THOSE of you who read this column regularly will remember that one of my favourite winter jobs is sorting out my seed packets for spring sowing.

This year is no exception, and I have spent a contented hour or so cataloguing packets of seed into plastic trays, each marked with a month in which the enclosed seed should be sown.

There are some notable changes from last year. When we first took over our vegetable plot two years ago, we had no way of knowing what crops had been grown where in previous years.

In addition, I had the rather whimsical idea that it would be fun to grow our herbs and vegetables all jumbled up, in small groups rather than regimented into straight lines. Which it was, and they looked quite charming, until we started to see signs of club root on the broccoli, rust on the leeks and white rot on the onions!

We were, quite literally, reaping the rewards of ignoring the judicious practice of crop rotation.

So, this year, we are going to give the vegetable plot a rest from growing brassicas (plants in the cabbage family) and onion crops.

There will be plenty of room for other, less disease-prone vegetables; courgettes, parsnips, beetroot, spinach and runner beans will all be on the menu for this year I hope.

One interesting addition to my seed list is a broad bean called The Goodall. I was given just a few seeds by a colleague, together with a note stating that they are said to grow to six feet tall, with 40 pods on each plant!' I will let you know how they perform.

In the greenhouse, where we use fresh soil each year, there is much less chance of a build-up of pests or diseases.

I will be growing tomatoes as usual (Sungold is the only variety worth growing in my opinion!), together with chilli pepper Bolivian Rainbow and sweet pepper Tasty Bell.

I have also got some cucumber seed, since a plant given to me by a neighbour did surprisingly well last year, supplying us with a cucumber a week for much of the summer. There are a number of sweet pea varieties in the box for February sowing.

We seem to be going for maroon, blue and creamy white this year. I move the sweet pea plot around the garden, not to avoid p&d but because peas and beans (sweet peas included) build up the nitrogen content of the soil in which they grow. Ex-pea and bean plots are an ideal place to grow greedy plants like courgettes and pumpkins.