There is no doubt that getting out into the fresh air, hearing the birds singing and seeing the bumble bees busy amongst the hellebores has bucked me up immensely and galvanised me to sort out the greenhouse ready for the beginning of seed planting.
I try hard to resist the temptation to start too early because, believe it or not, my home in Fairford is a bit of a frost pocket and I do need to be careful with young plants for the cutting beds.
Having said that, I have started sowing my sweet peas. I must admit to buying far too many sweet pea seeds this year and I have even given in to some re-usable root trainers to house them all. I thought I had collected plenty of loo roll inners, but I seem to have planted over 100 seeds already and there are only two of us living here!
Earlier today I had a trip out to the greenhouse and look, I have some baby sweet peas! It does give me hope during dark times.
After a couple of ghastly falls in the garden over the past few months I have decided that I am going to remove the pebble beach and go back to a nice soft flat lawn. In June, a team of part-time firemen will be removing all the slate and pebbles and laying a real lawn. Before the work starts, I intend to create a couple more flower beds ever-growing collection of dahlias – then it can all come together….
