Even though the ground is often frozen solid during the deep winter months, the weeks after Christmas are a good time to get planning for your 2017 vegetable crop.
Creating a vegetable patch, whether on a large piece of ground or within a smaller raised bed, can bring rich rewards if given enough time and thought.
Growing compatible crops together is likely to reap richer harvests, while not treading soil from one bed to another and keeping your tools clean between use will help keep soil healthy and reduce the likelihood of the spread of pests and diseases.
By swapping the main groups of vegetables around in a regular order, you can make best use of the nutrients in the soil because different crops need different amounts of nutrients.
One group of youngsters who know all about getting the best out of a vegetable patch are the children at Dane Ghyll Primary School in Barrow.
They have become keen gardeners over the last few years and during the first week of December they reaped the benefits of an unusual kitchen garden venture. The children used a polytunnel to grow a huge crop of chillies, which are new to their garden for 2016.
Louise Postlethwaite, the school's head gardener, said: "On Tuesday December 6, we took the whole class into the polytunnel to pick chillies from one of the raised beds.
"The bed was jam-packed full of chillies and to add an extra fun factor to the day we made the harvesting into a a relay game.
"The children had to work as teams to pick as many chillies as they could in one minute and then swap over to the next chilli relay team. It was great for helping the children with their communication skills and teamwork.
"We also had a little lesson about how to handle the chillies, as obviously you can't touch your eyes after handling them.
"We had absolutely loads of them by the end of the relays and we have frozen quite a few of them to use in our cooking club classes next year. That is one of the main reasons we grow so much fresh fruit and veg, so that the children can learn about cooking and eating healthily with fresh produce.
"They have also just harvested some carrots and lettuce leaves for their school lunches and another of our most exciting kitchen garden crops new for 2016 were water melons."
If you are feeling inspired by Dane Ghyll's green-fingered exploits but are new to kitchen gardening and don't have a polytunnel, you can still start prepping your patch for the warmer months.
If you have an existing vegetable plot, keep digging it over during the cold winter months, inverting lumps of soil to bury annual weeds, but leave the clods intact.
Frost and rain will break them down and leave a crumbly soil by spring. On light, sandy soils, wait until spring before digging. Sandy soils may also need liming regularly to give them a neutral pH. If in doubt, buy a soil tester to test the pH of your soil.
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What to do in your garden at home this weekend...
1. Order or buy seeds of plants that need to be sown in mid and late winter to ensure they get the long growing season they need.
2. Plant brightly coloured winter stems such as dogwood, willow and rubus, to give your garden a boost.
3. Prune winter-flowering shrubs over three years old after flowering.
4. Keep Christmas hyacinths cool or the leaves will grow quickly and obscure the scented flowers.
5. Remove mummified fruit from apple trees but don't add them to your compost bin or they could spread disease.
6. Continue to plant bare-root hedging.
7. Harvest winter brassicas including Brussels sprouts and sprouting broccoli.
8. Continue winter digging if the soil isn't too hard, but stay off clay soil until the weather is dry.
9. If your acer needs pruning, do it now while it is dormant to stop the wounds bleeding sap and weakening the plant.
10. Take hardwood cuttings of willow, buddleia and dogwood to increase your stock.
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