How does the garden grow?

My garden is a great source of lists. What to order from the seed catalogues? When to plant? Where to plant?

After an amazing summer of tomatoes last year, I have expanded the selection of vegetables I am growing this year to include:

• french beans
• aubergines
• potatoes
• lettuces
• rocket
• tomatoes
• courgettes
• summer squashes
• spinach
• strawberries

Already there have been some plant bereavements....The cat next door stomped all over the spinach seedlings so they didn't survive more than a couple of weeks. The summer squashes just keeled over and died one day. I have absolutely no idea why. Last night a fox chewed up one of the growbags housing the courgettes, and snapped three of the six plants off at the base of the stem.

But gardening is always more about the successes than failures for me. The successes instantly make me forget about the frustrations. This weekend we ate the first new potatoes from the garden, and the rocket has been in our lunchtime sandwiches for a few weeks now. This afternoon my sister and I transplanted 30 fragile lettuce plug plants into pots and planted out the tomato seedlings. There isn't much room on our patio now.

I am a more reliable gardener when it comes to geraniums. Geraniums are my most favourite garden flower. I love their mad, clashing colours and great puffs of flowers. The geraniums in pots at the front of the house are enjoying all the sunshine and dazzle me with reds and pinks when I get home in the evenings.