It started with a seed and a bit of sunshine

My garden is a neglected place over winter with the only activity being the growing of the weeds. It takes a real shove to get me back into the gardening groove despite my love of being outside and the fact that there is always something I could be doing, like fruit tree pruning.

The shove this year started when some neighbours went away and entrusted some newly germinated chilli and onion seedlings to my care. It spurred me on to sow some chilli seeds of my own, ones I hadn’t got around to doing last year. After lots of molly coddling (days spent in a warm, sunny position and nights spent sitting on a radiator) I had my first seedlings of the season and I was getting back in my groove. The sunshine that helped them germinate also helped me as it (and my seedlings) gave me the incentive to rediscover the potager, which had become a thick green carpet of weeds thanks to a mild and moist winter. It has taken almost a month and I know they will return (they always do) but I have a potager again.

The almost weed free potager

Brucie the Goose helps with the weeds

I also have chillies, tomatoes and marigolds, small but growing on strong indoors and getting ready to fill the bare soil in the potager. My next task is to sow my courgette (zucchini) and squash seeds, rotivate the potager patch (a job for Ade), add some home produced compost and keep on top of the weeds.

Marigold and tomato seedlings

I’m also itching to give the grass it’s first mow of the year, but that will mean chopping these beautiful and fragrant violets, so I may wait a bit longer.

Violets in the grass

This post is linked up to the How Does Your Garden Grow weekly blog link run by Mammasaurus.