It rains, every day.  Bob has installed the old wooden butt I used on the farm and in two days it’s overflowing.  There’s no tap –  it’s just a dipping butt.  The rain patters persistently, softly.  It nags.  The greenhouse I sited in a concrete  dip so the neighbours would not be annoyed by the sight of it, sits in a pond.

  April 20th. Seeds on the kitchen window sill have germinated far better than in the cold greenhouse. Up have come seedlings of a perennial sunflower in a beautiful soft yellow (in the catalogue anyway) Helianthus maximiliani – chosen for Max aged six, he will be pleased – which apparently has a chocolate scent, plus lobelia (easy I know) and Tagetes minuta, whose roots are supposed to have a secretion deterring or even  killing weeds, including ground elder and the like (some hope! but …). Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, after an entire year, three seedlings of that graceful...

MARCH   GARDENING Why grow your own vegetables?   In these hard times, growing your own helps ease the family budget.   The mail order seedsman D.T. Brown for an initial outlay of £34.36 grew and harvested summer vegetables on a plot 30 by 9 feet, giving the plants and soil no special treatment.  Results included climbing beans at a market price of £48.22, courgettes costing over £30, and many more, altogether saving over £260.  You can find full results on their website www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk. How does the novice choose & grow?  Mr Fothergills (www.mr-fothergills.co.uk) mark about 35...