This is one month after planting, there are now two to three pairs of real leaves.

Here are the seeds one month in.

The zinnia are doing well, and the lobelia too.

The Californian poppies are also doing well and have their distinctive floppy stems and thin highly divided leaves. The basil just behind not doing so well, only three have appeared, and the largest is just getting its first real leaves. At this point I planted a few more seeds.

The petunias are doing fairly well, but slower growing than the lobelia. Strangely even though seeds were planted in all six cells of a tray, the two at the "top" (where the letter labels are) have no or fewer seedlings in each case.

I bought an Astilbe on a whim while at Earsdon Plant Center. I don't know why I got it as it had no information about variety or what colour it is going to be.

So it is going to be almost as much of a mystery as the plants that I didn't buy. Fortunately it seems to be a plant that likes a moist soil that doesn't dry out.

Anyway here it is just after planting, I bought it a couple of weeks ago, but just planted today.

This is a newer tulip that I planted in the trough container. This is its second year, so it is good to see it back, although it has not multiplied. I must admit to having damaged the bulb by cutting through it with a trowel when trying to remove something else.

I thought I had all the danylions under control, but one appeared out of nowhere it seems. It made a good picture so here it is.

The first new leaves have appear on one of the chilli seedlings. This is 17 days after planting.

I planted a single tulip in a planting trough in 2013, it has travelled with me through a few different addresses since then, and it flowers reliably every year. From the single flower in the first year, there are now five flowers.

Last week I got six bags of compost. I have started putting it on top of the soil starting alongside the house. The soil there is very grey almost like cement and what a difference it makes putting the compost down. It is just a thin layer and I just throw it down a roughly smooth it where needed. I'm hoping that as well as making it look better it will gradually improve the soil. At the moment the clay is very dry and hard on the surface.

I transplanted my rosemary into a container. This is a plant I bought the summer before last. Over the previous winter it got very damp and was suffering. When I moved it to a bigger pot last summer it had very few roots. Now is a completely different story, the roots were wrapped around the pot very tightly and although I tried …