A new year of gardening, and despite the cold there is still a lot to do

Happy New Year. It's time to start working slowly and planning the plot. Just because it's darker, maybe humid or cold, doesn't mean there aren't things to do in the garden.

First, colonize a few window sills at home. Sow sweet peas in a sunnier location indoors. They will appreciate the heat. We have the Higgledy Garden selection that vibrates quietly, almost ready to use.

Sow hardier spinach and salad seeds in trays on ledges. Although first negotiate this with other important people. Order your early potatoes to start crunching them. I still use egg trays on a shelf in the boy's old room.

Check online and in local newspapers for potato days/the potato growers near you. Also look for upcoming seedy Sundays or other neighborhood swaps.

These first Sunday of the month columns have always relied on advice drawn from experience, books and notes. on the work to be done when. Reread chronicles, newspapers and manuals, consult the almanac. I fear, however, that some of this learning is becoming almost obsolete. We live in a time of rapidly changing weather conditions. Seeing a seemingly inexorable change in temperatures and its effect on the soil and the seasons.

Spring bulbs, for example, shouldn't have been brought indoors to bloom for Christmas. Not anymore - at least in London and even in Denmark, where we grow them in Henri's beach house. Both sites saw the spring narcissus bloom in mid-November. Daisies were still strewn along the beach. For now, the frozen sea in the north is over, the deep Danish cold. Maybe it's just this time last year that the Scandinavian winter isn't done with us yet. I hope so.

Assuming many of the rules still apply, order early potatoes, your mulches, and your manures. Sow seeds of hope indoors or outdoors under cover.

Wherever you are, whatever you garden, I wish you all good growth in 2023.

Plot 29 by Allan Jenkins (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 at guardianbookshop.com