Late afternoon at the allotment and the sun is shining. Tadpole tails are wriggling in the ponds. Our broad beans have burst through, happy and healthy, short rows of crimson-flowering and an old-school hanging variety new to us. We have replanted some of the extravagant, luxuriant poppy leaf. Dotted through the plot now, here and there. The last of the old hazel poles are up and climbing Franchi yellow and blue beans, plus Cherokee Trail of Tears have been sown at their base. Our summer planting starts with the structures or at least a clearer idea of which hazel wigwams will go where. New sweetpeas will arrive any day. The seedlings are currently sprouting in Jane Scotter’s Fern Verrow greenhouse to be dropped off when they are grown. We will be sowing morning glory from the Seed Co-operative when the sweet peas tire. I make new seed rows parallel with the path and sow dill tetra (I love the leaf, though I’m also obsessed with its yellow flower). The other row is a spring salad mix to be eaten young. I add a longer strip of coriander at a right angle to these. Sown from last year’s saved seed. It is another herb flower I cannot resist since I first saw it shimmer in a vegetable garden in northern India. I scatter burgundy amaranth in among the pathside calendula. It seems we grow more flowers than before. A few sunflower seeds get pushed into soil – a deep rust-cololoured and a giant yellow – in silent solidarity with the people of Ukraine. The spring narcissi (our first here) are also starting to open. I sow tagetes Ildkongen in among them to take over when they fade. As I leave, I spot a large heron standing by the tadpole ponds. It lifts lazily as I get closer, but still circles the site as I lock the gate.