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After visiting Dona (James' mum) in April and eating the fresh veges from her garden, I decided it was time to grow my own. A fine idea, but more difficult to put into practice when you don't have a car to carry things back in. Especially as the small outside area in my flat is fully tiled, meaning for the first time in my life I would have to buy soil. I seem to have spent most of my childhood moving it, growing in it, shaping it, forming it and even rolling in it (football). But never before have I ever been so short of soil that I needed to buy it.

I did look at getting plants delivered and found you can basically have an entire kitchen garden delivered to your door (link). But decided it would be better to start small and actually have room to move outside. So a trip to the local DIY superstore beckoned - well I say local but the main aim was to find one near a Tube or rail station. I roped James in and we braved odd looks in the carriage to return with bags of soil and some very small seedlings to plant - tomato and lettuce plants at about 5 cm high.

Now about 1 month later I have a flourishing garden to defend from the local slugs and snails, and lovely cherry tomatoes which actually have taste! My 'beefsteak' and 'italian' tomato plants have flourished from 5cms high to about half a metre and have flowers so hopefully not long till we have some large toms too!