There is a particular sort of quiet on an allotment in late January. The gate hinges complain, the shed roof wears a skin of frost, and the top inch of soil rings hollow under your boot. It is tempting to retreat to the greenhouse with a mug of tea and wait for March. Resist that temptation. The fortnight or so before growth begins is the most useful stretch of the plot-keeping year, and the jobs you do now — on cold, clear days — decide how smoothly the spring runs.

Read the Soil Before You Touch It

Frost is an ally, but only if you let it work undisturbed. Rough-dug ground left over winter breaks down beautifully as ice crystals push clods apart, leaving you a fine, crumbly tilth to rake in February. Every time you tramp across a thawing bed, you undo some of that work and smear the structure.

• Walk on frozen ground, not thawing ground. Hard frost carries your weight without compacting. Wet, sticky soil does not — stay off it and use a plank or a path instead.
• Leave rough digging alone. Do not be tempted to break clods down by hand in January. Let the weather do it.
• Cover what you want to sow early. Black polythene, old carpet or a sheet of cardboard laid over a bed will shed rain and warm the soil a week or two ahead of the rest of the plot.
• Mulch rather than dig. Spread well-rotted manure or compost straight on top and let worms pull it down. It also feeds the soil organisms that keep working under frost.

Prune Fruit While It Sleeps

Dormant wood is forgiving wood. Prune on a dry, still day when the temperature is above freezing — cuts made into frozen tissue heal poorly, and cold steel is hard on your hands.

• Apples and pears: aim for an open, goblet-shaped centre. Take out crossing, rubbing and dead branches first, then shorten last year's growth by about a third on spur-bearing trees.
• Blackcurrants: cut a third of the oldest stems right down to the base each winter. They fruit best on young wood, so resist the urge to tip the new shoots.
• Redcurrants and gooseberries: keep the framework and shorten side shoots to a couple of buds to build fruiting spurs.
• Autumn-fruiting raspberries: cut every cane to ground level now. Summer-fruiting raspberries: remove the canes that fruited last year and tie the new ones in, spacing them about 10cm apart.
• Leave plums, cherries and apricots alone until midsummer. Winter pruning of stone fruit invites silver leaf and canker into the wounds.

While the secateurs are out, take hardwood cuttings of blackcurrant and gooseberry — pencil-thick stems, cut just below a bud, pushed two-thirds into a sheltered trench. They will be rooted and ready to move by next winter.

Give Your Tools a Proper Once-Over

A dull spade costs you more effort than a sharp one and a blunt pair of secateurs bruises stems instead of cutting them. An hour at the bench now saves a season of frustration.

• Run a flat file across the bevel of spades, forks and hoes, following the original angle. Sharpen only the bevelled side of secateur blades, never the flat face.
• Plunge spade and fork blades into a bucket of sharp sand mixed with a little oil. It scrubs off winter rust and leaves a protective film.
• Rub linseed oil into wooden handles. Dry, cracked ash snaps under load in cold weather.
• Check watering can roses, hose fittings and water butt taps — ice splits cheap plastic, and you want to know now rather than in June.

Mend the Plot's Bones

Late winter is for structures and paths, the unglamorous work that makes everything else easier. Replace rotting boards on raised beds and refill them with a mix of topsoil and compost while the beds are empty. Top paths with woodchip or lay weed-suppressing membrane; a clean path means fewer slugs and far less hoeing come May.

In the greenhouse, wash the glass inside and out to let in every scrap of low winter light, and replace cracked panes before the first gales. Check tree ties and stakes — loosen any that have grown tight against expanding trunks — and repair netting and fleece while you can still feel your fingers. Turn the compost heap, cover it against the rain, and fork out any perennial weed roots you spot. Dandelion and dock taproots come away far more easily from soft ground after a mild spell than from bone-dry summer soil.

Protect and Prepare What's Growing

Overwintering crops still need an eye on them. Firm brassicas back into the soil where frost has lifted them, and keep nets pegged down against hungry pigeons. Check that autumn-planted garlic and broad beans have not been heaved out of the ground, and press any casualties gently back in.

Mulch rhubarb crowns with a barrowload of well-rotted manure, and drop a forcing pot or an upturned bucket over the best crown for early, tender stems. Get cloches and fleece laid out ready for the first sowings, and start first early potatoes chitting in a cool, bright windowsill. Shallots and onion sets can go in under cover too.

The Frosty Fortnight Checklist

• Sharpen and oil every cutting and digging tool.
• Prune apples, pears, currants and gooseberries; leave stone fruit until summer.
• Cut autumn raspberries to the ground; thin and tie summer canes.
• Spread compost over empty beds and cover the ones earmarked for early sowing.
• Fix raised beds, paths, glass and tree ties.
• Firm brassicas, check garlic and beans, mulch rhubarb.
• Chit potatoes and sort your seed tin.

Work in short bursts on the coldest days, and always with one eye on the sky. A plot put to bed properly in February greets you in March ready to be sown, and there is no better feeling than stepping onto dry, crumbly soil while everyone else is still waiting for theirs to thaw.