Lots of hardy plants are starting into growth in the garden and seed trays and seedlings are waiting on windowsills for warmer days.

The Meteor peas are now in full flower having over-wintered in the greenhouse and a pot of carrots is dense with feathery foliage. Both peas and carrots are only just being sown outdoors, so the pot-grown plants will give welcome early crops.

I am experimenting with pot grown Rhubarb and a recently lifted plant has established well in an Air-Pot container. It could probably live and crop permanently in a larger size pot, or it could just be temporarily “parked” until there is space in the ground.

A gooseberry bush lifted from the ground is also healthy and coming into leaf. Again it was in the wrong place and needs to be “parked” having self-seeded among the raspberries. It can wait in its Air-Pot container until a planned fruit patch is ready.

Longer days and higher temperatures have spurred onions and garlic into producing fresh bright green growth in the big Air-Pot raised bed. A top dressing of blood, fish and bone in Spring invigorates these over-wintered alliums.

Soon it will be time to sow cucurbits, such as squash, to jump into the raised bed as soon as the aliiums are lifted around mid-summer. An early cucumber is already flowering in a 3 litre Air-Pot but the main sowing of cucumber, squashes, courgettes etc. will not be for a few weeks. A lucky few may get to live in the new insulated Air-Pot polytunnel.