Alexandra Oakley 
Early February in the garden has felt a little like standing at the back door with a long list of jobs and absolutely no weather window to do them in. The rain has been relentless, the ground is sodden, and I keep looking outside hopefully as if it might suddenly have changed.
The biggest frustration at the moment is space. If I cannot plant out the cornflowers and ranunculus, I do not free up room to sow the next batch of seeds, and then everything starts backing up. It is a very glamorous system here 😄 It is also the sort of weather that makes the flower farmer fantasy feel slightly less romantic.
So I am trying to focus on the jobs that can still be done between the showers. One of those is checking the dahlia tubers in storage, which is exactly the kind of task I am very good at forgetting about until it becomes mildly urgent. A quick look now feels much better than discovering a problem when I should be potting them up.
When the weather gets too dreary, I do what I suspect lots of us do and scroll back through old garden photos. I found one from a morning in August when everything looked just right, all soft colours and that lovely feeling that the garden had properly knitted together. It was a useful reminder that this muddy, frustrating bit does pass.
So that is where I am in early February: not getting through half as much gardening as I would like, trying to be patient, and keeping the faith with spring bulbs, sweet peas and all the things waiting in the wings. Not much glamour at the moment, but plenty to look forward to 💚
