Coming soon to a garden near you: Spring!

This year’s seed sowing has started – Lily’s been helping.

I’ve only assembled one set of shelves in the conservatory so far, but I’ve run out of space already, so the other will follow imminently. I don’t think Grumbling Rose has noticed yet – he’s just back from his latest skiing holiday and his head is already full of the next one. I faced a dilemma over whether or not I should switch on my two small propagators this year – do they eat much electricity? Anyway I decided to go for it, but the rest of the seedlings will just have to fend for themselves, because the conservatory isn’t heated.

I need to prick out some seeds I planted in the autumn but I’ve run out of my recycled seed trays, so I’ve been making some environmentally friendly ones out of newspaper.

The seeds I’ve sown already include cherry tomatoes, but in view of the current and predicted shortages, I’m going to try growing sweet peppers as well – this’ll be a first for me, so I’ll keep you posted.

My house plants are loving life at the moment. The two amaryllis bulbs I’ve had for the last few years are getting going – admittedly one more enthusiastically than the other.

My mum’s Christmas cactus, a precious reminder of her, is flowering for the third time this season. A few weeks ago I thought the oxalis triangularis my sister grew for me was on its last legs – it looked so pathetic. In hindsight I think it must have been using all its strength to produce masses of leaves and flowers! Two of my orchids are looking stunning – the other two remain in the orchid hospital (the downstairs loo). I’ve even managed not to kill the poinsettia I was given in November – it hasn’t got many green leaves left though.

I know we’re about to have a cold snap, even some snow forecast – but generally I’m feeling spring is on the horizon, not least because Gardener’s World starts again properly the week after next. Grumbling Rose will be on the piste again so he’ll miss the first episode. Not to worry though, he’ll be able to watch it on catch up 😂