Final preparations for Easter: flowers and cupcakes I eat quail eggs boiled, dipped in cumin salt. If you fancy keeping quails in your garden, look at gamebird.com, or to buy eggs, smoked, pickled, scotched or by the half dozen, visit gardenquails.com. If you want beautiful pale bluish green eggs for breakfast, you need Araucana or Cotswold Legbar hens" eggs from my friend Nicola at Blue Egg Hens (nicola@blue-egg-hens.co.uk). Marans and Welsummer hens lay chocolate-brown eggs, and Leghorns, Minorcas and Anconas lay pure white, but they're all the same under the shells - it's what the birds eat that makes for good flavour. Fresh garden eggs can be baked en cocotte in a sturdy teacup in the oven, or in a bain marie with a spoonful of crème fraiche and a hidden knob of Parmesan cheese, topped with tiny, new sprigs of tarragon - just the ticket for Easter Sunday brunch. With Easter being a movable feast, it is often hard to predict what will be in flower. It is too late to plant spring bulbs, but pots of flowering buds can still be bought cheaply. I paid £3 for a cheery tray of miniature daffs at my local car-boot sale. I have a large old galvanised tank filled with Narcissus 'Thalia" with an elegantly slender, cream, slightly scented, double-headed flower Scillas and grape hyacinths have spread through the beds with their cheery blue flowers. Fragrant Pheasant's Eye Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus and blue camassias have been planted in clumps along the path edges in the orchard. The latter is in bud. I grow 'Blue Giant" hyacinths in rows in the vegetable garden to have masses of large scented blooms for the house. Order your bulb catalogues now from gee-tee.co.uk and avonbulbs.co.uk and make sure your garden is full of blooms next spring. Bulbs look their best massed in borders, naturalised in long grass to hide their dying foliage, or marshalled in containers outside the back door or in window boxes where they'll be appreciated from inside the house. Summer flowering bulbs can still be planted now. Kew Gardens has five million bulbs on display, from the Crocus Carpet and scillas in the Cherry Walk to the Snakeshead Fritillaries in the Princess and Riverside Walks. There are also daffs, chinodoxia and muscari. Ludford House Gardens (visitsouthshropshire.co.uk) offers a secret garden, egg hunt and bunnies. Yeo Valley Organic Garden has planted 20,000 bulbs for its opening tomorrow. High Beeches, Handcross, Sussex has a Spring Flower Event tomorrow. Six gardens and allotments are opening for the National Gardens Scheme at Kencot near Lechlade, with the church full of spring flowers. A must for Easter Monday. For details of other open gardens, visit ngs.org.uk. You still have time to make these lovely carrot cake cupcakes for tea today. They are topped with mascarpone and sprinkled with freshly picked edible violas, primroses and violets. Cream together 225g of grated carrot with two beaten eggs, 200ml vegetable oil, 170g light muscovado sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence. Sift together 200g flour, one teaspoon each of baking powder, cinnamon and ground ginger plus half a teaspoon of salt. Combine the two mixtures and add a couple of tablespoons of milk to slacken. Pop into cupcake cases three quarters full. Cook in a low oven at 170C/ 325F/Gas 3 for 20 minutes till golden and slightly springy. Smother with mascarpone cream mixed with caster sugar and cinnamon to taste. Top with edible flowers.