NEW Year's Eve, and the prospect of a fresh new gardening year is on the horizon.

It's a good time to make gardening resolutions for next year but, in order to plan for the coming season, I find it helps to look back critically at the previous year.

For example: if I'm being honest rather than sentimental, my vegetable plot has not been an unmitigated success.

We still have far too many slugs, we can't grow members of the cabbage family because we have club root in the soil, ditto onions because of white rot. To add insult to injury, the local cats like to use any bare soil as a litter tray.

So my first resolution for the coming year will be to water the whole veg plot with Nemaslug before planting anything out. We will grow a smaller selection of vegetables, only those which we like to eat and which we can grow well; I'm thinking of broad beans, runner beans, courgettes, spinach and beetroot. Not exactly a balanced diet, but a more efficient and ultimately more satisfying use of the area.

Any spare ground will be planted with cut-flowers or sown with green manure to deter feline visitors.

Next on my list is the top lawn. It's full of weeds and moss, bumpy and very badly drained, it never looks tidy and thus spoils the effect of surrounding beds. This lawn really needs digging up and levelling out, with the addition of some drainage pipes that can feed into the bog garden. Then it needs turfing with good quality turf. It's a big job, too much heavy work for one retired gardener and a partner who is only available for gardening duties at weekends, so I will have to save up and hire in some extra labour (preferably with a mini-excavator!).

Over the last 12 months we have spent a great deal of time pruning and thinning overgrown shrubs in both the front and back garden. This has let in a lot more light and air, benefiting smaller plants and freeing up space for growing bulbs and herbaceous perennials.

Next year, in addition to keeping on top of those shrubs already thinned, we plan to remove an over-mature laburnum from the side of the house and dig out the stumps of two or three shrubs which were cut down but not quite removed.

The compost bins need strengthening and the path that leads to them would be easier to negotiate if it was wider, the hedges need cutting more regularly, I must stake my chrysanthemums more securely, and plant out my annual seedlings as soon as they are ready.I won't go on!

If only I could plan the weather in the same way, I could promise us all a fruitful and problem-free New Year!

JOBS FOR THIS WEEK...

_ Carefully rake leaves away from clumps of snowdrops and aconites, replanting any that have been lifted by frost.

_ Check stored bulbs and corms for fungal diseases and damage by rodents. Don't allow stored dahlias and cannas to get too dry or they will be difficult to start into growth again in the spring.

_ Check greenhouses and cold-frames for lost, loose or damaged panes. Make repairs as soon as possible.