It can seem impossible that a freshly dug slab of muddy ground, with rather too many weeds still visible among the puddles, could be harnessed to grow anything - let alone the fantasy of an all-singing, all-dancing kitchen garden.

But trust me. It can. It will. The garden of late winter slips into spring almost unnoticed and suddenly things become possible.

The first piece of advice to any aspiring vegetable grower is to work with the weather, rather than fight it. Any advice from the likes of me can only be general.

Co-operate with the weather in your own plot because it influences the soil and resultant growth more than any other factor. If the soil is too wet and cold to cultivate easily, then it is certainly unfit for sowing or planting. The best advice I had when I started gardening on the cold clay of Herefordshire - bearing in mind that most of my experience was on the warm chalk of Hampshire - was not to rush things in spring because you can always catch up at the 'back end', in other words September and October.

Getting started

So how does the confused veg grower prepare for the coming year? The number one rule remains the same: do not fight nature. Doing what you (or your grandfather) have always done and then complaining that the weather has been 'against' you is not the answer. However, we do not know exactly what to expect from the weather as climate change affects our seasons. So expect the unexpected and prepare to be flexible.

This means raising seed in smaller batches and more waves of succession.

It means preparing your soil so that it will dry quickly in very wet weather and hold moisture in drought (I know that seems to be contradictory but it is not). It means practising some kind of protected propagation and plant raising if at all possible. A greenhouse is ideal but cold frames are a godsend and can be made very simply and cheaply from thick polythene and wooden battens.