Oh, the irony. It did strike me a fortnight ago as I dedicated an entire post to lamenting the lack of real winter weather that it was probably just about to get really cold. So, to update: the cape gooseberries will definitely not be overwintering, the garlic is now poking through snow rather than chickweed (for the moment) and the walk-in fridge feels really balmy.



Yes, beautiful snow, and it has stuck for a change. It was preceded by a few nights of hard frost, which first bent and then turned to mush the leaves of artichokes and cardoons. Chard and chicories have been temporarily cowed by the cold but will bounce back when it thaws.



It may not be possible to get a fork in the soil but there’s still plenty to do. Before the snow came I was busy spreading homemade compost over the raised beds, a good warming winter job and far less muddy when the ground is frozen hard. Considerably colder but more mentally stimulating is the annual winter pruning of fruit, the principle aim of which is to encourage fruit production, though it generally has a pleasing esthetic element to it as well.





The autumn-fruiting raspberry canes must be cut to the ground; they will fruit on canes produced this year. Blackcurrant bushes are renewal-pruned, that is to say a proportion of older wood (roughly a quarter to a third of the total) is removed to stimulate fresh growth for next year. I also took a few healthy, straight young branches for use as cuttings – new bushes for free! I will leave the gooseberry bushes till March, as birds are particularly partial to the buds and I don’t want to have to prune the thorny monsters twice.

Finally, I took a stepladder down to the orchard and pruned the apple and pear trees. The stone fruit – plums, damsons, cherries and almonds in this case – are not pruned in the dormant season but at midsummer, when they are less likely to succumb to disease.

About the author: Peter Wrapson takes care of Jamie's garden in Essex.

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