The good news is I have no outdoor jobs to do this week! I have officially closed the garden for 2013, so to speak. It is now time for Christmas celebrations and our annual holiday in the French Alps.
If I am honest there are still a few packs of tulips lurking about and the garlic needs to go in, but there is nothing that cannot wait until after Christmas. My daughters arrive home from university at the weekend and I plan to spend as much of the holidays doing family things together as possible. This week I will be finishing the ‘secret shopping’, writing cards and wrapping presents so that next week I have free time to do all the traditional family Christmas things that we enjoy. There will be baking to do (mince pies, sausage rolls and Christmas biscuits), last minute trips to the shops, a gingerbread house to decorate, sugared fruits to prepare and many other little things that have become part of our celebration of Christmas.
I do, however, have one job to do that I always save for the holidays. I love to spend a couple of evenings by the fire drooling over the sweet pea catalogues and choosing the sweet peas that I will grow in 2014. Sweetpeas are the first seeds I will sow on our return from holiday in early January. I have quite a few seeds left over from last year to organise and I will certainly order a few packs of new varieties to try out. I will share my final list with you next year. In the run up to sowing the seeds I need to check that I have seed compost and labels in the greenhouse and that my root trainers are usable and clean. If you are planning to grow sweet peas the seeds and equipment are available by mail order and from garden centres now.
This will be the last Jobs To Do This Week post until after my return from holiday. In the meantime I will post some photos of our festive preparations.
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Your sweet peas are just SO pretty! One of my favorites, although I haven’t had great luck growing them…. and now, in he South, it’s much too warm for them. Oh, lucky you in the spring. I will try to smell them when you post pictures!
It is such a shame you can’t grow sweet peas Libby – they are the scent of summer to me. I promise to post lots of photos so that you can garden vicariously! You do have outdoor paperwhites in your climate however, so that probably makes it fair.