My friend and work-mate Antonia had a mooch around the allotments at the weekend with a view to taking one on. It was good to see what the neighbours are up to. There’s a lot of potato activity going on – trenches everywhere – and great mounds of manure ready for spreading. Archie the allotment-boss was in his office-shed as normal, surrounded by piles of potatoes protected under wool blankets. There are snowdrops out and the daffodils are on their way. Spring won’t be long now.

The seeds are here! I started the tomatoes off yesterday along with some basil. In a week or so I’ll sow some catnip for Gertie, which will hopefully prevent her nibbling on the sweet pea seedlings.

Seeds! Seeds!

All the seed trays needed a good scrub. No outdoor water supply here so they’ve had to go in the bath instead, dead wasps, snails and all.

Seed trays are all scrubbed

I’ve sowed the tomatoes about two weeks earlier than last year and it will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the crop. Soon every windowsill in the flat will have seed trays balanced on them.

Tomates are sowed. This year I’ve actually labelled them so should have a vague idea of what is what.

But somebody had a different idea about labelling