I should probably mention that I'm a very fair weather gardener. I hate mud, cold and rain. My garden has been completely neglected since the first frosts and is now a mess of weeds, leaves, dead grass and the skeletons of last season's plants. I have planted garlic but it doesn't appear to be doing anything so far. I wonder if it survived the cold snap we had in December.

At some point I need to get a move on and rake up all those leaves, weed the vegetable beds, remove the plant corpses, scatter chicken manure everywhere, and generally make use of the garden waste scheme I signed up for (at a cost!)

I forgot to mention that I'm in charge of the garden at the pre-school I work in. I'm very excited about this, if a little daunted. We tried to grow a few things last year but for one reason or another it didn't come to much. Most of our plants were harvestable over the Summer holidays and we came back in September to dead lettuce, dehydrated soft carrots and epic French beans. This year, though, I'm on the ball. We have a new L shaped raised bed at perfect 2-4 year old height, and we have some fruit bushes and strawberry plants from last year, along with a huge cherry tree that provides lots of shade from the sun. I've ordered some seeds and this season I plan to grow early new potatoes (which are currently chitting in the boiler room), a natural den (cane wigwam supporting French beans and sweet peas that the children will be able to play in), early carrots and peas, lettuce, Summer ball courgettes (they're orange balls from the word go and can mature into pumpkins, which they undoubtedly will when left over the Summer holiday!). I'm also waiting for the go ahead to order some dessert apple cordons. It's funny to think that the children that will benefit most from harvesting these are probably only newborn babies right now..