1. Get seeds.

2. Put in soil and give them water. They will soon produce a root and then try to shake off the shell.

3. The first pair of leaves are seed leaves.

4. True leaves emerge later.

5. It’s just growing more and bigger leaves from here on out.

6. Fast forward a few weeks, and a new growth appears.

7. This is the flower head. I guess that’s as tall as my sunflowers want to grow.

8. It will progressively open…

9. Bit by bit…

10. Until you see a burst of yellow!

Once upon a time, I had a basil plant. It grew well.

Then I got the urge to plant more things. Having been told that peanut plants were easy to grow and more difficult to destroy, I bought a pack of raw peanuts from the supermarket (just to prove a point) and strew them in a pot left behind by the previous tenant.

Jubilant at being spared a fate as soup ingredients, they grew fast and soon they overcrowded their pot. I had to re-pot or they would die from overcrowding. So I went to the plant nursery and stocked up.

Long story short, I vanquished their stubborn little roots with my shiny new trowel and forcibly put them into my new planter box. They don’t look real happy at the moment.

And the original pot now looks like it has a massive scar. Oh well. I have more peanuts, and peat pots in the office, so any new seedlings will be spared this traumatic experience.

Next week: I order seeds online.