Start with the Secateurs

Before you sow a single seed, walk the plot with a pair of sharp bypass secateurs and a folding saw. Late winter and early spring is the last comfortable window for pruning apples, pears, quinces and medlars while they are still dormant, and the job pays you back twice: better light into the centre of the tree, and stronger fruiting spurs on the wood you keep.

Work through the three Ds first — dead, diseased and damaged wood — then take out any branch crossing another or rubbing bark. Cut back to a healthy outward-facing bud, angled slightly away from it. Aim to open the goblet shape so morning sun reaches the leaves and ripens the fruit. If a tree has been neglected for years, take no more than a quarter of the canopy in one season; heavy pruning triggers a forest of water shoots and sets you back further.

Leave plums, cherries and other stone fruits alone. Silver leaf spores are airborne in wet winter weather and the safest moment is midsummer, once the sap is rising strongly and wounds heal quickly. For coloured-stem dogwoods and willows, cut the whole stool back to 5cm (2in) from the ground now — the new growth will carry the brightest winter colour next year.

Mulch Deeply, Water Less

A generous mulch is the single best investment you can make before the dry weeks of July. Spread 5–8cm (2–3in) of well-rotted farmyard manure, garden compost or mushroom compost over damp soil, but only once the ground has begun to warm. Mulching frozen or bone-dry ground locks in the wrong conditions.

• Keep it clear of stems and trunks. A collar of bare soil around crowns of rhubarb, soft fruit bushes and tree trunks avoids rot and vole damage.
• Feed the surface. Worms pull the organic matter down, so you are feeding the soil rather than simply dressing it.
• Ring the strawberries. Straw, or barley straw if you have it, keeps fruit off wet ground and deters slugs.
• Line the paths between beds. Cardboard topped with bark chips smothers creeping buttercup and docks without chemicals.

If you keep poultry, let them scratch over the mulch for a fortnight before you sow or plant, then fence the beds off. Fresh poultry manure is far too strong to use directly; stack it with straw for six months first.

Sowing and Planting Out

Test the soil before direct sowing. Squeeze a handful in your fist: if it forms a ball that holds together and glistens, it is still too wet and you should wait. If it crumbles, get going. Clay soils in the north and west may lag a fortnight or more behind light sandy soils in the south-east, so use your own ground as the calendar, not the seed packet alone.

Under cover, tomato, chilli, aubergine and pepper seed can all be started from late February onwards on a warm windowsill or in a propagator at around 18–21°C (65–70°F). Brassicas — cabbage, kale, broccoli — are tougher and can be sown in a cold frame from March. Outdoors, once the ground is workable, direct sow broad beans, parsnips, carrots, radish and spinach. Parsnips in particular resent transplanting, so give them their final position straight away.

Sow salad leaves, radish and spinach in small pinches every two to three weeks rather than one big row; you will eat far more and waste far less. Harden off anything raised indoors over seven to ten days before planting, and keep a roll of fleece and a few cloches to hand for late frosts. A double layer of fleece will buy you 3–4°C of protection on a clear April night.

Repair Before You Plant

Structures are far easier to fix while the beds are empty. Walk the boundary and check fence posts for rot at the base, gates for sagging hinges and raised beds for split timber. Replace any board that has gone soft — a bed that collapses in August is a nuisance you cannot afford.

• Greenhouse glass: replace cracked panes, re-putty loose ones opposite each other for cross-ventilation, and wash the glass inside and out. Clean glass can lift light levels by a fifth.
• Gutters and water butts: clear leaves, flush the downpipe, and fit a diverter to a water butt near the greenhouse. Two butts filled in April will carry a greenhouse well into summer.
• Fruit cages and netting: tension and check netting now, before birds begin nesting. Repairing a cage in June means disturbing fledglings.
• Handles and blades: sharpen hoes, spades and shears with a file, then wipe metal with an oily rag and rub linseed oil into wooden handles.

The Compost Heap and Kitchen Garden Soil

Turn the compost heap if you have the energy, and cover it with an old carpet or tarpaulin to hold warmth and moisture. Aim for a mix of roughly two parts brown material — straw, cardboard, dead leaves, shredded prunings — to one part green. A heap that smells sour needs more air; one that does nothing needs more nitrogen, so add grass clippings or nettle tops.

Fork over beds lightly rather than digging deep. You are loosening the top 15cm (6in) and lifting weeds, not inverting the soil and burying the worm activity you have spent years building. Add lime only where a soil test says you need it, and never at the same time as manure — the two react and you lose the nitrogen. Keep off wet ground entirely; compaction is far harder to repair than a late sowing.

Crafts for the Wet Days

Save the rainy afternoons for the shed. This is the moment to sort seed packets by sowing date, whittle hazel or ash handles for new tools, weave a few willow plant supports, or repair the rush seats on the kitchen chairs. Bundle and dry any prunings worth keeping — hazel for bean poles, birch for besoms, willow for basket weaving — and hang them under cover so they stay straight.

Spring rewards attention more than it rewards effort. An hour spent sharpening tools, clearing a gutter and mulching a fruit bush in March will save you three in July. Work with the weather, trust your own soil over the calendar, and the country garden will carry you through to a generous harvest.