We may be caught in winter’s icy grip but we can

RESOURCEFUL gardeners can deal with any situation. When the ground’s rock hard and blanketed by drifting snow, turn the windowsill into a garden for the next few weeks. Looking out on a white world as I write, that’s my only place for a tasty harvest.

If you make fresh, successional sowings every 2 or 3 weeks indoors, you can combine having tasty leaves to eat with a supply of seedlings to prick out and eventually plant in the big outdoors.

When rummaging around for suitable seeds, choose any older half-used packs that have reached or passed their ‘use by’ date. Germination rates fall as seeds age, but that won’t matter here because you’ll be sowing very thickly and some failures won’t matter.

There’s a goodly range of suitable plants. For the quickest harvest, go for rocket: it starts germinating after 2 or 3 days and you’ll get some usable leaves after a fortnight. Lettuce, especially the loose-leaf varieties, tolerate a few pickings, but that’s more difficult with slower-growing iceberg and romaine types.

And why not add a few mustardy leaves from mizuna and red frilled, not forgetting chard and kale?

Tough, undemanding peas are a tasty option. Any variety of podding peas, not just mange-tout, does the job. Let the shoots grow to 5cm, then carefully cut off the top 2cm as you would pinch out sweet peas, and the seedling will become bushy, throwing out fresh shoots from near the base.

As ever with peas, you’ll get quicker germination by soaking seed in water for 24-36 hours before moving into seed trays.

Fill seed trays with peat-free compost or your own compost and place on a solid tray to catch

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Herbs on a windowsill make great sandwich fillings, add punch to a salad or to home-made fish cakes