Garden better in 2016

Pick some easy-to-keep resolutions for the garden this year.

Happy 2016! You might have made a series of new year’s resolutions about your fitness, diet and routine. Some of which you might keep until at least the end of the day. But have you made any gardening resolutions? If you want to be a better gardener this year and actually keep that resolution, here are five promises you should make to yourself right now:

Grow more salad

You can get going straight away with microgreens, from beetroot to lavender:

And here are some of our favourite leaves:
Improve your soil

Take the Better Gardener soil series of tutorials, which is free and can be spread over seven days (or seven weeks if you wish). You’ll learn how to identify your soil type, how to improve it and organic techniques for maintaining it. You won’t regret it as it will make 2016 the year of more flowers and better crops.
Encourage wildlife

Or you can take the Better Gardener biodiversity series of tutorials (never let it be said that F&F doesn’t spoil you). All free, and all aimed at teaching you how to make your garden a haven for wildlife.
Appreciate wild flowers

Join in #wildflowerhour, which has become hugely successful in the past few months. Every Sunday at 8pm we tweet photos of flowering plants that we’ve found in the wild that week. There are some real stars of this who know their botany. But there are also novices and those who dabble occasionally, all encouraging each other and identifying mystery plants. It’ll make you appreciate the world around you even more. More information here.
Grow one unusual plant

I like to try something new every year. I’m currently writing a list of unusual crops to grow. But I’m also excited about the possibility that my Salmonberry might fruit for the first time this year, for instance. What will you grow? Here are some ideas:

Japanese wineberries - wonderfully tasty, and pretty.

Sea buckthorn: Bright orange berries encrusting trailing branches with thin silvery leaves. Almost too good to be true. Here’s more about it.

Blue honeysuckle: an environmentally-friendly alternative to the blueberry.