There are shrivelled elm leaves and flowers on my table, and a packet of radish seed. I’m not very good at growing radishes but I saw these seed in a shop and thought I would have a go. I’m trying harder this year. I always forget all the things I actually produce and fret about the things I don’t. I’m trying carrots again this year too. I have them in a tub, some seed from the Heritage Seed Library. So far so good. I weeded out the other seedlings yesterday. I used old compost and sieved soil so there were many other seedlings appearing. I think I know what carrot seedlings look like. They haven’t formed their first true leaves yet but the cotyledons are sort of pointy. I explained to William what cotyledons are and how whole races of plants are distinguished by whether they have one cotyledon or two – one seed leaf or two. Monocotyledons or dicotyledons. Monocot or dicot. One seed leaf or two. These are the leaves that are already within the seed. It’s all rather miraculous. Carrots are dicots, they have two seed leaves and they are rather pointy. And when the first true leaves appear I will know for certain because I do know what they look like. Sort of frondy. I’m quite excited about my carrots. I do a slug patrol every night and I am always sure to check them.

The idea of writing this was to write about what is actually happening in my gardening life, which is really my life – period. And what I’m thinking. I’m trying to formulate a plan to get a pollinator for my comice pear tree. The tree was a wedding gift from Pete and Sharon and it probably needs a pollinator; another pear tree that flowers at the same time so the bees can do their work. The problem is there is not really room for another tree in my garden. The wedding pear was a late arrival at the party and all the other space is full, or will be when other trees grow. So the solution in my head is to plant a pollinating pear in one of the neighbours’ gardens. My idea is that I would buy the tree and plant it, and look after it, and the neighbour could have the pears, because they would get pears too, or we could share them, and then I would get more pears on my tree, my Doyenne du Comice. One of the things I don’t yet know is how many pears I will get anyway. There could be a suitable pear tree somewhere nearby that I don’t know about. It’s all conjecture at the moment.

Today I am planting onion plantlets. They arrived yesterday and William and I are going to plant them at the allotment. It’s the first time I have had these, from Tamar Organics. They are not onion sets, which are little onions that you plant that make big onions. They are seedlings. In previous years I have grown my own seedlings but last year was something of an onion failure so when I saw that these were available I thought I would like to try. Onions always seem to me to be something I could grow a year’s supply of, and this is attempt 43. I think I have five hundred seedlings to plant and that will translate to five hundred onions and that’s ten onions a week which will probably be enough!

The reason for shriveled elm leaves is that I think I found an elm tree growing near my brother Pete’s house. The reason this matters is because of a prayer I made nearly fifty years ago. On the train on the way to our brother and sister’s funeral I noticed all the dead elm trees. If you’re out there somewhere, Tim, I said to myself, bring the elm trees back to life.