Don't mind all that . . . those old guys were always teasing. The back of one's hand will do just as well, just as with a baby's bottle. Happily, the annual poppies can go in when the ground is still on the cold side and now is as good a time as any. No garden should be without them.

They wonderfully manage to grow in all the right places so your garden is like a beautiful field of dreams.

Poppy seeds need some disturbed or freshly tilled ground to germinate. It doesn't have to be rich or well fed, in fact the opposite is ideal;

rich living makes them floppy. The seed can lie dormant in the ground for centuries, then pop into life once disturbed, which is why you often see them on the verges of roadworks.

In the past, I've sown really old packets I found in a shed and had great results.

Among those to be tried are field poppies, opium poppies, heavenly 'Angel's Choir' poppies (Thompson & Morgan) and the delicious-looking new mix from Sutton's, called 'Love Affair', which is a Shirley poppy with tissuethin flowers in pinks and reds with picotee edging.

Annual poppies are best sown directly into the ground as they don't like being transplanted and tend to make sulkier, weaker plants if disturbed when young. The recent fleeting snow was useful, not just for its cleansing effect but in that it emphasised the lines of every garden and brought their silhouettes into clearer relief, making it easier to see what was good, bad or simply not there.

But if we must wait for the cash, time or inspiration to make our ultimate dream gardens, then there's a relatively cheap and easy way to make a very pretty if transient picture for this year.

Why not simply . . . and cheaply . . . use packets of annual seed, including vegetable seeds, seed potatoes and glorious annual flowers?

You must, of course, start with the soil, with getting it into a condition receptive to seeds and plants. So go out there as soon as you can now it's drying out and prepare a patch of ground. When it has settled and the top layer is crumbly, buy yourself a few packets of the easiest flower and vegetable seed.

Use rewarding seeds that shouldn't fail you, the poppies and other things, such as deep blue Nigella damascena 'Miss Jekyll', simple (and edible) pot marigolds (Calendula officinalis), lovely larkspur and, one of the easiest of all, salad rocket, which grows like a weed and, like all the above, should reappear in the garden for years to come.

Spring Tonic Once upon a time, winterworn people would go out each spring to the highways and byways foraging for the first leaves to supplement their diets in the lean time of year known as the hungry gap.

They collected the tender leaves, shoots and tops of wild young 'herbs' such as nettle, dandelion, sorrel, cress and mint and consumed them as a vegetable and health-giving spring tonic.

I have done this myself and always noticed the benefits (NB never collect herbs from near a busy road or you risk lead poisoning). They clean the blood, give you iron and would have stopped you getting scurvy in the days before globalisation brought asparagus and green beans to our tables all year round.

These herbs are mainly bitter, and have most of the efficacious qualities of other bitters, including Angostura, Fernet Branca and Underberg, which are so popular in Europe for calming the liver and stomach, especially after too much rich food and drink.

In Greece, they simply use the leaves, and sometimes the roots, of the herb Chicory Cichorium, as a tonic for a healthy liver and for its cleansing powers. On the beautiful island of Crete, where it still abounds despite the fast development of holidays eating up the natural landscape, they consume large quantities of these leaves.

For thousands of years they have eaten large and regular quantities of chicory leaves . . .

and other wild green plants . . .

raw in salads or plainly stewed in their own juices, then perhaps dressed with salt, lemon or vinegar and lots of olive oil. The juice is widely believed to invigorate and cleanse the liver and blood, aid the flow of bile (making it good for gall stones), act as a diuretic and be good for diabetics.

The variety that I know, Cichorium intybus, grows well in gardens here and late spring, just as the soil is warming up, is the time to sow it. It becomes a tall perennial to 1.5m high. You might remember it if I say that it has the most wonderfully bright blue flowers in summer, shaped very like the classic gap-toothed Dent de Leon ('Tooth of the Lion' in French), or dandelion flower.

Sow the seed in rich soil, then from autumn through winter you should be able to harvest the leaves in our climate. It is traditional here and in Britain to lift the thick taproots in succession during the same period and, after removing the leaves to within an inch of their tops, plunge them in a bucket of sand or earth to blanch and produce sweet young top growth. Try it, and remember to leave some growing as perennials for the sky blue flowers.

Fabulous Farmleigh This is the time of year when the back lawn at Farmleigh is strung with exquisite necklaces and threaded with wide ribbons of blue and white wood anemones, Anemone blanda, all set off by a backdrop of daffodils. If you saw this wonderful sight last year, be prepared to be even more dazzled this time as the number seems to have doubled.

Meanwhile, the front of Daffodil Lawn is also a great moving sea of daffodils right now.

Farmleigh, Phoenix Park, Dublin is open every Thursday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm and admission is free.

DIARY Saturday 15 April, 11am: Free talk on growing vegetables. Hosford's Geraniums & Garden Centre, Cappa, Enniskeane, Co. Cork.

Saturday 22 April, 10.15am4.00pm at Hunting Brook Gardens, Blessington, Co Wicklow: 'Growing Vegetables in Polytunnels' with Klaus Laitenberger, head gardener at Lissadell in Co Sligo. Price 90. Tel 01-458 3972 or 087-285 6601 or e-mail: jimi_blake@oceanfree.

net; Klaus Laitenberger and the staff at Lissadell also run a practical organic gardening course there on the "rst Saturday of each month. Booking from 071916 3150; info@ lissadellhouse.

com.

Saturday 22 April, 10am-5pm:

Organic Gardening for Beginners at Rossinver, Co. Leitrim. Price 80. Booking info and brochure from 071-98 54 338; e-mail:

organiccentre@ eircom. net; www.

theorganiccentre. ie Monday 24 Friday 28 April, 10.30am-12.30pm: Gardening Class at Air"eld, Dundrum, Dublin 14. A practical gardening class for beginners or anyone wishing to brush up on their existing skills.

Places limited to 10. Fee 95.

Outdoor clothing essential.

Booking details from 01-298-4301