I love it that the allotment plot is ‘hidden in plain sight’; right in the middle of an urban roundabout, yet completely invisible unless you know to look. Just inside the 5-bar gate the two trees I planted early last year are establishing well, and – even better – the clumps of snowdrops at their base are in full bloom, shining sweetly just out of view beyond the thickets of brambles and hedge that the passing motorists see.

The sunshine today was warm enough to encourage me finally to plant the Rose de Roscoff onion sets. This year I managed to source these in the UK (thank you Dobies of Devon), though it felt more romantic to get them from France.

I also planted broad beans Karmazyn and Express in modules under glass, along with onion seed Long Red of Florence, for which I have high hopes. Please mice, stay away.

If there were a competition for growing the largest buttercup clump, victory would surely have been awarded to the astonishingly huge specimens I tussled from the raspberry bed! Along with other lesser weeds, these are now safely composting away beyond the perimeter fence while the fruit cage looks smug and neat under its blanket of newly strewn fertiliser. I also pruned quite hard the gooseberry bush that produces such generous beauties each year with no other encouragement than a bucket of manure in the spring and the odd whisper of thanks. The alpine strawberries are everywhere; for now I indulge this habit, though they are becoming a bit promiscuous.