1 Sow tomato seeds: Tomatoes are the staple of the greenhouse gardener, providing a fresh, tasty crop throughout much of the summer. A greenhouse isn’t necessary and some tomatoes varieties will crop successfully outdoors if conditions are right. However, I find they work best inside, whether in a greenhouse or your own house, away from adverse elements. Tomato seeds can be sown from the beginning of February in pots. Start them off indoors, using a propagator or place the pots in a plastic bag and keep on a bright windowsill. Tried and tested varieties include 'Gardeners' Delight', 'Ailsa Craig' and 'Alicante'.
2 Get your mower serviced: Come April the world and his wife will be looking to get their mowers serviced ahead of several months' intensive cutting. To beat the spring rush, however, smart gardeners get their mower seen to when things are quiet.
3 Keep the soil in your vegetable beds fertile: A season’s growing drains a lot of fertility from your soil, which if depleted too much will result in poor yield this coming growing season. If your veg beds aren’t being put to use between now and May ensure the rain doesn't wash all the nutrients away by covering the soil with a mulch of some sort. This can be anything from homemade compost to black polythene, or my personal preference, sheets of cardboard.
4 Plant bare root trees: If you're looking to replace your hedge or plant a small woodand then bare root is the way to go. Bought and planted between now and mid-March, bare root trees and shrubs are cheaper because you don't pay extra for compost or a pot. Your selection is generally limited to natives, dogwoods and beech, but that's more than enough to be getting on with.
5 Visit the Snowdrop Month in Co Carlow: Throughout February there's a packed schedule of snowdrop related activities centred around Co Carlow’s famed gardens. Given the popularity and success of the event in recent years, 2019 sees the celebrations extended from a week to a month-long festival. There’ll be guided tours of Altamont's winter displays, informative talks at Tullow’s Mount Wolseley Hotel, a highly anticipated sale of snowdrops and other spring plants plus much more. For more information visit carlowtourism.com
6 Lift and divide snowdrops ‘in the green’: If like me you aspire to one day have a snowdrop display that could compare to Altamont’s then the key is quantity. It’s expensive to buy the amount of snowdrops required to the carpet even the smallest area of garden, so the solution is to propagate your own by division, each year at least doubling the number of clumps. This exercise is best carried just out after the snowdrops have finished flowering but are still ‘in the green’. Lift with a fork and replant in scattered, naturalised clumps.
7 Make a log pile: Create a home for thousands of creepy crawlies and enhance your garden's biodiversity. This mini nature reserve is best situated in a shady part of the garden where it will provide food for the likes of frogs, hedgehogs and birds.
8 Control perennial weeds in beds and borders: Although most cultivated plants tend to go to sleep over winter, their wilder and more robust cousins often continue to grow, especially when it’s relatively mild. You can save yourself some later effort by keeping couch grass, dockens and nettles at bay before they start to overwhelm you in the spring. Pull perennial weeds out by the roots and mulch the ground with organic matter such as homemade compost or leafmould.
9 Rhubarb: Just like your decorative perennials, rhubarb can underperform if it's congested. By taking a spade and slicing through the crown during dormancy you can double the number rhubarb plants and help replenish the flagging donor plant.
10 You’ve worked hard: Take the weekend off to celebrate the clocks springing forward.
