I’m back. As Heather O’Rourke once said in Poltergeist. Kind of.

I haven’t done any gardening for quite a while. There are two reasons. I was looking after my mum who has now gone into a nursing home.

The other reason is that I hate the cold weather and couldn’t face going out into the garden.

However I don’t need to. I was going around the supermarket when I caught sight of some bargain buckets. They come with compost and seeds. All you need to do is fill up the buckets with compost and scatter the seed and water.

I bought pepper and chilli buckets. If they come up I will make curry I thought.

I know I could have got the stuff much cheaper at any garden centre but I am a sucker for anything that is nicely packaged and labelled as convenient.

I have never claimed to be a gardening expert. I know about orchids and that is it really.

When it comes to planting seeds they usually don’t come up for some reason.

Anyway I followed the instructions. Tipped the compost in. Scattered said seeds and watered them. Then chucked a bit more compost over the top. I had some left but hoped that didn’t matter.

I waited two weeks and nothing seemed to be happening. I was just about to throw the buckets out when I noticed some small seedlings coming up but only in the chillies bucket.

After reading a gardening magazine I realised I should have placed the seeds carefully, spaced out in the bucket rather than just throwing them around.

They are all coming up together now so I guess the chillies won’t grow very big if they are all cramped up in a small space together.

After several weeks just one seedling came up in the second bucket. I joked to my mum in the nursing home. I have paid £5 for one pepper.

Anyway just a few days later a few more made an appearance. Now I have around 16 seedlings. I can’t wait to make that curry.