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advantage of snow is that I cannot see the tangled mess of decaying foliage that I know lurks just beneath it. At the moment everything is clean and neat. This will not last.In the next week or so the rain will come, the air temperature will rise

in half by wind and rain. In the end I had to tie each plant individually to a short cane.I'll use the same contingency plans during 2013, raising plants under cover in line with my Seed Sowing Masterplan. Do you have one? If not prepare it now, including

.The 'shallow pond' is only 2m in diameter, with a maximum depth of 30cm and gentle sloping sides. It's planted with water forget-me-not, brooklime, and hornwort to oxygenate the water. The day after I dug the pond, my mum's garden had a month's rain in 24 hours

, position it on the north side of the greenhouse, to stop it casting shade onto crops. Don’t use rain water on seedlings, as it contains fungal spores which may cause them to collapse or ‘damp off’.Water butt

New Year’s Eve. A defining moment, the joys and traumas of Christmas behind us and the blank page of 2013 stretching ahead like a freshly hoovered carpet. The question is whether, for us gardeners, that carpet will be lush shag pile or meagrely

.Don’t sow early seeds direct into very wet or cold soil. Cover the area with black polythene sheeting, or a cloche to help warm it and keep off excessive rain.Water regularly as peas need a moist soil if they are to produce a heavy crop. In a drier garden

.The orange ladybird eats the mildew on leaves of deciduous trees, particularly sycamore. It appears to be becoming more abundant and is likely to have had a good 2012 due to all the rain (and therefore mildew). However, like the native two-spot, its success

Nothing beats the warmth of the sun after a long spell of cold weather. Until recently, rain or snow has kept me indoors, thinking despondently of all the garden jobs waiting to be done.Now that temperatures are rising, so are my spirits. When I

somewhere in their garden.There is something very satisfying about a sturdy, well-built fence. Many years ago, when I was a contractor in London, we put up a lot of fences and it was a process that I very much enjoyed (except when it was raining