Well I was hoping to show you a wonderful gallery of photos demonstrating the amazing progress made at the allotment. I meant to take photos to fill you in on how we have emptied one of the wooden compost bins, turned over the other one and have now started on our new pile for the year. I planned to show you many things like this:

The first daffodils opening up and winning the race just ahead of the garden flowers.

I wanted to give you the before and after shots of our work done on the next bay we are clearing. Here is the before:

Sadly I don’t have an after shot as, despite the sunny look to this picture, it very quickly darkened and the heavens opened which led to much throwing of things in the shed and trying to find the car keys lest they get soaked. In the haste, I forgot to empty the compost bin from the kitchen but that is not such a disaster. I can tell you the rubbish was removed as was the first row of hoops and netting and the final offering of mushy and half eaten carrots. Note to self: thin them out better this year.

And so, as is often the case, I turn to indoor jobs.

I had recently cut a lot of leaves from my aloe vera plant and was wondering what on earth to do with them, when I came across an article online which said they make an excellent plant fertiliser. I whizzed up said leaves in the old food processor, added some water and poured into a large water container for storage:

Then it was on to potting up some free house plants. I have a succulent on the bathroom which has very kindly given me some extras so I potted them up and gave the mother plant a better pot and took some photos, although sadly the pictures are a little fuzzy!

I left them all on the kitchen windowsill, as that gets the best light, for a few days and checked them again last night. They seem to be growing well:

I then decided to try to take some cuttings from a rosemary plant I got the other week, on sale, at a garden centre. It was only £2 so I couldn’t resist it! I kept it inside and the new growth was quickly apparent as it is lighter and softer:

So I snipped a few soft tips off from the main plant, stripped the lower leaves off and put them in a pot of compost. Hopefully, in a short while, I’ll be able to detect new growth and have many more rosemary plants for planting out.

I will keep you informed of their progress, of course!

Next job: seed sowing! And so the cycle begins again. Happy gardening my friends.