It’s no good: I can’t resist.

This happens every year in February. There’s something about the turn of the month that makes your gardening brain go into “spring” mode. Whatever the weather outside – and let’s face it, we’ve had some pretty horrific weather this year – I just want to get growing.

If I were a sensible gardener, I would stand by my cast-iron resolution made last year when I sowed my seed too early (again). I would restrain my twitching fingers until at least mid-March, because I know that seed sown later will always catch up with the struggling weaklings you produce sowing when it’s too cold, too grey, too damp, and just too unspringlike for them to thrive.

Unfortunately I am not sensible: I am impulsive, impatient and imprudent. So the middle of this month found me in my greenhouse sowing an inordinate amount of seed, trying to kid myself that I was trying to get a head start on the season but actually knowing in my heart of hearts it was just to make myself feel better.

I’ve sown an early crop of most of the hardiest veg such as ‘Early Nantes’ carrots and my ‘Countess’ parsnips, as well as some ‘Tom Thumb’ lettuce, mixed salad leaves and celeriac, all of which you can rely on to germinate at low temperatures. More risky are the greenhouse crops, which I’ve started now as they need to hit the summer running as big, beefy plants in order to produce a good yield. The trouble is they also need high germination temperatures and are generally inclined to feel the cold.

At the moment, I’m peering anxiously at the pepper and chilli pots which are stubbornly refusing to show signs of germination despite nearly three weeks in my increasingly compost-sprinkled but relatively warm office. No sign of the aubergines either. I think I may have to re-sow if they don’t pop up some time soon. Next year if I succumb to temptation again I’ll give them a bit more heat.

The tomatoes aren’t doing too badly: after the first tentative hump of seedling stem showed last week they’ve been popping up every couple of days. And of course the hardy stalwarts that keep a gardener going at this time of year are romping away: that’s the first tray of salad mix you can see in the picture, and the Tom Thumbs are up and growing too. No sign of the carrots yet (they’re sown in loo roll inners) or the parsnips (ditto) but then they always take a few weeks and generally don’t cause any trouble.

For all that success has been more patchy than it ought to have been, it does your soul good to see seedlings poking their way into the world at this time of year. And that, to be honest, is what it’s all about.