In the greenhouse, nestling on clean, de-fungus-ed staging sit three heated propagators whose power supply comes from the new armoured cable that goes under our lawn and into the greenhouse, feeding sockets and a light.

Now, two of the three are on and heating the beds of 48 chilli and sweet pepper seeds, potted up today. They’re tamped down, watered, labelled and covered over, needing no more than good light to provide the right environment for germination. I’ve planted six varieties of chilli, ranging through the schoville scale from mild through to volcanic and two of sweet ‘Ramiro’ style sweet peppers. They’ve all (except one variety of sweet pepper) come from a local chilli farm (South Devon Chilli Farm) so that means they’ve not travelled more than fifty miles to get to us.

Also planted up are tomatoes – two varieties there. My old favourite, ‘Ailsa Craig’ – I’ve grown them every year for the last fourteen years along with a new variety (to me anyway), Merlot. I’ll see how they go!

I’ve gained some planting space in the greenhouse by finishing chucking out rubbish and clearing under the staging so I can plant there too.

There is no more time left to plant, prune or do anything much else in the garden. What’s not done now won’t be done until next weekend. The only ‘job’ I can do in the meantime is set the seed potatoes to chit in the box I’ve just brought back from the supermarket.

The only dissent in our ranks comes from the hens, who are all peeved that they’ve now been barred from the greenhouse – I am not sure how long they need to be excluded post copper treatment but I’m taking no chances. That means the only companion of the day has been Rosie, who has sat under the workbench, looking at me while I work. She’s pretty cute when she does that.

It’s now nearly half past six and there is still some daylight – soon I will be able to pop into the garden for an hour after work on a weekday – how fab is that?

Last year, sunshine on the gate.