1 Plant your winter garden soon, if you haven't gotten around to it yet.

Winter veggies include beets, brocolli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, Chinese peas, garlic, leeks, lettuces, onions, peas, radishes, snap peas, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips. To be sure the ground is loose, friable and fertile, add aged steer manure or other organic soil amendments as needed before planting. Replant favorites as you harvest them, anytime through early February.

2 For color from now until spring, take time to plant annuals and hardy perennials.

Ornamental cabbages, calendulas, candytuft, cyclamen, dianthus, forget-me-nots, larkspur, pansies, Iceland poppies, primroses, and snapdragons, stocks, and violas will sport their stuff quickly and continue through spring. Also put in bulbs, such as anemones, crocus, daffodils, hyacinths and tulips. These won't flower so quickly, but you'll be happy you planted them come next spring.

3 Clean out the rain gutters now to prevent problems later. Autumn leaves can plug the gutters and drains, causing leaks in the roof and damaging interior walls.

You'll need a ladder to get up and check all the gutters.

Also

run water through the down-spouts with a hose to make sure they are not plugged up.

4 Divide and replant Agapanthus (Lily of the Nile). When clumps get too big or crowded, dig all around the clump 6 to 10 inches deep, then tilt the handle of the shovel to lift the clump out of the soil. I like to break or cut the older rhizomes apart so that each new clump has three to five foliage fans. Then replant the new clumps so they can settle in over the winter and be prepared to bloom again next spring.

5 Help your children start a sweet potato vine. It will thrive in a well-lighted room even during winter months, producing decorative vine-like stems covered with red-tinted, heart-shaped leaves. Using three well-positioned toothpicks, support the tuber so half of it sits in the water in a vase or Mason jar. As it grows near a window, periodically feed with a little liquid plant food and train the vines to climb or cascade.