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Sales have been so awful in this weather it’s really not worth doing a Hot 5, although I can tell you that some garden centres are already looking for Pansy & Viola, plenty of others told me “Too Early”.

It is not too early to plant Brassica vegetables! Especially Brussles Sprouts – long term crop. But here’s the trick, watch out for grubs. Cabbage White Butterfly and Diamond Back Moth (tiny, insignificant, massively damaging little beast) have a life cycle of about 4-5 days in hot weather. That means if you want to keep them under control they need to be sprayed twice a week. The good news is that because Brassica vegies are such an important crop economically there are some very good and safe spray alternatives including DiPel™ which is the bacteria Bacillus thuringiencis (Bt). There are lots of arguments over the pros & cons of Bt’s (there are a number of strains), particularly using Bt genes in other plants but in the home garden I think it is a product that is hard to go past for safe use and effectiveness. Yates distribute the home garden packs of Dipel, there is more information available here.