Now it seems the weather is warming up again i shall return to planting seeds and getting things ready for spring. The broad beans have been started in pots and some onion sets that have arrived will be potted in the cold greenhouse to give them as early start. I have chosen a red, white and standard variety to grow this year. Starting them in pots means I don’t have to worry what the weather may do later and I can plant them at my leisure. The red variety is ‘Piroska Red’, one i haven’t heard of but am assured it has a glossy red skin and a mild flavour which is what you want from a salad onion. The White is ‘White Ebenezer’ (where do they get the names from?), I usually find these grow quite large and are not as mild as they claim, but I shall compare with the onese put in last autumn (Snowball). The standard type is ‘Centurion’, this variety is early maturing and produces evenly sized bulbs, which store well. I shall plant shallots too but these can wait a week or two and go straight in the garden.

Now well into January and still unable to get a fork into the ground, frost has persisted for days and looks like continuing. A good time to settle down with those seed catalogues and decide on this years plantings. Have just been deciding on which potatoes to grow, many of the modern varieties are so ‘mild’ in flavour they are not worth growing. I still favour ‘Sharpe’s Express’ as an early having just tasted some I planted late in pots for Christmas. They were delicious, full of that ‘new potato’ earthiness but not too waxy in texture. Although the yields may not be as big if you are growing your own you may as well go for the flavour you like. Another favourite is ‘Red Duke of York’ again as a new potato but it also bakes well.