³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Although currently cold outside it's been bright, and still very dry. Indeed I'm getting a wee bit concerned. Still for now it's a gorgeous and early spring and my apricots are blooming.

Most winter flowering shrubs are gone or going over now, replaced by masses of daffodils, violets and red dead nettles. I've some old double daffodils, green in bud and when first opened turning golden yellow. They were here before I came, just a small clump, which I multiplied on my veg patch before planting out along hedge bases around my plot. Being double they're less value for wildlife but as they don't set seed they consequently bloom for longer, and I provide plenty of other flowers anyway.

The weedy, but beautiful, buttercup like celandines are attracting a 'long tailed' hoverfly I've never spotted elsewhere, and there've been several clouds of tiny gnats on still evenings despite the cold (allegedly they may congregate over any truffles).

I'm well on top of my hoeing, dry weather made this easy, and with only a few beds left (which I will scrape clean as I plant potatoes) I have no worries there. The onion sets I planted out a fortnight ago are growing away, as are the garlic and shallots. The sweet peas have not liked the cold though and are sulking, I can't cover them with plastic as they're attached to last year's sunflower stems left standing as their supports.

Under cover I've finished hand-pollinating the potted apricots and moved onto the peach and nectarine flowers.

As threatened I've hacked back all my surviving tropical shrubs - the guavas' woody stems being saved to smoke jerk dishes (gives an authentic Caribbean flavour otherwise unobtainable) and their old wood was then brushed over with soft soap to thwart the perfidious mealy bug. The plastic was then washed - it's amazing how much dust, dead flies and spider droppings can build up over winter on every surface under cover. My tunnel's outside sheet may last another year but my inner one, now fifteen or more years old, is brittle and ripping to pieces so replacing that's a job for this summer. The inner sanctum, a bubble plastic tent, has been sorted with dead and damaged plants repaired or evicted.

The winter cold was so intense only a few pineapples have emerged unscathed, and I've lost all my coffees, and . Still this has made space for my young tomato and pepper plants which have been moved in thus freeing up room in my 'propagator' for the current batches of seed; more tomatoes, melons, sweetcorn (to grow on in buckets under cover), basil and other tender crops.

The sweet potato slips have been detached from their parent and are growing away nicely, the peanuts are good little plants and I have my first cucumbers. Admittedly their fruits are so far only an inch or so long but they're there - I'll be eating cucumber sandwiches by the end of the month!