I think I’ve touched on this subject before: the amount of guilt involved in gardening. There’s a lot. I should have done that, I forgot to do that, I shouldn’t have done that... I think it’s a bit like parenting – the responsibility of it all – of not being perfect – of watching your mistakes and omissions flower (or not) before your eyes. If your children are rude and undisciplined the only person at fault is you if you haven’t taught them how to behave, corrected them when needed. Sometimes it all feels like such hard work so you don’t do it – just this once or twice, and before you know it you’re embarrassed by their behaviour in public and vow that as soon as you get home you’ll get that star chart going again. Yes, just like gardening.

I have just been outside to hang up the washing and caught a glimpse of the tomato plants in their grow-bags tucked inside their little plastic greenhouses. I have felt the guilt burden of them for weeks: I haven’t fed them their weekly diet of Tomorite for ages and today the foliage has all but given up and died as the desperate plants sacrifice the last of their energy to ripen their fruit before they die.

I am too busy today, I tell myself – I’ll do it tomorrow, when there’s more time. And it’s true, I am very busy and I find it impossible to get everything done in a day that I need to. The trouble is I procrastinate and as soon as I avoid a job for whatever reason, that job becomes a burden and then I avoid it like the plague. Like the squashes. They are totally out of control and are smothering the swedes and lovage, have covered the paths, have infiltrated the courgette plants (I thought the plants had started producing strange-shaped courgettes before I realised what had happened) and squashes are now launching an attack up the wigwam of french beans. They are even venturing over the boundary of our allotment, out over the grass and heading for the road that borders the ends of the allotments. They need discipline. I need to give them the chop. I don’t know where to start though because all the shoots have baby squashes growing on them...

There are plenty of other reasons to feel guilty when gardening though. On the weekend I cut back all of the sweet peas that were growing on the wigwams alongside the runner and french beans. They have been absolutely stunning this year and we have picked bunches of them for friends and for the house. However, they were so prolific that it was only by accident I discovered that the French beans had already produced some pretty long pods. Food versus flowers – the flowers had to go – but I still felt a twinge of guilt. After all, it wasn’t their choice to grow there. I had only just put away the secateurs when Lindsey’s brother spotted a dead blackbird inside our netted sprouts and broccoli. When he pulled it out he said it had obviously been there some time.