This weather has been so glorious that there is no excuse – for anyone not working - not to be out there in the sunshine doing jobs, planning things and moving on with the New Year.

Get your compost out and start sowing whatever you dare. I would suggest that you can now sow some varieties of tomatoes, sweet peas and broad beans.

Broad Beans 

Sow the tomatoes into shallow seed trays and the broad beans and sweet peas into something deeper like rootrainers. Watch my video on YouTube for a step by step guide!

both with some kind of frost protection, I often bring mine inside and put them onto a windowsill, but a greenhouse if you have one will do the trick.

Using manure in the garden Manure must be over six months old before you use it in the garden otherwise it is too powerful and can kill or damage plants. I put manure over my vegetable patch and just leave it there, except where the root vegetables go such as potatoes, carrots etc. I also put manure at the base of young trees, roses and just about everywhere to give it all an extra natural feed. If you don’t have manure yourself you can get it from local farmers, livery yards or garden centres.

Lastly there has been so much wind that I have constantly been doing a twig clear up and fixing fallen fences. Now is a good time just to tidy up generally. The fresh air is so good for you!