This weekend I spent some time in the garden with little Sam, sowing a few dwarf beans and sunflowers, as the seeds are big enough for a two year old to handle. Despite trying to eat the potting compost at one point, I think he enjoyed himself, especially watering the seeds in with his little watering can.

Sam was also keen to see inside the Can-O-Worms, and when I mixed it all around and exposed hundreds of worms of all sizes, from babies to adults, he was very impressed. He insisted on holding a worm, and was less squeamish about that than his Dad!

Once Sam got bored with gardening and went back indoors I planted some leeks and perpetual spinach in my raised bed - all plug plants bought from our local garden centre. Alongside those I sowed a short row of spring onions, one of radish, and two of watercress. In order to keep the local moggies away from the new plantings/sowings I constructed a rough ‘cloche’ from chicken wire and bamboo canes. Hopefully it will be enough to deter them from waltzing all over that part of the bed and destroying my planting. We’ll see.

Just spent a few hours pottering in my greenhouse, sorting out some of the clutter and clearing space for some seed trays and pots. I sowed the following:

• Carrot: Rainbow Hybrid
• Beetroot: Detroit 2 Crimson Globe
• Basil: Genovese
• Broccoli: Early Sprouting Rudolph
• Tomato: Marmande
• Cucumber: Cucino
• Aubergine:Calliope

Carrots, basil and beetroot were all sown into 40-hole plug trays. I know carrots and beetroot in particular are supposed to be sown in situ, but last year I had such a bad crop, mainly due to interference by the local cats, that I thought I’d try starting them off in the greenhouse first. Worth a try. Having 40 basil plants in a few months time may mean I have to give some away, but my record for growing that isn’t too good either, so I may need lots of spares!

The other seeds were sown in individual pots. I am especially keen to see how the cucumbers and aubergines turn out. Cucino cucumbers are tiny little ’snack sized’ ones, and Calliope aubergines are supposed to produce plenty of egg-sized fruit.

I also spent some time forking over and raking my raised bed. I may try sowing things like spring onions, radish and lettuce direct, but not just yet as the soil won’t be warm enough. I also prepared a container (a large plastic crate) that I am going to try to grow a few new potatoes in - all I need now is a couple of seed potatoes!

It’s been a while. Too long. I decided to start up a new blog. My previous attempt, known as PlotBlog, was all (well mostly) to do with my old allotment. We moved house about 18 months ago, and as a result I had to give up the plot. So PlotBlog sort of fizzled out. Now I reckon it’s time to start again. This time I’m focusing on my attempts at “real” gardening, in a small town garden in suburbia.

We’ve got a front garden with a lot of gravel and a few trees and bushes of various size, only a few I have properly identified. Our back garden has a few borders, a pond, some pots, a greenhouse (huge bonus!) and a single raised bed I made myself early last year to grow veggies in. The first few attempts weren’t massively successful, and as I’m now (early March 200 about to start sowing seeds for this year I thought I’d start up this new blog to record how things went.

As I’ve had much less experience of the non-edible side of gardening than I have growing veggies, I shall also be recording such things as my irregular ham-fisted pruning of our wisteria before it actually invades Sam (our son’s) room through his window, whether I’ve actually killed the tamarisk tree in our front garden by chopping it back too far last autumn, my continued battles to keep the neighbourhood cats from using my raised bed (and veggies) as a toilet and sun bed, and also my currently futile attempts at enticing birds and other wildlife to share our tiny space with us.

Oh, and I’ve got a wormery, so there may be posts about worms too.