My fleeces are already in place, so I’ve spent time in the cool greenhouse this week to give my strawberry hanging basket a wake-up call.

I was really pleased with its performance last summer – I had a quick, albeit small, crop of strawberries from four plants grown in the basket last summer.  After cropping, I regularly removed runners to conserve the plants’ energies, and towards late autumn I allowed the plants to die down and moved them into the greenhouse.

Aiming for early fruit this year, I’ve spent time removing browned foliage and started to increase watering to kick start them into early growth – if you can keep your plants in frost free conditions I’d urge you to do the same.

Being shallow-rooting plants, I’ve noticed a lot of exposed roots on the compost surface (bottom left of the photo), so it’s time to top dress with fresh compost, and while doing so, give them a feed to encourage early growth and strong flowering for a good crop of early fruit.

To do this in one simple step I first mixed together a five handfuls of soil-based John Innes No.2 compost with a handful (around 28g or 1oz) of sulphate of potash. While doing this it’s good practice to break up any lumps in the compost. This fertile mix is them applied across the surface of the basket and watered in to settle it down. Roots are now well covered, and the plants will have plenty of nutrients available for strong vegetative growth, good flowering and, fingers crossed, heavy early crops.

I covered these borders around 18 months ago, with a protective mulch of bark chippings. On clearing the leaves, I was surprised by the lack of chippings underneath them. I can only assume some had broken down into the soil and the rest taken down by worms or picked up by birds.

So, faced with bare soil around dormant plant crowns, off I went to the garden centre to pick up a carload of Westland Plant Protection Bark.

After apply a topdressing of Growmore balanced fertiliser, I laid the bark, around 5cm deep over the soil and not quite so deep over the plant crowns, so that new spring shoots won’t struggle to rise.

Plant Protection Bark offers four benefits; slug and snail prevention, weed suppression, moisture retention, and perhaps most important at this time of year, protection against frost. Now that the crowns of early performers such as my peonies are covered with the bark chippings, frosty snaps over the next month (the Met Office is forecasting a cold February) should do little harm to the buds that I notice are already showing themselves.

It couldn’t have come at a better time – I’d already decided this winter to convert my garden veg patch into a cut flower growing area at the expense of home-grown produce (except for greenhouse crops).

So just when I thought I’d be saying goodbye to fresh broccoli, beans, carrots and the like, the offer of an allotment will actually allow me to up my game in terms of veg production.

I won’t be getting on site until the tail-end of Feb, and there is plenty of ground work to be done before planting can begin, taking me well into March. But in preparation I’ll be starting off some early crops in the coming weeks so that I’ll have lots of young plants to set out as soon as the soil is dug over and levelled.

I made a start this week by sowing broad bean ‘Masterpiece Long Pod’ (Unwins), individually, in grow tubes filled with Westland Organic Vegetable Growing Compost. The 15cm deep grow tubes will allow for deep root development before planting out, to get the seedlings off to the best of starts. I’ll keep them in the warmth of the house until germination and then quickly move them out to the greenhouse or cold frame to avoid them stretching in the heat. In two weeks time I’ll sow another larger batch, to stagger and extend their harvest period.

It may be a little early to coincide with getting the allotment ready for planting, but I’ve also set out a few Sharpe’s Express first early potatoes (Unwins) for chitting. I’ll leave it another week or two before setting out the rest of my potatoes. To do this I use egg boxes to stand them straight (eyes up) and prevent them touching each other. A tip I’m trying for the first time this year is the addition of perlite to the egg box, this absorbs any moisture around them, preventing chance of the tubers rotting before planting.

Looking for the same success this year, I’ve again sown a batch of seeds this week – a perfect excuse to stay in the warmth of the greenhouse on a frosty morning!

As always, I use deep pots for sweet pea sowing, so that the young plants can establish a good root system before planting out in late spring. This batch has been sown in a root trainer tray, but I also use 15cm deep grow tubes.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I keep the sowing process as simple as possible – no soaking or chitting seeds before hand, they go straight into the compost from the packet.

I usually ¾-fill the root trainers/grow tubes, then water, before setting the seed. The seeds are then covered with dry compost to fill the containers.

In January some extra heat is required. To get my seeds germinating I keep them in the warmth of the house, covered in newspaper. Once the first seed sprouts, I remove the paper, keeping the trays inside until the majority of seedlings are on show. At this stage I then take them out to the unheated, but frost-free, greenhouse as the extra heat can cause the plants to stretch and become leggy. They’ll grow slowly before things start to warm up at the end of Feb – once they produce three leaf sets I then pinch out the top set to promote side branching, and stocky plants.

Varieties I’ve sown this week:

• April in Paris (New from Gro-sure)
• Classic Collection (8 Unwins varieties)

Leaving for work in the dark and returning home after sundown I wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the damage my garden had received, until my neighbour called in last night to ask if I knew I’d lost a fence panel!

With torch in hand, I ventured out only to be shocked to find that as well as the fencing, my cold frame has been battered apart, three panes of glass have been knocked from the greenhouse (fortunately only one broke), half of the corrugated plastic had been ripped from the chicken run roof and my shed door had been blown open to allow heavy rain to soak anything near to the doorway – good bye to all the granular feeds now clumping in boxes of dripping wet cardboard!

My vertical growing system on the patio wall, full of violas and primroses, has also taken a knock – the plants don’t look great but at least the system is fixable.

The damage to structures has had a knock-on effect to many of my plants, though this is mainly concentrated on the veg patch. The greenhouse panes fell out on to my over wintering onions, as did the chicken run roof, flattening everything underneath them.

And with the wind allowed free reign inside the greenhouse, trays of hardy annuals sown back in autumn are now on the floor alongside trays of upturned cuttings and pots of bulbs. While most of the flower border is resting, I had rather high hopes for a patch of overwintering cerinthe seedlings – already a good 60cm tall, but most of these have been bashed beyond recovery.

The lifted cold frame exposed my protected asparagus crowns planted in November – the rain that came with the wind has left them sitting in saturated soil. Fingers crossed they’ll cope, other wise I’ll be planting again this spring!

So this weekend will be one big tidy and repair job. First on the to-do list will be salvaging plants in the greenhouse. Then I’ll secure the boundary with a couple of new fence panels. Next the chicken run, then the greenhouse panes, then the cold frame situation, then the… did I say weekend, maybe that should be the next month!

Pretty much any evergreen foliage plant can be used as a source of material for festive wreaths – holly, pine and bay are the usual subjects. I don’t have any of these in my garden. Instead I’ve used trimmings from the Blue Spruce Christmas tree that we put up last weekend –I had to cut off a lower branch to make it fit the stand.

You can pick up wire wreath rings from floristry shops and garden centres. Ideally you should pack damp sphagnum moss or similar around the ring and tie it in place with floristry wire – perhaps the most fiddly aspect of wreath making. If this sounds like too much effort your florist will likely do this for you for around £5.

Once this is done, attaching your greenery is pretty straight forward. Dense pine and conifer cuttings of around 15cm can be placed singularly on the ring. Sparser looking broadleaved evergreens such as bay should be cut to the same length but tied into bunches of three before going on the ring for better coverage.

After your first piece is tied to the ring using florists wire or similar, the following pieces should be laid in the same direction around the ring with as much over lap as possible.

With the foliage in place it’s time for dressing. I’ve used a simple red bow and some small pine cones. Other options include berries, small Christmas decorations, contrasting foliage and LED lights.

It wasn’t until I went to hang the wreath on the front door that I realised this wasn’t possible. I have a UPVC door that would be ruined by a nail being hammered in to it! Instead I’ve had to hang it on the wall next to the door!

Fortunately Christmas plants such as amaryllis, poinsettia and cyclamen are cheap and widespread at this time of year, allowing me to keep greenfingered indoors with my daughter by my side. My kitchen windowsill is already choc-a-bloc with these plants, as well as a moth orchid and some hyacinth bulbs in water vases. These have been in the fridge for weeks and are now showing fat healthy green shoots, a clear sign they are ready for the light on the windowsill. Fingers crossed they’ll be flowering through the Christmas holiday.

With less going on in the garden I spent a couple of hours this weekend cleaning, oiling and sharpening tools before giving them a winter’s rest. In spring everything will be ready to use as soon as they are needed.

Here are my tips for keeping hand tools in top condition.

• Wipe down all wooden handles with a damp cloth to remove grime. Any that have splintered or rough can be smoothed with fine-grade sandpaper.
• Follow this by rubbing down all wooden parts with linseed oil.
• Clean and oil metal tool heads on the likes of forks, spades, shovels, trowels and hoes by filling a bucket with sharp sand and adding a little 3-in-1 oil. Plunge the tool heads into the bucket several times to get rid of caked on mud and rust.
• After using the bucket method, wipe down all parts to remove sand, then use another oily rag to coat all metal surfaces.
• Use a sharpening stone or file on all your cleaned tools to sharpen edges, ready for use next season. While you have a sharpening stone to hand also sharpen secateurs, pruning knifes, loppers etc.
• Store tools neatly, preferably on a hanging rack system, in a dry shed or garage, until you are ready to pick up the pace again in early spring.

The key to success with most of these Christmas favourites is correct watering and the right positioning in the home.

Poinsettia can be temperamental, but if kept out of draughts and away from radiators and fireplaces, in a spot that receives a good amount of daylight, they should last well into the New Year. 

The right watering also helps. They don’t like to be overwatered or allowed to dry completely. I tend to allow the top inch or so of compost to dry between each watering. I also spray the foliage with water every few days with a fine-mist spray bottle to raise humidity. 

Indoor cyclamen prefer cooler conditions out of direct sunlight. I keep mine in the coolest room of the house, bringing them into other rooms if I have visitors coming over. While they don’t like to dry out, they don’t appreciate heavy watering either (this causes leaves to yellow). It is best to place pots in a saucer filled with water, allowing the compost to take on moisture through drainage holes for half an hour or so, before draining and then placing back inside a more decorative pot.

Indoor azaleas also prefer cooler conditions. Allow compost to dry slightly between watering and only use stored rain water or distilled water, particularly if your tap water is chalky – these are acid-loving plants that don’t appreciate alkaline water.

These few tips should ensure you have some much needed winter colour in the home over the Christmas period.

I had left a patch among my autumn planted  ‘Troy’ and ‘First Early’ onions (Both from Unwins), but time constraints meant I never got around to filling the space with the various garlic varieties I want to try for next year.

It’s not the end of the world though.  While it’s too cold to start my garlic off outside, I still have space in the greenhouse to get some started now. They will overwinter in frost-free conditions for planting out next spring. Growing them on this way should mean faster growth and earlier cropping.

Planting couldn’t be simpler. Cell trays are filled with multi-purpose compost and individual cloves are pushed into each cell, so that their tips are just below the surface of the compost. Label and water, keeping trays just moist through winter, before planting out on the veg patch in March.

If you plan to grow your garlic this way and have a large volume to plant, it is worth filling all your cell trays with compost and then sitting a clove on the surface of each cell so that you don’t leave any cells unplanted.

With so many cloves per bulb it is tempting to stick with one variety, but there is a surprising range of different flavours, so do try a few different types. To keep costs down, think about swapping with other garlic growers. One variety I’m keen to taste next year is ‘Lautrec Wight’ (Unwins), which is heralded as the ‘ultimate garlic experience’.

After a manic growing season I’m starting to feel on top of things in the garden again. Thanks to a couple of fairly dry and sunny weekends I’ve caught up with tidying jobs and things are looking tidy. Most of the autumn leaves have fallen, so I’ve raked and bagged them up, hoping for a free soil conditioner in a year or two.

Making leaf mould is a great way of recycling garden waste. Leaves are simply placed into old compost bags or bin sacs that have been pierced with a fork. Before sealing, I add some grass clippings and a slurp of water to help with decomposition. The mix is left out of the way behind my shed for at least one season. By this time it can be used as a mulch (I’ve just spread last year’s leaves along my row of raspberry canes), or mixed into heavy soils when turning them over with winter digging to act as a soil conditioner.

Still on the to-do list is cutting down some of the later-performing perennials including asters and sedum. Once these are out of the way I want to top up the bark chipping mulch on my borders. This is an annual job – I just don’t know where it goes over the season!

I’m also looking to give my lawn at least one more cut before the cold weather really kicks in and halts growth. If you’re making a last cut to the grass in the nest week or so, go the whole hog and make sure to redefine the lawn shape with edging shears. It will really make a difference and will last until growth kicks in again in spring.