Just a few jobs you could be doing in the garden now

Vegetables:

Sow broad beans and hardy peas

Plant out garlic cloves

Plant overwintering onions sets and broad beans

Herbs:

Pot up a few roots of mint and bring under cover for winter pickings

Fruit:

Tidy strawberry beds, cutting back old foliage and congested runners and removing weeds

Plant currant bushes

Flowers:

Plant spring flowering bulbs

Plant out spring bedding plants such as violas, pansies and primulas

Soil:

Preparing your soil before winter sets in. Once the soil becomes very wet or frozen then you will have to wait until mid-spring before you can dig it without damaging the soil structure. Clear out the weeds and old crops and add some organic matter to the soil and dig it in. If you are not replanting during the winter you can use a good layer of compost, leaf mould, sow a green manure or even use plastic sheeting to cover the soil. The soil will then be easier to plant or sow into the following spring.

Wildlife:

Make log and twig piles to provide shelter for insects and amphibians over the cold winter months.

Put up nest boxes and hang out bird feeders

Make a hedgehog a home. Making an artificial home can be as simple as placing a piece of board against a wall. Leave areas of the garden ‘wild’, with piles of leaf litter and logs. These are an attractive nest as well as a home for the invertebrates (slugs, beetles) that hedgehogs like to eat.