At this time of the year, when the garden work-load is at its heaviest, it is easy to put things off for just another little while. But one thing that won't wait much longer is seed sowing. Start these vegetables now, either in finely raked soil, or in containers to be transplanted into the ground later: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, French and broad beans, onions, carrots, chard and salad crops.
If you have a greenhouse or a sunny porch, runner beans, sweet corn, cucumbers and courgettes should be sown now, to be planted out into the garden when the weather warms up.
Even if you don't have a designated vegetable patch, you can grow some of the more decorative food crops in the flower border. Runner beans (which were originally grown as an ornamental climber, rather than a food crop) make interesting "punctuation marks" when trained up bamboo wigwams, ruby chard has brightred stems that look radiant with the sun shining through them, and red lettuce may be used as a talk-provoking edging plant.