Out of fashion for a long time with all but the most traditional of gardeners cloches can extend the growing season by weeks. If carefully planned you can even use a cloche to enable picking of lamb's lettuce at Christmas. Now is the time to put the cloche on prepared ground to heat it up in preparation to sow early spring salad crops such as spring onion, carrot, lettuce and radish. There are a multitude of cloches available now largely thanks to the increasing popularity of growing vegetables at home. In a restricted space such as a grow bag or large flowerpot plastic bell cloches can be used with surprisingly successful results. If you have a little more space then there are a wealth of cloches available from traditional Victorian style glass cloches to wire hoop and plastic arrangements, which can cover large areas. Unless the cloche is particularly heavy its worth investing in long metal pegs to secure the cloche to the ground. Put the cloche out now and the ground should be sufficiently warm within 3 weeks to sow early crops. ;