This is the time of year when female mason bees are hard at work laying their eggs and collecting nectar for the lavae which will hatch later in the year.  Each egg is laid in its own compartment in a tube and when a tube is full of compartments it is sealed over with mud.

These bees are invaluable pollinators and I have never known anyone get stung by one.  As they don't make hoeny they don't attack you if you go near their nests and as they all work alone their is no danger of being set upon by a swarm.  If you don't have enough natural habitats for them, a pollinating bee log or bug box will do the trick very nicely.

Everywhere I turn at the moment there seems to be a bumblebee hunting for a nesting space.  This beauty, which I think is a buff-tailed queen (with the wonderful species name of Bumbus terrestris) paused for breath on our garden riddle, before continuing its search.

The demise of the bumblebee has prompted the HDRA to ask its members to record sightings throughout the summer.  If you register, you will receive some nice colour pictures so all the family can enjoy charging round the garden trying to identify them.  And they are very unlikely to ever sting you.

In Oxfordshire we often see red kites.  They were introduced to the Chilterns 20 years ago by Paul Getty and have been an astonishing success.  Its not uncommon to see several in the sky at once and to hear their screeches. 

Thankfully they only eat carrion so our hens are safe, but our underwear may not be as they are known to steal knickers from the washing line to line their nests.  A small price to pay in my view.

One minute there's nothing and the next they're shooting out of the ground like nails in a James Bond torture sequence.

For the next few weeks we can enjoy one of the tastiest seasonal vegetables there are.  It knocks the all year round imported stuff into a cocked hat.

To satisfy demand from an asparagus loving family I have planted a second bed, this time the early variety Ariane.  Unfortunately we will have to wait a year before we can harvest it.

Last year my paranoia of pigeons meant I kept our early broad beans so well protected that even the bumble bees couldn't get to them.  Which meant that they were less well pollinated and so many of the flowers never made it to beans.

This year I have planted some rosemary at the end of the bed, which is one of the few plants to flower at the same time as overwintered broad beans so it should attract pollinators.  This is good for the beans, but also good for the bees, which need every help they can get.  As well as a shortage of food, bees are struggling to find nesting places in our tidy gardens.  If you can't live with a messy garden, but would like to help bees, do please consider hanging a pollinating bee log or bug box.  They are easy to make and are unusual garden accessories, even in a tidy garden.

This horse chestnut is 12 years old.  It was given to us by a friend who grew it from a conker. We planted it in a hedge so it's unlikely to reach the height of other chestnuts but it nevertheless seems very happy. 

These sticky buds look good enough to eat.  Which is what horses can do with ground conkers.  Which is why they are called horse chestnuts.  Now you know.

Our birdboxes have seen a lot of action already this year.  The blue tits have been checking out their options for a few weeks and every box now seems to have residents. 

The birds seem to cope well with the snow (unlike British Airways) and keep singing, but they find it more difficult to find food when its cold so keeping the garden bird foods topped up is important.  Bird seed sunfllowers are a good option at this time of year as the seeds are fine for adult birds and their fledglings.

At last its the rhubarb season again!  Usually by now we have gloriously bright pink stems poking up through the darkness of our rhubarb forcer.  But this year the strong winds seem to have dislodged the lid, which has meant the yellows and pinks have given way to greens and reds.  I'm sure it will taste just as good though, especially with a liberal dousing of elderflower cordial.

Now is not the time to rest on your laurels when the first lettuces start to show, but to sow the next row.  This year I have been trying wine boxes, which seem to have the advantage of providing a barrier to slugs.  I'm not sure if it is the rough wood, or wether they just haven't spotted them yet, but so far so good.

Another invaluable option for bringing seedlings on are paper pots made by a paper potter.  They too seem to provide a better barrier for slugs than seed trays.

Its that time of year when males can be very territorial.  We have had a cock pheasant living in our garden for a few months (the one on the left) and in the past few days he has had to see off several intruders.  So far he has succeeded, despite being smaller than most.

There is no sign of a hen, but maybe she is sitting somewhere under a bush.  Let's hope the foxes stay away.

The cabbages we are about to start eating are a variety called January King.  I'm not sure our crop is fine enough to merit the title King, and clearly the January bit has misfired, but they nevertheless have a texture and colour which is very appetising.  We have had so little rain for the past few weeks that they have not filled out as much as they should, but at least the lack of rain seems to have kept the slugs at bay.

Time to start spring cleaning the greenhouse.  It has kept us in salad all winter but it won't be long before I will need the space for tender tomatoes and chillies.  And yet it seems such a shame when the mustard is full of the colour of spring.

I'm not sure why the early spring is so dominated by yellow.  Daffs, primroses, cowslips and mahonia are the only colour we have in the garden at the moment and they're all yellow.  Maybe its a wake up call for the pollinating insects.

Another week and another page on the the PR calandar.  This time its Fairtrade Fortnight which is a cause close to our hearts.  The primary focus of the Fairtrade Foundatoin has been on helping small farmers get a fair price for their crops like these fairtrade red bananas in Tanzania.  Some economists argue that price guarantees do not help economies to grow, but on balance it must be a good thing.

And the focus of fairtrade is now broadening to other small producers which have traditoinally been exploited, like the production of panama hats in Ecuador.  Our fairtrade panama hats come from a women's cooperative which guarantees good working conditions and fair wages to all its weavers.  Let's hope it won't be long before all hats are made this way.

Every cause tries to lay claim to a week in the PR calendar these days.  This week is national nest box week.  Hats off to the BTO which succeeded in getting a good piece onto the Today programme this morning, using two architect designed birdboxes as the story.

Both houses are wonderfully creative visions of the sort of homes they would like birds to live in.  But if you would rather have something which is easy to make and clean, which naturally blends into your garden there are simpler birdbox designs.  If you want to make it a bit more exotic, you could always try a sedum nest box, which is good for the birds and for the environment.

Cleaning flower pots and seed trays is not something that I imagine anyone relishes, but it is worth the effort.  I find a combination of a pot brush and an old vegetable brush will brush up most plastic and terracota pots pretty well.

The reason is to avoid residual pests and soil borne infections which can destroy new seedlings.  A small amount of soil left on the side of a pot can be enough to harbour desease.  If you're feeling particularly energetic a scrub with a natural disinfectant such as white vinegar should see off any last bugs.

1st Feb is the start of the snowdrop season.  Many will have been flowering for sometime, but the next couple of weeks is the best time to take a stroll to admire these wonders of mid-winter.

I reckon in our garden we have no more than 3 varieties of snowdrop, but in some you will find over 200.  To find the best snowdrop walks near you, go to www.ngs.org.uk or www.rhs.org.uk.

With the wind howling and the rain pouring, counting birds may not be a pastime that springs to mind, but the weather should improve by the weekend which is when the RSPB wants us to tell them how many birds we have in our gardens.  All you have to do is sit by a window for an hour (our kids sit in the kitchen sink) and count how many of which type of bird you see at any one time.  If you see 2 blue tits and then 3, your total becomes 3 not 5.  Then fill in the results online and they will let you know the results in due course. Its fun.

If you want to attract more birds into your garden, I can recommend a peanut feeder or a bird seed sunflower.  Both help brighten up your garden at this time of year.

Its only the middle of January but the dawn chorus is getting louder and it won't be long before the birds start checking out possible nesting places for the spring. This means if you have a new birdbox its time to put it up and if you have birdboxes already up its time to give them a clean.  No chemicals, just remove any old nesting material so that any new residents can build their own new nest.

And repair any damage too.  The hole in this box has been pecked and gnawed so much that I need to patch it up to give the blue tits the privacy they demand.  If you don't have one and want to build a bird box or buy a birdbox, now is a good time.

We have a short path lined with miscanthus floridus, which is a strong, tall grass.  Last summer's wet weather pushed it to new heights (2.5m) and it now forms an arch of sorts.

By late autum it loses its green and becomes a papery brown.  Some years I have cut it down at this point, but this year I have left it alone and I think I will do in future.  It has not only provided interest at this bleak time of year, but has also provided a valuable barrier to the gusty winds we have had recently. The birds as well as the early vegetables have been grateful for it.

There are few more rewarding sights at this time of year than seeing new crops bursting through.  I sowed my Acquadulce broad beans in November and nothing had appeared by Christmas.  And then suddenly, as if they had been waiting for the new year, a healthy looking row of shoots.  It will be May before they are ready for picking, and probably only a couple of weeks ahead of the Witkeim I will sow in a few weeks time, but at least in the meantime there is something admire!