The end of March is the perfect time to start sowing your Sweet Peas. You can start them off in late autumn but if you start them now you will lose less germinating plants because of exceptionally cold weather or pests.

Sow the seeds about ½ inch deep in a large tray filled loosely with seed compost. Don’t be tempted to push the seeds down. Then make sure they are watered regularly. If you place them on a heated sill or green house bench they will germinate in around 12 days. When the first two pairs of leaves show, pinch out the upper tips to encourage strong root growth. You can plant them out in late April or May depending on the weather.

Chitting potatoes is an allotmenteering institution. It must be done every year and it must be done properly.

When you but your seed potatoes it is no good to just put them in the ground, they need to be kept in a cool light place for their eyes to start sprouting. This can take anywhere up to around two weeks to happen.

When the eyes have sprouted you will notice about 6-10 shoots from the potato – now is the perfect time to sow them. If you want a few large good quality potatoes it can be a good idea to rub off a few of the sprouts so only about 3 or 4 shoots take. Otherwise leave them all on and harvest the small potatoes early for lots of yummy early spuds.

After a cold winter it can take a great deal of effort to get out in the garden before the true start of spring. You may have noticed a few snowdrops and daffodils starting to peep through the earth and with Easter now only a few weeks away the time is nigh to remove those winter cobwebs and get gardening.

With ground frost still a distinct possibility you can still do essential jobs for the year ahead. Two of the first of these are the regular clean of teh greenhouse and shed. Keeping these two essential items well organised and free from clutter will mean that teh year ahead will run much more smoothly.

If you fancy getting your fingers dirty after the cleaning why not start to sow some early tomatoes in the greenhouse. If you sow them now your first crop will be in mid to late June, perfect for that summer salad

If you haven’t already decided which crops to sow this year, then there is no time like the present. You can order your seeds online now and they shouldn’t take too long to arrive. If you have been following a strict crop rotation pattern over the last few years, you might already have planned your beds for the coming year. If not, here are a few ideas of crops that you can start off with now so you can enjoy yummy veg over the coming few months.

If you warm the soil using cloches or even black plastic and are sure that frost is not going to strike your crops down before they get started, you can plant - broad beans, leeks, onions, shallots, peas, parsnips, spinach, carrots, lettuce and Brussels sprouts out now. Make sure you dig in some well rotted compost from your compost heap before you start and you will soon see the shoots starting to emerge.

At last the winter seems to be finally over!!!

We can start looking forward to a great allotmenting year ahead which promises to be another year of great times and great produce from our plot.

Before we can be really sure that winter has given up we can still do a few things on the allotment to get ready for the year ahead.

• Remove debris from last year and turn the compost heap
• tidy shed
• plan crop rotation for this year
• sort through old seeds and discard any that are unusable

Some crops can be started off now under glass or in the greenhouse. Spring beets and even carrots and broad beans  can planted under cloches or in the greenhouse now and planted out in the next month or so.