That’s when it pays to have something absorbing, fulfilling and above all urgent to do in the garden. A greenhouse is a big boon – it is full of jobs that need doing. There’s staging to clear, glass to clean and the whole place probably needs a good tidy-up ready for the start of the propagating season. Take a bucket of hot, soapy water down with you and wash all your pots and seed trays while you are at it.
If you have a heated propagator (and I strongly recommend it), clean it out, cover the base with half an inch of silver sand and plug it in so it has time to reach operating temperature before you start sowing your first seeds.
The traditional time for sowing exhibition onions is actually Boxing Day but a few days at this time of year won’t make that much difference. You can also sow perennials now, the sooner the better when you want them to flower this summer.
And, if you’re growing pelargoniums from seed, they are worth putting in now, too.
