This week's job around the garden - sowing seeds of vegetable plants

* Maybe you don’t want to be part of the greater movement into greening Cork and making it more productive — or maybe you just want to grow a few bits for your own home — so there’s no time like the present.

* Time to get sowing seeds of veg plants now. Some may have been started earlier in the glasshouse or cold-frame.

If you’re using last year’s materials such as seed trays and tools, make sure they have been give a good clean and disinfected so that no disease is passing on from last year.

* Most root vegetables and salad crops can be started indoors now, while seed potatoes and onion sets can be planted directly outside.

* Everyday at this time of the year I’m asked to recommend a good seed potato to grow and every year I don’t, because every Irish person likes a different type of potatoes.

All I will say is that for me, my first earlies will be Home Guard because I simply adore them, and my main crop will be Golden Wonders and one of the Sarpo, blight-resistant varieties.