Truth is that despite all my favoured books on vegetable gardening offering a variety of jobs to be progressing at this time of year (from the creation of a hot-bed to winter digging) I struggle to get motivated and wade around, bundled up in ill fitting work clothes with hands cracked and numbed by the biting air temperature. Fair weather gardener I am not but equally I’m not a glutton for frozen punishment. Also I err on the side of giving the land a deserved rest. Dormancy has it’s place in the yearly cycle and the ice breaks up the soil and kills pests (or so I’m led to believe – I never saw any reduction of garden pests in the spring following last February’s two weeks of heavy snow and ice).

I have then, decamped to the kitchen table after trudging up to the greenhouse, the frozen door shuddering open on my tugs, taking a minute or so to check my Fig is still alive (Ficus carica) and I was away with the crushed and open card box containing the ripped seed packets that remain from three years of trial and error in the garden.
Before ordering the new selection of seeds for 2010 I decided to check my existing stock, removing any empty packets and with those still worth keeping I transferred them from the damp box into an ugly biscuit tin – not the delightful vintage one I had been hoping to find around the house.

But what of the viability of two, three and four year old seeds that have not been stored in ideal conditions? Browsing around I found both conflicting advice and a confusing list of expected use by guidelines for different types of plant seeds. I’m still looking for the definitive guide for seed use and storage.

A new container for my seed collection – Some packets are half empty, some haven’t been opened.

I’ve chosen Plants of Distinction this year as my main supplier this year, their catalogue being the only one I could find in the house, the others were chucked in a recent recycling purge. Over the past few years I’ve used Seeds of Change, The Organic Gardening Catalogue and a few supplements from Marshalls and Sarah Raven. This may appear as if I’m thoroughly researching and testing the non F1 or heritage seed market, I’m not – there is little method with my choices other than the tempation of a recent catalogue delivery.

This is my 2010 order:

• Brocolli – Green Spears
• Runner Beans – Scarlet Empire
• Carrot – Ideal Red
• Courgette – Pin Stripe and Bambino
• Cucumber – Bushy (dwarf variety)
• Lettuce – Tom Thumb
• Fennel – Finale
• Parsnip – Guernsey Half Long
• Pepper – Joe’s Long Cayenne
• Tomatoes – Beams Yellow Pear, Czech’s Excellent Yellow, Chocolate Cherry and Sioux.

And here are the seeds that will be added to the plot from the biscuit tin:

• Squash – Blue Ballet
• Climbing Beans – Cherokee Trail of Tears and Barlotta Lingua Di Fuoco
• Peas – Feltham First
• And whatever Parsley and Coriander varieties I can find.

The Broad Beans (Aquadulce Claudia) and Garlic (can’t remember the variety) are already in the ground. Now, with the snow deepening, the next kitchen table task is to sketch out my planting scheme.