Feature: Soggy Bottoms

At this time of year it all feels a bit ‘soggy bottomed’ in the garden. Winters appear to be increasingly wet rather than frozen, a clear and disturbing indicator of climate change. For gardeners such as I who like to be out in our gardens in all seasons, this makes gardening increasingly challenging and frustrating. Even more frustrating it also seems to often rain at weekends, usually the key days of the week when many of us can get out into our gardens. Meaningful gardening days in my garden have felt few and far between for weeks.

So what can be done about this? The thick heavy clay soil in my garden is saturated. If I walk on the borders it will compact the soil causing damage. One way around this is to use planking to help spread the weight, though of course this does rely on you having space in your planted up borders to lay down planks. For me this is not feasible as my planting is quite dense. Having some strategically placed stepping stones through the border works quite well. The stones are hidden by the planting most of the year and I can practice a form of gardening-Twister as I balance from stone to stone weeding.

Other tactics are to try and weed around the edges stretching, yoga-like, as far as I can which results in a nice band of perennial weeds just out of reach. Weeding soggy/muddy soil is not without its difficulties either, clogs of soil will attach to the weeds making fine detailed weeding almost impossible. Whilst I hold firmly to the adage that one weed removed now is worth 100 in Spring, it is not always practical.

Of course there is more to gardening than just weeding. This is the time of year to be pruning back trees and shrubs. Before the cold really kicks in it is also a good time for planting trees and shrubs and of course, Spring flowering bulbs. If the ground is really muddy this can be a bit of a chore, but the moist earth (as long as it is not puddled) will help them settle in well.

The best gardening task though for this time of year is planning for next year and the perusal of seed catalogues with hot beverage of choice in hand. Planning next year’s crops and annual flowers is one of the greatest joys of Winter. Care has to be taken not to order too much or to go beyond the budget: a bit like Santa I check my list, I check it twice and then decide whether to be naughty or..... no actually, I just go with naughty.

Alison Levey