Two questions the seasoned gardener should never ask the novice: “Did you grow those from seed?” Followed by: ‘and what variety are they?” The answer is “no” and “I don’t know” and if I did I’d be only too happy to share with you but don’t deflate my joy and make me feel like the dunce gardener that I am. In my world, there is a place for everything including hardy plants and packet soups.

There I was, happily out in the allotment, working away, talking to my six new pea plants, telling them to do their stuff and grow into big lads. Next thing, I hear this voice attached to a Tilley hat and wielding a power drill enquiring as to whether I had grown those from seed and what variety were they. “Woodies best” I felt like answering. Maybe I was a bit stressed as I’ve had a busy week. While I do know my Butterhead from my Iceberg lettuce, peas are peas – and anyway, when they are on the table for dinner they will be named Mam’s peas. This year I am happy if they grow at all – next year I will work on my varieties.

A little trick I learned from teaching teenagers with learning difficulties is don’t ask a question that (a) makes them feel like a failure before they get started and (b) that makes them feel stupid. So, seasoned gardeners please just tell us time-poor enthusiastic novices that we are doing marvellous work and offer us a few of your superfluous seedlings with a bit of advice on how you did it. Rant over! I did take a walk over to the “voice’s” plot it’s perfect.

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Back to me and mine. Well, between one thing and another this week, I have had little time out in the allotment – it only takes a traffic jam or a phone call to upset my plan. It is still looking very brown and bare. This evening it’s bucketing down so no work done again, but it’s early days yet.

My onions are peeping up and the birds are mistaking them for worms and yanking them out of the ground, so I’ve had to cover them with netting. I’ve planted out the cabbage plants that I have had in the back garden for the past fortnight and covered them with net too. Hopefully there won’t be a frost. I will plant more as the weeks go by.

As I’ve said, I’ve also put in six pea plants – not seeds. Everyone else has made some bamboo wigwams over them for climbing so I still have to do that. The lettuce I sowed at the plot is looking very sad; the plants I kept here at home look healthier so they need some nursing to keep the wind off them. I must ask the man with the hat what to do. The seedlings in their plastic wardrobe are doing fine – at least they are all alive.

I have been scavenging for pallets as I want to create a pallet garden for strawberries. Not sure how to do this either – another question for the hat man. I normally grow them in the back garden and everyone just grazes on them as they ripen. This way I might get enough to make that iconic desert – strawberry shortcake. Pallets are as scarce as hen’s teeth in Dublin, but I eventually located two and will figure it out. I may need to borrow a power drill and I know who to ask.

I am still collecting loo roll holders in which to grow carrots and I have been driving in and out to work with a great big trug filled with soil on the back seat while waiting to buy the seeds. Now it’s bucketing rain so the soil remains in the car. But as the saying goes: “Easy as you go when in late March you sow.” I hope that extends to early April. That’s the thing about allotments that you have to tell yourself: “Keep calm. You are not behind – it’s only April yet.”