Monday 23 April

• On Sunday 15 April to Leytonstone Green Drinks at the Walnut Tree. Only Maureen and Rosemarie there, both of whom I know. (I tried an elderflower cider, which was rather odd tasting!).
• Everything has now got very green. One outdoor pot plant with a dead-looking plant sprouted several inches new growth overnight!
• A few of my amaryllis showing green leaves, so potted up all 11, and also 2 begonias.
• I am not very good at sawing, but yesterday slowly worked my way through a large log rescued from the Lea, so made two that will fit in stove.
• National Trust magazine came in compostible wrapper. Read about this after I had put it in kitchen pedal bin, but able to rescue it and put it in the compost bucket. Hope it breaks down faster than the lavatory paper wrappers!
• Got a scabious from Tesco. Supposed to be perennial, but this is third with no sign of the ones from the previous 2 years having survived.
• My friend Beate had some logs to be sawn up for woodburner but has had to leave them as they have stag beetle larva.
• Yesterday cycling to help out at canoe club at sprint races when Lesley cycling to yoga in Jubilee Park caught up with me and said, "I thought it was you. No one else I know cycles so loaded up!"
• Saw lots of butterflies yesterday. Two days running a pair of great tits were looking for insects on the wisteria, the bay and the buckthorn.
• Garden has a lot of honesty in flower, forget-me-nots and primulas. 
• Daffodils over so now watering with fertiliser to encourage flowering next year.

Sunday 15 April

• I've just had a delivery of a little mulberry bush - only a few inches high. It's for a pot and should be fruiting next year. I've always fancied a mulberry - but in my imagination it has been a tree in the middle of a huge lawn! I've potted it up into a bigger pot and put it in position.
• Yesterday I also put out the Babington leek (you don't pull it you cut it, and it spreads), the welsh onions, and a birthday card which has seeds in the papers (no idea what flowers they will burn out to be.
• I've moved a compost bin, getting 3-4 buckets worth of compost for the tomato/courgette bed in the process.
• My first picking of rhubarb today. Nice juicy stalks. Because of cold and/or dry springs I haven't had good rhubarb for years. I made a crumble.
• My cranial osteopath thinks the twinges in my knee are a touch of arthritis. She has given me an exercise and I've been looking in my herb books. Deciding to try celery, ginger, lavender and rose to help it (not all in the same application!)

Sunday 1 April

• Today with friends who live in Plumstead. In the afternoon went to Lesnes Abbey Woods for a walk with their two dogs. Wild daffodils and wood anemones out.
• Cycle ride Good Friday and yesterday along the old River Lea south of Leabridge Road alongside the Hackney Marsh football fields. Water high and flowing strongly. Gravel island just below outflow of flood relief tunnel small on Friday and completely submerged yesterday.
• Started moving pots away from conservatory yesterday but was interrupted by rain.
• Have ordered drawf mulberry (small enough for a pot and fruits first year) from The Organic Gardening catalogue. 
• Also ordered 3 tomato plants where the fruit will dry on the plan and can be stored in jars of olive oil. Have always fancied drying tomatoes but, without an aga, that means hours in the oven, albeit on a low heat.
• Got the May edition of Country Living magazine which had a supplement "Big ideas for small gardens". The gardens featured in the magazine are always huge so no inspiration for me and my small garden at all. So I was very pleased until I opened up the booklet to find a picture of a large garden! I've emailed to complain, carefully being polite! 
• Got an organic lettuce in Tesco's yesterday. Took it out of plastic wrapper to find a load of greenfly!