Chillies, figs and old seeds - plants for free in January

I thought for fellow newbee allotmenteers I'd put a few videos I've found helpful this month on my trawl of YouTube.

Chilli pants from shop bought chilli and germinating old seeds

I am a big fan of My Family Garden. Great tip - about soaking over night in tea to get seeds sprouting, I also love the only tea varieties that this Yorkshire lad refers to is Tetley, Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips. As a Yorkshire lass that makes me smile very much. I am going to try this.

And if, like me, you haven't grown chillies before and want to know what to look for and what to do next, here is his update link https://youtu.be/D9vhpRxByxY

Fig tree pruning and taking cuttings

I have scoured the internet for fig tree pruning advice for a little fig tree that looks like mine for around three years now to no avail. Now found! This is the video from Dan at Plant Abundance. Well his is bigger but the principles are the same to follow. I have had previous success in rooting tip cuttings but the candle wax idea - genius - will be trying this one.

Jobs to get started with in January for the growing season - plus germination tests for old seeds

Great advice as always from Ben from GrowVeg. What I found really helpful (apart from the good clean up advice) was his approach to testing the viability of old seeds (around 7.49 if you want to skip to that). Basically it is wetting kitchen roll and testing some old seed to see the germination rate rather than wasting compost on spent seed - but also not writing off older packets of seed.