LIKE most people we used the long days of lock down to devise projects in the house and garden, some of which actually came to fruition.

Whilst we still haven’t demolished the old garden shed to make way for a new one or managed to build a wisteria walk, we did manage to replace our never entirely successful vegetable plot with a fishpond.

After almost three years in place the pond has been a huge success, despite the housemate’s constant fears that a heron, which appears to have taken up local residence, has a firm eye on her precious koi.

No matter how much I enjoy the relaxing effect of sitting by the tumbling waterfall, I do however occasionally find myself missing the joy of being able to wander up the garden and come back to the kitchen with a stash of freshly picked vegetables and earlier this year the solution to my longing appeared to present itself when I watched a TV programme advocating container gardening.

Checking out the ample supply of pots and troughs we have lying around the garden from various planting  schemes I realised we could make use of an unloved patch of off-road parking to grow a basic supply of veggies.

Too late to plant from seed we headed off to a local garden centre a few months back to pick up some late season plants and within a short time they were planted and thriving, watered nightly with the ample supply from the water butt we relocated from the garden.

All was perfect until we hit our recent French holiday just as the rain which appears to have been almost constant this year, tailed off.

“Don’t worry,” I told the housemate. “I’ve seen that you can get solar powered irrigation systems so they plant will be watered every evening just as if we were at home.”

Eventually the system arrived and after many anguished hours trying to use the limited instructions we finally managed to work out - with the help of countless family members - how to make the ‘easy to use’ timer to work.

On the first evening we made our way up to the new container veg patch to find the system working perfectly. On the second night it worked equally well…until the housemate spotted a problem.

“The water butt is almost empty,” she announced peering into the murky depths.

“I’ll just top it up,” I replied reaching for the hose pipe.

“That’s fine when we’re here but what about when we’re away?” she pointed out.

Heading back to the internet I found a solution - an automatic timer for the hose pipe which would top up the water butt on a daily basis.

After another lengthy session with the ‘easy to follow’ instructions I managed to set that up and when we returned from holiday the plants were all looking hale and hearty.

On Sunday we had our first meal of kidney beans, perfectly cooked as part of The Mother’s Sunday roast.

“Make sure you appreciate those beans,” said the housemate tucking in. “By the time she’s bought the plants and the compost and the watering system and the timer to full the water butt and the fertilisers and the bean poles and everything else she’s needed, each one of those beans has cost about a tenner.

“They’re probably the most expensive runner beans in the world,” she added rolling her eyes.