Losing the plot: The travails of an amateur gardener

GOD BLESS you, Alan Titchmarsh. You really know how to warm the cockles of a girl's heart.

"If your seedlings are looking a bit leggy," you advised sagely last week as you held up a tray of near-perfect bean plants, "just bury them a bit deeper when you plant them out."

Hurray! Bliss and joy! So if I plant my poor, sad, frosted tomatoes six inches under, they will soon be bursting with life. Well, we shall see. I'll be in touch, Alan.

I've stopped worrying about it anyway, because I have hit the jackpot. In an event so rare as to be akin to the conjunction of a total eclipse with appearance of Halley's, the Orford Gardening Club sale has fallen on the same weekend as a bonanza plant clear-out at the Otley Agricultural College. So I have a two-day orgy of plant-buying ahead.

Phil helps on Saturday by staying at home in front of the cup final (it's a tiresome job but someone's got to do it) while I pootle up the road to indulge myself in some sweet peppers. (A necessary innovation, this. I had to give up growing green chillies after the great "French bean" freezer mix-up last Christmas. A piping hot dinner is a very fine thing but this one could have centrally heated the entire family for a week.)

Sunday is even better, though Phil lets me down by not tutting or tapping his feet as I browse among the joys of Otley. Consequently my haul of plants is so huge that even the woman on the till laughs at me as I wrestle them out the door.

Rummaging in the back of the shed for some pots to put my purchases in, I come across the remains of last year's coriander plants. Fantastic! If I shake them on to a newspaper I will hopefully have a huge haul of seeds for cooking. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a breeze, but at least now - fingers crossed - I can expect plentiful supplies of fresh leaves growing conveniently out of the grass in a week or so.

By now the thought of coriander has begun to tell on me and I potter out to meet Sarah for a curry. She turns up with a carrier bag containing six happy, healthy tomato plants. So, now we have a controlled experiment on our hands. The deep burial technique versus the genuine, well-nourished article. Like I said, Alan, you'll be hearing from me.