At last, today feels like spring. Although the early winter was quite mild and pleasant, the novelty of snow or just cold easterly winds wore off by the middle of March.

According to the Met Office, today’s high was 8 degrees Celsius. But the wind has dropped and it was warm enough to sit out at the allotment and watch the season’s first Small Tortoiseshell butterflies flying in the strong sunshine.

Normally we plant our potatoes at the end of March but it was simply too cold this year. But today we planted “Foremost” (first earlies), “Charlotte” and “Kestrel” (second earlies) and “Picasso” (early maincrop). All four varieties usually do well in the sandy loam of our allotment.

It feels good to have planted our potatoes.