Two of the aubergine seeds have germinated – I literally squealed and jumped up and down when I saw the first one. But only two. I’ve heard they take a long time, but I do feel a little concerned that the other 30-odd are still unresponsive. Over the past few weeks we built a cold frame, as aubergines do best grown under cover. We salvaged the wood around Deptford from pallets and the like, and bought the corrugated perspex from Wickes. We haven’t had time to finish it yet, but we’re going to stuff the gaps with fleece or similar, and add a hinged door.

Treating the wood and finding the perfect use for our inexplicably small blue chair.

Today in the sun, lacking a door.

I had planned to finish it today, but a fox decided to spend the morning dying in the garden. A very brave woman from the RSPCA came and put it out of its misery. It wasn’t fun, but it’s sunny and I have tea so everything will be fine. The RSCPA are great. The seed potatoes doing what they’re supposed to. Another thing I was going to do today: plant these out in the raised bed. The Red Duke of Yorks are leaving the Charlottes in the dust. But I think that might also be because they were at the back of the cupboard – I’ve moved them to the front now so we’ll see. I’m about to sow some squash and carrot seeds. Carrot seeds are apparently best sown direct, squash indoors. I’m going to plant the carrots in a pot with some chives I’ve got in my bedroom upstairs (we’re a little short on space…), because apparently the chives can help protect the carrots from carrot fly, by masking the smell. A colleague at work gave me some sweet pea and sunflower seeds, which was lovely. I’ve got some sweet peas on the go that I planted last Autumn (you can see them growing up the bicycle wheel in the picture of the cold frame), so that they’d harden up in winter and be nice and strong. I’ve never had much luck with sweet peas; never the huge, spilling-over teepees you see in other people’s gardens. Which is sad, because they’re my favourite flower. So this year I’m determined to have them everywhere.

Marigolds and sweet peas hatching.

The other day a friend scrolled through my pictures on my phone and discovered, to my shame, all my photos of seeds, seedlings and other gardening stuff I’ve been photographing for this blog. “God Laura, you’re still only 25 you know” was the response, and for a little while I felt very uncool. Actually, what am I saying? I spend a lot of time feeling uncool (but who actually goes around feeling “cool”?). But then I started reading a book by George Monbiot, called Feral. There’s absolutely nothing in it about vegetable gardening, but the first ten or so pages are a fierce manifesto on why we desperately need to allow nature back into our lives, namely through a concept called “rewilding” (or else sink into a cotton-wool pit of monotony and computer-screen-induced stupor). I won’t get into this now, as I have so much to say and definitely haven’t thought most of it through enough to commit it to paper (screen), but to quote Monbiot quoting Lord Byron: “Rewilding is not about abandoning civilization but about enhancing it. It is to ‘love not man the less, but nature more’.” Growing carrots may not be quite what Monbiot is referring to, but it’s a start. And I don’t think it has anything to do with lost youth.