In your garden: Enjoy the fruits of your labour

"Ceud mile fàilte" to the old familiar rain that returned to our shores this week, filling the air with the promising scent of damp earth and turning gardeners' eyes back to our bare gardens with tentative thoughts of spring.

For many of us, there are fallen leaves that still need to be collected and mulched, pots and cracked pots to be sorted and cleaned and there are those dead plants, lost to the arctic winter, that we need to remove and think about replacing.

Perhaps, if winters are to continue in this vein, you'll be thinking about replacing them with something hardier but, bearing in mind the old Scots warning "ne'er cast a cloot till May is oot", backed by the more scientific - though not necessarily more reliable - present day weather forecasters, you are probably wary of planting now. The return of frost is highly likely and some are even predicting the return of snow.

That is where fruit trees come in because now is a very good time to plant them. The trees are dormant and the earth is soft and yielding, nourished by its recent dousing of rainwater. If you choose the right trees and plant them in the right site, they will be hardy enough to take whatever the remainder of this winter has to throw at them plus everything that's to come from the next 30 winters at the very least.

John Hancox, of Commonwealth Orchard, an initiative to encourage people to plant new fruit trees, says: "It's not very hard to get fruit trees established. The main thing is to plant them and to try and select open and sunny sites with free draining soil, as they aren't keen on boggy ground. After planting it takes about two or three years for apple and pear trees to really start to fruit and a bit longer for plums."

So if these recent rainy days have turned your thoughts back to the garden, why not reach for your spade and wellies, dreaming as you dig of sweet cold plums and crisp crunchy apples that will be yours to share for many years to come.

• Julienne Thurrott is a member of the Friends of Montgomery Street Park and recently planted 20 apple trees there with Leith Walk Primary pupils and Central Scotland Orchard.