
get too much like light, and that they don't they need the adequate amount
of light to grow peppers because you don't want them growing funny. Obviously,
you need all the lighting equipment or a nice window sill so that they don't
grow really thin and spin like potatoes. If you've not started chitting your potatoes
this month, this month you can start them off. Make sure that in
a bright space where it's frost free, put them in some ekeboxes and start
chitting them ready for planting now. I always plant my potatoes out on Good
Friday. I know it moves every year, but I always stick to that.
We will plant my potatoes on Good Friday. Radish these are one of
the fastest growing vegetables to grow. You can keep sewing these regular intervals all
throughout the year, and you can start some off this month if you want.
In an early croper. Radish shalots as well as growing your garlic outdoors
this month, you can sew your shalots outside as well, and you can
start them off in the greenhouse if you want, or you can start them
off straight outside in the ground. Spring onions get the name from being spring.
Now is the time to start sewing some spring onions, but make sure
it's in a nice, warm greenhouse ready to plant out in a couple of
months, and then you can start a later batch off later as well.
Again, you can keep doing a regular sewing so that you get a regular
crop of spring onions. Again, you get loads to see in a packet.
So if you wanted to grow some spring onions, this is the month
to start sawing them. Tomatoes. If you sew your tomatoes now, the
longer year of cropping you'll have from them. So you can have to start
them off this month or next month, depending on if you're growing them indoors
or outdoors. I'll be growing man in my greenhouse. I'll be starting them
off next month. But yeah, now you can start sewing all your tomato
seeds and let me know what variety of tomatoes you'll be growing. So that
is basically everything that you can sow in the vegetable garden in February. And
as I said, there is a lot of stuff on there, but do
not go rushing things. Don't go thinking, oh, I can start sawing
all these seeds now. I tend to wait until March time before start sawing
all my seeds. Again, I don't have anywhere indoors and I don't get
the right amount of light to grow it. Indoors all grow weedy. If
I grown indoors. I usually wait until it's warmed up and I start sawing
them in March in my greenhouse. Obviously, if you wanted to grow the
peppers and the aubergines, you do need to start sewing them now. They'll
be too late. If you start sewing them next month, they possibly might
catch up, but I tend to start them off this month if you're going
to be growing peppers and auber jeans. So yeah, I hope you've enjoyed
that part of the section. Next up, we're going to be talking about
what things we can plant in the fruit garden in February, And obviously as
the months go on, these lists will get longer. So that's one of
the reasons why I start doing all my jobs in my allotment all the way
through the winter, because once it starts getting to sow with seeds and stuff
like that, it gets quite busy and you don't get a chance to do
all the jobs you want in the allotment. So what can we plant in
February. There's still lots of stuff we can be planting in February. Again,
this is a dormant time. It's just before the fruit starts waking up.
In springtime and starts taking root and growing all the leaves and everything,
so there is a lot we can actually plant in February. Now is the
time to be planting all your fruit trees and all your fruit bushes. You
don't want to be planting them in summertime because they will not take as well
as they would do in a winter time when there's lots of rain and water
to get them growing. Really, so this month we can plant as currant
trees. These can be black currants, red currants, and your white currants.
Remember to leave enough space in between the plants because they will get quite
big and bushy. Blackberries. If you're wanting to grow some blackberries, this
is the time to be planting your BlackBerry cans. The ideal place to grow
your blackberries is down the side of your plot so that you can fasten the
canes along fencing or edging to grow them along that. I've got phoneless blackberries
on my plot and they are absolutely fantastic. You wouldn't You couldn't believe how
far they've actually grown the canes on them. They're absolutely fantastic, and obviously
they don't spike you to death when you try and pick all the blackberries,
which I didn't want. I love blackberries, but I wanted somewhere Obviously,
I don't prick on myself as I'm picking them all and the knife and they
just don't hurt you, to be honest, and they're an absolutely delicious variety.
I get absolutely loads on these blackberries. So I do recommend growing phoneless
blackberries fruit trees. You'll see them everywhere in the shops at the moment,
supermarkets, garden centers, and yeah, I did buy mine from the supermarket
and they've done absolutely fantastic. I get a fantastic produce from them, and
they're cheap as all. So if you're wanting some fruit trees, have a
look around your supermarkets. And if you're looking for plum tree, I recommend
the Victoria plum tree, as that is the one that I've got and it
does absolutely delicious plums. Gooseberries. Now is the time to be planting gooseberries.
Now. I have not got any green gooseberries on my moment. I've
got red gooseberries growing on mine. Green ones are sour, but red ones
are sweet and the red ones taste absolutely delicious. So if you wanted something
nice sweet gooseberries. Now is the time to be planted them. So I
have a look around for the red varieties raspberries. Now it's the time to
be planting your raspberry canes. You can try summer fruiting ones, or you
can grow autumn raspberries. Just remember to label them up so let you know
which ones are which, whether you plant some at one side of the plot
or some at the other side of the plot, so that you know which
varieties they are. And you need to remember which ones they are, because
some of the variety ones grow the raspberries on the canes which have grown the
previous year, whereas autumn raspberries grown the same canes what grew that year,
So you need to know which variety you are growing. Why not get some
of both so that you get a continuous crop of raspberries all the way through
summer and autumn. Rubarb. My rubarb's just started waking up now, had
grown some really good rubarb on it, and then the cold came killed it
off again, went back to sleep. Now it started waking back up again
until the cold comes again. So if you wanted to grow rhubarb, now
is the time to be planting a rhubarb crown, but don't pick any rhubarb
from it in its first year. It needs to take root and it needs
to get growing, and yeah, don't be tempted to pick any from it
from the first year. And yeah, why not try growing some rubarb from
seed. I've grown rubarb from seed before and it's done very well. So
if you wanted to grow some rubarb from seed, give it a girl.
But obviously it'll take quite a few years to get up and running, so
he might as well just go out and get a rub of crown. If
you want strawberry plants, you can now start planting strawberries this month. You'd
think that they wouldn't be able to manage through the cold weather, but they
are the strong, tough plants to say, how small they are, so
it's good to replace plants that are older than three years old as to won't
produce many strawberries. So keep planting new ones every few years and you'll get
a great crop of strawberries. And I know I've got over two hundred plants
on my pot, so I'm going to have a fantastic crop of strawberries down
at my allotment. This year, and I've still got a load of mind
my greenhouse that I need to plant out. So watch this space for how
many strawberry plants I'm going to be planting. So that was everything that you
can plant in the fruit garden in February. So obviously, now if you're
starting an allotment this year, it's perfect opportunity to be getting these fruit trees
and plants planted. And again, like I say, they're everywhere that you
look at the moment. In the supermarkets have got all the fruit plants and
stuff like that. So I get looking around, get looking for those bargains,
and get growing some fruit down on your allotment because it will pay for
itself. It will pay off the allotment with how much fruit you can get
from fruits, bushes and trees. So next up we're going to be looking
at what to plant in the flower garden. And again I didn't used to
grow flowers on my allotment, but now I absolutely love growing flowers because the
more bees and the more wildlife I get to the plot, the more fruit
we get from our plants, because the more bees that are attractive to it,
the more they'll pollinate the flowers. And you'll get more produced from your
allotment. So if you're wanting to be starting some flowers off, this is
a good month to be starting some of these plants off. So first up
are begonias. Now it is time to wake up your grown in your tunas.
This can be done planting the tubers in pots of compass at a minimum
temperature of ten Degreasies chrysanthemums. If you're wanting to grow these fantastic sure stop
of flowers, sow some seed this month in your greenhouse for fantastic blooms in
the garden and the allotment. I've never actually grown some show stop at chrysanthemums.
Maybe I need to give it a try and see if you can actually
grow some fantastic looking ones down at the allotment. So I might add that
to my listen as well this year. Dahlias. These can look amazing in
the garden blooming all summer, so sow the seed this month for planting out
later this year. Geraniums. They're quite expensive to buy geraniums, but you
can actually grow them res it easy from seed and I've done this in my
greenhouse before, start some off seed and had flowers on in the same year,
and if you dig the geraniums up and put them in the greenhouse over
the winter, you can plant them back out the year after. So geraniums
are a good flower to grow, So now is the time to be sowing
the geranium seeds in the greenhouses. Lilies, if you wanted to grow some
amazing flowers which have fantastic fragrance in the garden, start sewing your lily bulbs
now and again. These will be in the supermarkets in the shop the lily
bulbs. I've seen them in my local ones, so get out and buy
some lilies for the garden. Lobelia these look fantastic in pots and hanging baskets,
so saw some in the greenhouse this month in Ferry for fantastic displays in
your hanging baskets and pots. And the very small seeds have been absolutely really
small roses I've seen these in the supermarkets are everywhere at the moment, but
now is the time to be pl in bear rooted roses in the garden for
fantastic summer displays all year long. Sweet peas one of the best flowers you
can grow at the allotment, and trust my I absolutely love growing flowers,
especially sweet peas, because you can just keep cutting them off, and the
more you keep cutting them, the more the flower and they keep on going
throughout the year. So if you want them to just grow some sweet peas,
now is the time to start sewing them. So that is everything that
you can plant in your flower garden. So obviously, like I say,
these episodes are going to get longer as the year goes on, as they
you can plant more and more stuff as it starts to get warmer. But
we do usually try and keep these episodes pretty short and sweet. But I
hope that you found all this information useful. I hope you've got a nice
long list of things that you can start sawing at your plot. Remember to
think about whether you want to start them this month or next month, whether't
to start them in the greenhouse, or if you've got enough light in the
house to grow some stuff. But like I said, a lot of the
stuff I will be planting next month, so remember on the temperatures and stuff
like that as well. If you've not checked out, there's a link in
the description of my Amazon gift list. I know people have said that they
want to help me in the past, so I've added a gift list now
so that you can buy little bits for my allotment if you've fancy, and
I will obviously show the pictures of it on my Instagram and stuff like that.
And thank you for all the support that you do give me. And
yeah, if you've not clicked the hit the follow us button on here or
the subscribe button, please do and you'll be able to stay up to date
with all my podcasts. And after I finished recording this one, I'm going
to be recording tomorrow's so make sure you come back for tomorrow's episode because we're
going to be talking about all the jobs which need to be done in the
allotment and garden in February, and again that's usually another good topic to talk
about, so make sure you come back for tomorrow's episode. Until then,
remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben everyone, And
that wraps up another episode of Gardening with Ben. Thank you for joining me
in this journey. Remember, every seed planted is a step towards a greener
world, and every day is a chance to grow something beautiful. Keep nurturing
your gardens and your souls. Until next time, I'm gardening with Ben,
reminding you to let your garden be your sanctuary. Happy gardening, and see
you in the next episode. Remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep
gardening with Ben.