December update from my Welsh homestead

A December update from my Welsh homestead – what’s been happening in the garden, and plans for the wintertime!

There’s a newsy “what’s been happening other than gardening” update here.

“Oh the weather outside is frightful….” goes the well known festive song, but I don’t think they were meaning the frightful weather we have been having here in Ceredigion, during November and early December! Wales is well known for its wet weather, but this has been ridiculous.

Seriously heavy downpours have caused extensive flooding in low lying areas. I live on a hill so the rain (thankfully!) drains away, but my poor garden is soggy and battered. Strong winds a few days ago knocked the back panels off a row of pallet made compost heaps, and caused a large part of the fir tree behind to snap off and land in the neighbouring field.

Our cats Lilwen and Tŵm have given up on the day, and even the ducks are looking a bit fed up. They don’t like the wind much!

There have been some gorgeously sunny blue-skied days, chilly but that is just right for December, and mornings sparkling with crisp frosts. Anything not frost hardy is now mush. This I leave in place to break down over winter, protecting and feeding the soil.

Early winter gardening

In the garden, almost all of the sowing for the year is now completed. There’s just some field beans to sow into beds: a green manure which is a relative of broad beans. It is edible just like its broad bean cousins, and so gives the option of either growing it just as a green manure, or letting it grow to maturity, harvesting the beans and the tasty tops. Mine are Vespa from Real Seeds.

Due to the wild, wet weather, I sowed all of the broad beans (Aquadulce Claudia) into modules for planting out later on. Some will go into the polytunnels for an early crop, the rest outside. This also reduces the risk of rodents finding the beans and munching them all. Similarly, over wintering peas Douce Provence are also in modules. Most of these will go into the polytunnel, again for an early crop, and some outside.

The modules are all on propagation benches in the larger polytunnel. If I didn’t have a polytunnel or greenhouse, a windowsill would do the same job.

December gardening jobs: outside

As we’re on a hill, even though the ground is saturated it does drain away once the rain stops. I decided to re-align the beds in the back garden, to make them run lengthways with the slope rather than horizontally. This area, which was the first part of the garden to be made into no dig veg beds in 2021, is one of the flattest parts here. It wasn’t until last winter that I realised how sloped it actually is.

Having the beds running vertically will mean that water from the heavy rainfall that is becoming an issue across the UK will be encouraged to flow along the paths. Otherwise it can wash away the mulches on beds that are not filled with plants.

The beds have no sides, so it is easy to re-align them. I’m using sticks and string to provide guides. The new beds will be roughly 1.5m (5ft) wide with 30cm (1ft) paths in-between.

October and November was mild, which was greeted with enthusiasm by weeds such as willowherb and hairy bittercress! I’m weeding out anything that is perennial – willowherb, grass, creeping buttercup – with a trowel and then mulching with composted materials.

Hairy bittercress is edible, so I’m leaving that as a winter salad vegetable and green manure. It self seeds like crazy, but is so easy to hoe off in places that I don’t want it.

There’s plenty to harvest including first tastes of winter vegetables, including the mangelwurzels (main pic at the top). After the hard frosts these parsnips are so sweet and tasty.

December gardening jobs: in the orchard

Last winter I wasn’t able to prune the apple and pear trees, so it is a priority for this wintertime. I have a tripod ladder from Niwaki. This is incredibly stable on the undulating, sloping ground here: ideal for pruning trees.

I’ll be using my Stihl battery powered secateurs and non-battery ones too, as well as hand saws. It will be quite the pruning arsenal!

Thin twiggy branches will be shredded to make mulch and composting materials. Some will be transformed into wildlife habitats too. I’ll cut larger branches into suitable sizes, store and season, for the cottage woodburner and outdoors wood fired stove.

December gardening jobs: undercover

One of the top things I have learned since moving to Wales is the importance of undercover spaces to grow in. This summer was gorgeous, the weather that makes the landscape a lush green sparkling with waterfalls, means that some crops need extra support.

The two polytunnels (from First Tunnels) measure 14 x 45 ft (4.27 x 13.72m) and 10 x 25 ft, (3.08 x 7.62m)* a fantastic amount of undercover growing space. I need to finish off trenching the new one. This involves digging a trench along the sides and burying the polythene. It helps to keep weeds out, and I like to think slugs too – but probably not! Both polytunnels are secured on aluminium base rails, with base plates. These keep the tunnels secure and in place.

* I still measure most larger distances in yards, feet and inches, so always think of the garden beds, tunnels etc in imperial and not metric measurements.

The polytunnel beds are planted out now, with a few spaces for broad beans and peas. I’ll also leave some room for very early sowings next February: first early potatoes, radishes, salads. Thanks to the sloping hillside, I rarely need to water the tunnels from December until February: nature does this for me!

Cleaning the polytunnel polythene inside and out is a key over winter job. I’ll also be checking for any tears and repairing as needed.

This v on my You Tube channel shows how my garden is looking in early winter.

An exciting new project!

Until this summer, I have used the area under the apple trees in the orchard to grow mostly annual veg. There are some perennials including asparagus, strawberries, perennial kale and walking onions, but most of the space was taken up with annual crops.

This area is situated between the two polytunnels, and includes seven established old apple trees and one younger one.

We situated the new polytunnel on an area which had been grass, creating roughly 250 sq ft (23.47 sq m) of new productive growing space. Absolutely marvellous. I decided that to rethink how I use the space under the apple trees. So, rather than planting out with annuals as usual, I just popped in space plants and sowed flowers. I let the strawberries that were around the smallest apple tree spread out, acting as a living green manure.

I’ve decided to transform this area into a permaculture food forest garden. It will have mostly perennials, with some annuals too. There’ll be multi-layers, from ground (and below) to the tree canopy. I’m planning a place to sit, and have ideas for changing the ground a bit (it’s currently sloped and flat). The budget for this area is £0. Everything will have to be already here in the garden (cuttings etc), from my stash of things that will be useful one day, or foraged.

There’s a short film about it here, and I will be writing about the project (and sharing it on social media and You Tube) over the winter and beyond. I look forward to sharing all of my projects here at the homestead garden this winter and through 2026.