In the garden this week: Fatten the birds and armchair gardening

Fatten the birds Now and through winter ply your birds with oleaginous titbits to keep them well insulated through long, cold nights. The classic fatty fare is peanuts, but Wiggly Wigglers offers a UK grown mix that contains sunflowers, which do the job just as well, without the air miles. It's fine quality stuff, too; in my garden birds go crazy for it, spurning other feeds until it's gone. Armchair gardening Order veg catalogues now and put an order in sharpish for the best choice of seeds for next year. Small sowings of several varieties of each vegetable are more rewarding than lots of one. Your crops will mature at different times, and you may stumble across a new favourite that suits your conditions and tastes perfectly, so splash out a few extra quid and take some chances.