In a Cold Scottish Springtime Garden

April, and I'm thinking about our small kitchen garden, the one we established last year in a couple of raised beds. The beds have been dug over and are waiting to be raked. I've bought seeds - lettuces and salad stuffs of all sorts, radishes, red and white, salsify, kohlrabi, mustard, parsnips. I've planted courgettes indoors - they were hugely successful last summer and for quite a long time we ate courgettes with everything - a friend gave me a pasta sauce recipe consisting mostly of fresh courgettes and creme fraiche and it was wonderful: green and delicate and delicious. The chives are growing, as is the rosemary I established last year. The little blueberry bush has survived the winter. I've bought a white currant bush that I'm hoping to plant this week. But at the moment there seems little point in sowing any outdoor seeds since the ground is just too cold. Instead I planted some lily bulbs, and repotted some chocolate mint (smells just like Mint Chocolates, fabulous!) and a big pot of basil. Can never sow basil without thinking of Isabella and Lorenzo in the story - and in Keats' poem - and the Holman Hunt Picture . Gruesome but wonderful all the same!