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January: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
The Food Forest, The Raised Bed Garden & The Kitchen Courtyard
Our Scottish Garden in January
January arrives in the garden with a quiet, thoughtful energy. The earth is cold, the daylight is short and gentle and frost often lingers well into the morning. While this may seem like a restful pause after the bustle of the previous year, January has its own rhythms and rewards. It’s a month of preparation, subtle beginnings and laying foundations, both in the soil and in our plans for the growing year ahead.
The Food Forest
In the food forest this month, growth above ground is mostly hidden, but beneath the soil there is subtle movement and potential.
Our Plans for this year with the food forest
When the soil is workable between frosts, rain, high winds we’ll take the opportunity to plant a few new bare root fruit trees and bushes, we’ll be going for some more, pear, plum, and cherries, our apples are doing so well. We’ll carefully space them and mulching well to protect their roots through Winter. Likewise, we want to add some more blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry and pheasant berry bushes into well drained positions. We have them in the raised beds but looking to add more into the food forest.
Knowing that these dormant plants will begin steady root development long before their leaves appear, the next few weeks are perfect time to get them in. With generous layers of leaf mulch and compost applied around the base, these new additions are set to settle in during this quieter months, ready to greet Spring with strength.
We do have our snowdrops popping up all around the gardens making a lovely break in the ground
Catkins on the Hazel trees coming in
The Raised Beds
January is a month of indoor sowing and quiet bed preparation. In our raised beds, we are not yet seeing greenness above the soil, but there is plenty happening inside the house that will shape the year’s bounty. Onions and leeks were started in trays on bright windowsills and under grow lights, giving them an early head start toward strong summer growth. Herb seeds, including basil, parsley, chives, coriander, dill, thyme, lemon balm, oregano and marjoram were sown in fine soils, carefully tended with gentle warmth and moisture to encourage healthy roots before the outdoor world warms.
Outdoors, mulch and leaf cover continue to protect the beds, helping conserve moisture and structure until temperatures rise enough for direct sowing. Clearing any lingering debris and improving soil drainage in wetter patches is also part of our slow Winter preparation, so that when Spring arrives the beds are ready and receptive
Daffodils are starting to emerge too in pots and in the ground
The Kitchen Courtyard & Indoors
Closer to the house, the kitchen courtyard and interior growing spaces are alive with fresh greens. Micro-greens, rocket, mustard, peas, and winter lettuces are flourishing on bright windowsills, bringing vibrant colour and nourishment to the kitchen even in the depths of Winter. These small, daily pickings bring a sense of continuity between the winter garden and the kitchen table. Check what we are sowing here: What Can I Plant In The Winter Months In Scotland? and take a look at our new monthly series: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
HOW WE KEEP OUR MICRO-GREENS GOING
Our Peppers, Chills and Aubergine plants all Winter pruned and tucked away in our porch with a load of cardboard we’ve collected to go out.
Chillies, Peppers & Aubergines Video Reel
HERB SOWING: WINDOWSILL GROWING Video Reel
The Season’s Mood
The Season’s Mood
January carries a reflective, hopeful stillness in the garden. There is a sense of pause after the end of year rest, but also the quiet beginnings of what is to come. While the outdoor world remains frost touched and subdued, seeds started indoors stretch toward light, roots of newly planted trees settle into winter soil, and the raised beds sleep beneath their blankets of mulch.
This month reminds us that every garden has its rhythm not only of growth and harvest, but of preparation and patience. As we water young seedlings, tidy tools and watch the frost patterns on bare branches, we are participating in that quiet cycle of renewal. The garden asks us to slow with it, to nurture what is already growing, and to look forward with steady confidence to the months ahead.
Happy Gardening!
Follow Us Across Our Socials
Katrina & Clayton and family live in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on instagram. They practice permaculture principles in the garden, reducing & repurposing waste whenever they can. Katrina shows how home educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive.
Clayton Completed The 2 Grow and Learn Courses with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. He is Autistic, Non Verbal & has been Home Educated since 2018. Katrina & Peter hold their PDC & PDC PRO Permaculture Design Course from Oregon State University.
They featured on BBC Beechgrove Gardens Ep23 2022 and returned in 2023 for an update, Katrina & Clayton are also columnists for ScotlandGrows Magazine, Guest Blog for Caledonian Horticulture as well as working with Gardeners’ World Magazine and many other brands.
They are also Author of the new Children’s Book Series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening. Topics on Growing, Harvesting, Sowing & Composting and 108 Page Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle.
Listen in on their Guest Podcasts to learn more about them.
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Our Children’s Book Series
Author of the new children’s book series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening and Sowing, Growing, Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle. Our latest book in the series OUT NOW Vol 5 : Clayton’s Garden Visitors: A Story of Autism and Feeding The Birds
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