Under the dome...

They’re alive!

Deep in the recess beneath my kitchen cabinets they sit like a small Quatermass experiment encouraged by the heat of the radiator beneath.

What creatures lurk inside those breast-like domes? Pod inhabitants from some far-flung galaxy fatally fallen to Earth, or the capsule-bound twisted result of some dastardly government funded project?

Neither. Actually they are simply carrots, pumpkins, peas, and courgettes growing in some of my marvelous pound shop propagating pots. Two for a pound, fifty pence each – what a bargain! Just look at all of that lovely moisture collecting on their plastic lids, the soil warming nicely. Soon tiny seedlings will begin to appear.

Even without monsters, this is without doubt the most exciting time of the year. Everything is springing to life with the promise of long summer evenings to come with beer and barbecues and gardening. All you have to do is drop a seed into the soil and, before you know it, a plant appears. The tomato seeds that I planted just a week ago are already an inch high and thickening nicely in my new greenhouse. The seeds in my Quatermass pots are only a couple of days in and I’m sure that I’ll growth by the end of the week.

I’m even trying to grow my own pumpkin for Halloween and, fingers crossed, it’ll be a monster – or at least it will be when I’ve finished carving it in October.

Oh the joys to come!