Dear Fellow Gardeners,
I wish you all a wonderful and successful gardening year in 2026. Looking back, 2025 was for many gardeners a good and relatively straightforward year, with plenty of dry days and very good growing conditions. For us, it was also a busy year, as much of our time went into developing Tilled Earth – preparing the gardens, restoring old buildings, and putting the basics in place for our new project focused on practical food growing, biodiversity, and sharing knowledge with other gardeners.
Planning your vegetable garden
The beginning of the year is a good time to start planning for the new season. The enthusiasm for gardening must have waned by now for even the most committed gardener. I used to worry about it a lot. What if I don’t like gardening anymore? What else could I do with my life? And the sad answer was – not much. But luckily, every spring – just like the birds start to sing again and the first growth in nature unravels – so does our urge and longing for another growing year with new promises, trials and experiments and the hope that all our crops will thrive.
Make yourself comfortable with a nice fire and reflect on the past year. Try to remember what crops or even what varieties have done well. Try to remember which sowing and planting dates were the best. The sad news often is that we can’t remember the varieties or the sowing dates for many crops. So the first thing is to buy yourself a nice gardening diary and record all the essential cropping information the next year.
This will provide you with the most valuable information you can ever get: you’ll be able to identify what does best in your very own garden. If something does well you’ll know how to repeat it the following year (hopefully) and if something fails you know you’ll have to change something. The most likely changes you’ll have to make is changing the variety, the sowing date (probably sow later) or the soil preparation/feeding technique.
Planning can be quite simple. You can set it up in a table format – either handwritten or on the computer. That’s the way I do it:
| Bed | Vegetable | Variety | Sow | Qty | Plant |
| 1 | Swede | Gowrie | 15/4 | 30 plants | 15/5 |
| 2 | Carrot | Rothild | 31/5 | 1g | Direct |
| 3 | Brussels sprouts | Brigitte F1 | 10/5 | 4 plants | 10/6 |
| 4 | Beetroot | Pablo F1 |
The very best would be to do it on an excel spreadsheet and if you have finished entering all the data you can simply select all data and sort them by column 4 (Sow) and suddenly you have a sowing plan for the year – magic!
Some of my all-time favourite varieties are the following:
Brussels sprouts – Brigitte F1 (if you failed growing good sprouts before – you’ll likely succeed with Brigitte F1)
Beetroot – Pablo F1 (the most reliable and delicious variety)
Tomato – Sungold F1 (consistently voted as the best-flavoured tomato variety)
Red cabbage – Rodynda (a bio-dynamically bred variety, reliable, full of flavour and stores well)
Calendula – Pot Marigold (this edible flower and medicinal herb should not be missing in any garden. You only need to sow it once in your life as it self-seeds)
Cauliflower – Flamenco F1 (like with Brussels sprouts – if you failed to grow good cauliflowers before – try this variety)
Celery – Victoria F1 (my favourite celery I’ve ever grown – click into the “Read More” box for full growing instructions. It took me years to learn how to grow good celery)
Chard – Rainbow (certainly one of the easiest, most beuatiful and most productive vegetable you can grow in the garden)
Chervil – Massa (one of my favourite salad ingredient – you either love it or hate it. It’s one of those!)
Cucumber – Passandra F1 (an all-female variety with best overall disease resistance, delicious and high yielding)
Leek – Zagora (a Bulgarian variety I only discovered in the last few years. It has a self-blanching tall tender stem – up to 60cm in height)
Lovage (it’s more of a herb or soup spice. In German it’s known as Maggi Kraut – a well-known soup spice. It’s a perennial and if well-grown you will only need one plant. A few leaves will enhance any soup)
Parsnip – Javelin F1 (I have grown this variety for over 20 years and will always continue. It produces large parsnips with delicious flavour and good resistance to canker)
Scallions – Ishikura Bunching (that’s the scallions you know from shops, reliable, delicious and lasts long in the ground)
Shallot – Zebrune (an amazing banana-shaped shallot grown from seed – look at the growing instructions on our website)
Squash – Crown Prince F1 (it’s one of Joy Larkcom’s favourite variety as well. One of the best tasting squashes.
We also have a few exciting new introductions to our seed range:
Tomato – Black Krim
Black Krim is an heirloom beefsteak tomato from Crimea. An indeterminate variety with reddish – purple to black large fruits. A delicious variety with a great balance of sweetness and acidity.
Pepper (sweet) – Gladki Kambi
A unique tomato – shaped sweet pepper bred in Bulgaria. Produces delicious, large fleshy red fruits. The plants are small and compact with a height of 50cm. Suitable for growing in containers.
Pepper (sweet) – Soroksari
An early fast–growing sweet pepper from Bulgaria. The delicious peppers ripen to a pale yellow colour. The plants grow strong and don’t require a support.
Garden Patience – Rumex patienta
A perennial wild plant originating from Eastern Europe. It has become a popular vegetable in many Asian countries especially in Korea where it is used in Kimchi. The flavour is mildly sour, similar to sorrel
Orach – Atriplex hortensis
Orach is also known as mountain spinach or French spinach. A hardy annual plant with a slightly salty, spinach-like taste. The leaves can be cooked like spinach or eaten raw in salads. It’s an ideal spinach substitute for the summer months as it doesn’t bolt.
Celery, Leaf
An Asian cutting celery also known as Chinese celery (Apium graveolens var. secalinum). The stalks are thinner than our common celery and the flavour is much stonger. It’s an ideal celery for flavouring soups and stews. It’s a biennial plant usually grown as an annual. Leaves can be harvested throughout the growing season. Two plants are sufficient for family use.
Kohlrabi – Delikatess White
Kohlrabi – Delikatess White produces light green bulbs with white flesh. A fast growing variety with excellent taste.
Ballymaloe Gardening Course 2026
Growing Organic Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs with Klaus Laitenberger – (A Series of 10 Classes throughout the year)
This course runs one day per month from February to October 2026. This ten-day gardening course offers a unique, hands-on learning experience set in the beautiful surroundings of Ballymaloe Cookery School. Participants will learn how to grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruit.
It seems too obvious to mention but the delicious and generous lunches on each day are one of the highlights.
Each session will combine:
- Seasonal garden walks- observing what’s happening in the various gardens in Ballymaloe Cookery School including their new 1 acre greenhouse
- Practical gardening- participants will establish a course garden from scratch, transforming a plot of ground into a productive organic garden
- Thematic sessions- a focused two-hour module each month, blending theiry and practice on key organic gardening topics
The course is suitable for beginners as well as those with some gardening experience who wish to deepen their knowledge and practical skills in organic growing and sustainable food production.
Here is the link:
Diploma in Organic Medicinal Herb Growing
Another exciting project I’m involved in is with The Irish Herbal Medical College – Core College, run by Helen and David Begadon. They train herbalists from all over the world and recently launched a new Diploma in Organic Medicinal Herb Growing.
The course, which was fully booked in 2025, combines online learning with monthly practical days with Head Gardener Heiko Klee and myself. It’s a wonderful programme for anyone passionate about growing and using medicinal herbs. An amazing group of scientists and herb agronomist are part of the course – Prof. Peter Jones, Iain Tolhurst, Leonardo Piervitali and Ronan Tormey.
For details, contact djudah@corecollege.com
Students based in Ireland can apply for a 30% grant through the National Organic Training Skillnet (NOTS).
Here is the link:
Diploma in Organic Medicinal Herb Growing
Upcoming Courses, Talks and Events 2026
Monthly Day Gardening Course – starting January 2026
Grow Your Own
Venue: Ballinlough Castle
Link: Buy tickets – Grow Your Own: A Seasonal Journey from Seed to Harvest – Ballinlough Castle Gardens
Sorry but this course is fully booked.
Monthly Day Gardening Course – starting February 2026
How to Grow Your Own Produce
Venue: Ballymaloe Cookery School
Contact: kiernan@ballymaloefarmschool.com
A practical course covering soil preparation, composting, seed sowing, and pest management.
Ballymaloe Cookery School – Growing Organic Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs with Klaus Laitenberger – (A Series of 10 Classes throughout the year)
Monday 26th January 2026 – Talk: Grow Your Own Food
Venue: Roscommon Garden Club, Hannon’s Hotel
Contact: Bridget O’Toole – 086 3495583
Tuesday 13th January 2026 – Day Course: Organic Gardening
Venue: Belvedere House and Gardens, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath
Contact: Catherine O’Keefe
Saturday 14th February 2026 – Day Course: Grow Your Own Organic Food
Venue: Coolamber House, Co. Westmeath
Contact: annmariedurkin@gmail.com / 087 1436292
Grow your own food| Coolamber Garden Workshops
Saturday 21st February 2026 – Course: Grow your own food
Venue: Eden Hall Estate, Co. Kilkenny
Contact: info@edenhallestate.ie
Sorry but this course is fully booked.
Friday 6th – Sunday 8th March 2026 – Renvyle Gardening Weekend
Venue: Renvyle House Hotel
With myself and Anja Gohlke (Head Gardener at Kylemore Abbey).
Workshops, demonstrations, and lots of good food and company.
Contact: info@renvyle.ie / 095 46100
Sorry but the Renvyle Course is also fully booked
Saturday 1st March 2025 – Course: Spring in the Polytunnel
Venue: The Organic Centre, Co. Leitrim
Contact: info@theorganiccentre.ie
Tuesday 14th April 2026 – Talk: Grow Your Own Healthy Food
Venue: Birr, Co. Offaly
Contact: ballyquirkecastle@hotmail.com
Sunday 17th May 2026 – Course: Summer in the Polytunnel
Venue: Eden Hall Estate, Co. Kilkenny
Contact: info@edenhallestate.ie
Happy Gardening and a Happy New Year
Klaus