Something to report

At last - a real gardening thing has happened on my patch! The shallots have been planted - yipee. I know it's not much of a report, but it is another baby step towards my goal, and it is one of the January tasks ticked off. Thanks goodness, because the month is almost gone and I feared there would be nothing to show for it.
Another task on the list to the side there is to plan an asparagus bed. Well, I have done that too - in that I now know where I will put it - which is in an area that used to house several rhubarb plants. When we moved here there was enough rhubarb growing to feed the entire Central Belt every day from March to July. My cousin, who lives in Troon, however, happened to mention that he was looking for a few crowns. Was he surprised when I duly obliged? Haha - he can now supply Ayrshire with his delicious rhubarb chutney, and more to the point, I have a bit of space that I can give over to an asparagus bed. I will have to weed it out carefully and dig in some compost over the year, so I think I will have to wait until next spring to plant any crowns. Hopefully some of our campervan trips to the west coast will yield a bag or two of seaweed, which will help the fertility a bit.
Feeling a bit more confident about the tomato and pepper sowing now, so may get on with that next week, unless we get snowed in. I know the lovely Charles says to wait until March, but I do worry that it will be too short a season for me up here. I wish there were more northern gardeners writing or blogging, so I could get a better idea. I will give it a go now and sow a second batch at the beginning of March and report back - wow - a research project!