Beaten back inside by the cold, I’m planning my veg plot and selecting seeds whilst sitting by the fire.

It’s a good time to review how things went last year and to use the time to think about what you’d like to change and grow in your garden this year.

Last year my garden didn’t get the attention it deserved.

This year, I am hoping to have a bit more time to give the love back to my former pride and joy.

Realising I’ve missed it and spending time in the garden directly relates to my happiness, it must be because it gives you all these benefits:

Time away from technology – our days are full of calls, texts, emails and social media from dawn to dusk – have a break from it all and leave the phone inside.

A chance to reconnect with nature – research shows time in nature can help relax your body, revive your mood and restore your attention.

A feast for the senses - aromas, birds, earth and leaves connects you with the seasons and what’s happening now, soak it up. You can almost get into a yoga type mantra when performing some repetitive gardening tasks such as digging, weeding and seed sowing.

A sense of accomplishment, seeing bulbs that you plant in autumn emerge from the ground and flower in spring, picking the first ripe tomato that you grew from seed, enjoying dinner on the patio surrounded by blooming containers all add to this.

Even though it is cold I will pop out and get on with a couple of tasks that need doing in the winter to start with the pruning my apple trees.

I’ll shorten last year's growth on each main branch by about a third to an outward facing bud, leaving younger side shoots unpruned to develop fruit buds but will remove any that are crossing or congested.

My trees are a few years old now so will benefit from removing some of the larger branches taking them right back to the main branch to open up the centre of the tree, encouraging light and good air circulation.