Here are the pansies in their normal state - in a moisture-retaining enclosure. This is how it says to store them on the packet for the first couple of weeks of their lives - it’s not that I’m cruel and like to see them suffer, honest!

The two straggly mixed pansies which grew in the pantry are looking in a very sorry state and I don’t think they are going to make it. However, every cloud has a silver lining and this one brings some new fresh healthy-looking shoots. I therefore believe that removing them from the pantry and exposing them to sunlight has been better for them than what it said on the packet.

The green and black pansies meanwhile are growing healthily, and most of them have this cute “Y” shape to them.

The sunflowers, meanwhile, boosted by a bout of warm weather, are also going completely mad. Number four (on the left here) is now almost at the top of the kitchen window, and is therefore about 7 foot tall. Wow!

(Yes, I know I need to paint the windowsill).

The nasturtiums are really rampant now - sprawling all over the edge of the patio, and also snaking through into the territory of other plants. And, best of all, there are about a dozen flowers!

Two of the boxes have been sitting on the windowsill for a fortnight, and they seem to be doing just fine and have poked up lots of cute little leaves.

However, the third (in the middle here) has been in the pantry, and is looking rather sorry for itself, having produced just two measly straggly anaemic-looking plants.

I am hoping that a move to the sunny window will perk these up but it’s rather disappointing to have a net haul of only two plants! Ironically, these are the “normal” pansies (the others are slightly more unusual varieties) which I expected to be the easiest to grow.