Sunday 22 July

• Piers and Charmaine next door have tomatoes in pots - several ripe. I have one tomato just beginning to change from green. 
• Cycled out to Leyton Marshes yesterday and picked blackberries for a crumble.
• When kayaking today I rescued a moth from the water. Very distinctive. It looks like a Jersey Tiger Moth. My Observer's Book of Larger Moths (reprinted 1978 so pretty old) says more or less confined to Devon and emerges in August! Searching the internet unsuccessfully to find somewhere where I could post a question about moths, I did find a site saying that they have recently been in parts of London.
• Cut off the flowers of my lavender. Bush looks much neater but bit splayed out in the middle.
• Cut more branches off my sage. Looks quite compact now and very healthy. Think it is doing well for a bush now over 20 years old.
• Wisteria is having a second flush of flowers - with many more flowers than usual. I have seen bees feeding from it - first time seen this!

Monday 16 July

• Another big fire locally. This time on Wanstead Flats which is part of Epping Forest. Two hundred and twenty five fire fighters and 40 fire engines needed to tackle a grass fire engulfing an area the size of 100 cricket pitches. The smoke could be seen for miles. I didn't notice it even though I was in the garden for the early part of the evening (the garden is the opposite side of the house to Wanstead).
• To Kew on Thursday and had a picnic underneath a tree. The wildflower beds around The Hive had no more and quite probably less bees than my garden that made me feel a bit better about my efforts. There have been cabbage whites and gatekeepers in the garden all week, and often a comma. The marjoram and tarragon(?) have often had a dozen or more insects on - last seen several years ago. I am very pleased about that.
• I've had someone to measure up for some shelves in the out-side lavatory. He used a lot of second hand wood. If that works out I have several other wooden items I would like him to make.
• First rain for ages - light rain though went on for a while on Friday evening, but very little difference to the garden.
• Skype meeting at work where we were in summery tops and the person skyping in from Wales was in a hooded fleece - it was bucketing it down with rain where she was!
• A new cycle workshop has opened near me - www.cycleway.co.uk. I popped in on Saturday to get a replacement screw for the chain guard and also for the spokes holding on the mud guard to the hub of the front wheel. The latter had only fallen out on my bike ride that morning. They supplied and fitting both screws, bolts and washers for £5.
• Got home from Kayaking Sunday afternoon to find a large slug inside my spray deck. As the only grass I had sat on, which was when I was getting back into the Navigation from the weir was dry and brown. It must have got inside the boat while it was in the shed and then moved on to my spray deck while I was paddling.
• My second gooseberry crumble. The gooseberries early this year and are starting to drop off the bush.

Sunday 8 July

It's been nearly a month since I last posted. It would have been one week less, but last week I spilt some kombuchi on my laptop messing up my left mouse click. I got a mouse yesterday to plug in and it's worked! Laptop usable again.

• Seen an Ofo bike by the Lea Navigation covered in river weed - it's obviously been in for a dip. I have also seen one without its front wheel, and another chained to a lamp post with the front wheel off and chained to the bike as if it was someone's personal bike.
• Kayaking on 11 June passing a swan's nest. For adult Canada geese and 4 half-sized goslings trying to pass but cob swan not liking it. Two of the adult geese were approaching nest to draw off the cob while the other two adult geese swam past with the goslings.
• Rescued bumble bee caught up in old web in conservatory. If it had been flying around I would probably not have succeeded in getting it out!
• Logs have been delivered and stacked. Better quality than previous two years.
• I've been having plenty of soft fruit with my breakfast - raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, red currants, loganberries and yesterday my first blackberries.
• There was a big warehouse fire on Saturday 23 June, on Orient Way just south of the Leabridge Road, huge plumes of smoke my friend could see from Plumstead. Orient Way closed so detour on my bike ride Saturday and to kayaking Sunday when smoke no longer plumes, but still there above the warehouse. Monday morning I was watering in the garden and I have never seen the swifts so low. One flew about 10 ft over the garden. Clear blue sky but presumably pollution from the fire and brought the insects down and the swifts had to follow.
• I cycled to Wick Wood but walked down the middle path. Did start in my bare feet, but realised my attention would be solely (pun not intended!) on the soles of my feet so put my sandals back on.
• The French marigolds haven't worked so well on the greenfly on the conservatory this year, my indoor cucumber covered in them. Have had two cucumbers from that plant, and one from the outside cucumbers. Also some courgettes but small - they are growing slowly (due to lack of rain - though I am watering them?)
• Found little bumblebee in wildlife waterbowl. Got it out still alive but not moving. So gave it some sugar and water on a spoon and left it for a little while - and it was gone when I got back.
• No scum on the elderflower champagne but decided to open a bottle. Luckily I took it into the kitchen rather than bringing a glass into the dining room and it gave bang and spewed foam when I opened it.
• Some dead fish floating on the Lea Navigation today. Hope this hot, dry spell doesn't end in a storm. When that happened a couple of years ago, the resulting pollution on the Navigation killed lots of fish.

Tuesday 5 June

• Plenty of rain last week! Nearly two inches in the buckets after the thunderstorm on Tuesday afternoon. The newly planted out tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes survived the battering!
• On my bike ride on the bank holiday Monday I collected elderflowers and the elderflower champagne is now bottled up.
• My bird of paradise plant, so pot bound the earth is 15 cm above the top of the pot, has two flowers this year. They last a lovely long time.
• All but one (one of the new, small bulbs) of my Amaryllis flowering this year - two already over and flower stalks removed, some others still in bud. The Amaryllis that hasn't flowered for years now has a flower bud - but one of the last to produce one. I was very puzzled why such a big bulb wasn't producing flowers, and still don't understand why it hasn't flowered for years.
• Friday evening a fox lay against the eastern fence in the evening sun all evening. I didn't need to go out so I didn't disturb it.
• I have started going out after dark as one of the courgettes was showing signs of snail/slug damage. And I successfully caught the culprit and found some snails on the other courgettes. I don't see how they are negotiating the slug collars.
• At the weekend I put in the slug collars where the French beans and runner beans are to go but only put out the beans that had actually germinated. The rest will follow as and when. They have survived their first night - always worry I've trapped a slug inside!
• On Saturday cycling through the Walthamstow wetlands I passed a family of greylag geese. One of the goslings (though nearly as big as its parents now) was sprawled on the path and just watched me as I cycled past it.
• I went to a vintage fair in Wanstead and was then looking for another fair but going down the wrong road. I was glad I went though as I found a female stag beetle on the pavement heading for the road, so picked it up and put it under some twigs in a garden.
• Rescued a small log of cherry while kayaking on Sunday which I brought home for the wood store. I have also ordered a log delivery for my next day off.
• There were instructions in magazine Simple Things for.botanical gins including rosemary and bay leaf gin. Two rosemary sprigs and 3 bay leaves in 70ml of gin, start tasting after 3 days and bottle when taste is right. The rosemary and bay leaves in the gin look very attractive in the clear glass - pity that will go when I bottle it. The suggestion for drinking it it for adding ginger ale. Seems a waste making a flavoured gin and hiding it with another taste. 

Sunday 27 May

• I've decanted the fig whisky - I will now wait another 9 months before drinking. I put it in one of the fancy bottles I have. Found 2 plastic stoppers that fit various sized bottle necks  and one of those worked fine. Would be useful to have some more of theses stoppers but can't remember where I got them!
• I've put a few 3-cornered leek in a pot to see if I can control them that way. I don't use huge amounts so a pot full will probably be about right for me.
• To Cornwall to stay with my mother for last weekend. She had potted up 4 mints - Moroccan, eau de cologne, chocolate and basil for me. Got them safely home by tube and train. My ordinary mint that I have had for years doesn't appear to have survived the winter. I like Pimms but don't like all the extras, but I do add a bit of mint.
• This week swifts above garden (though seen them earlier elsewhere), Have only seen 2, so hope one of each sex!
• Got home mid afternoon yesterday to find north facing conservatory really hot and raisin tomatoes collapsed. one still very sick today when I put out cucumbers (except one which will stay in the conservatory), courgettes and tomatoes.
• First wild strawberry - from a plant self-sown in a pot.where I have a little oak tree seedling.

Monday 7 May

• One of the sad things about being an adult is how much of one's time is spent thinking about getting stuff dry! So this weekend has been a good one. I was working Friday evening so had the morning off and got the duvet and the sleeping bag I have open under my fleecy under-blanket to the laundrette and then dry on the rotary dryer. Saturday normal weekly wash and also dried on the rotary dryer. Yesterday, I did the coverlet and the fleecy under-blanker. Today I have 4 jumpers drying outside.
• Until the last 10 minutes when one person came with his washing, I was the only one in the laundrette. Once the current owners give up then I am sure it will become something else which will cause problems - but for me only once a year.
• Twice this week I came home and took a cup of herb tea and book outside in the garden and sat for a while. 
• Two hour ride on my bike on Saturday. Out of the house 8.45 but the tow path already busy with walkers, joggers and cyclists. Down to Victoria Park - both east and west bits. - then a detour round Wick Wood (lots of cow parsley/sweet Cecily with side of the path on the north).
• Rhubarb crumble again today.
• Found French marigolds in shop around the corner so got them and potted them into pots for deterring greenfly in the conservatory. Also got basil from the supermarket which I put in a bigger pot for the conservatory.
• I pulled up 3-corned leek yesterday. I've recently read, and my friend in Cardiff I was staying with last weekend confirmed, that it was very invasive. The patch was definitely spreading and there are clumps of it elsewhere in the garden. Still bulbs of it in the earth, but I am ready fot it to take a few years to get rid of.
• Wisteria is looking lovely along the fence. 
• Several butterflies in the garden today, but only seen 2 bees.

Another "small" garden my garden would be lost in!

The May issue of The Simple Things has an article about a "small garden in Kent: proof that you don't need masses of space to have a productive patch."

It is a 150 foot plot - so well over twice as long as mine. Mine is a thin garden, presumably this garden is wider as if it was a long ribbon of a garden it would, I think, be mentioned. So the house is obviously wider and probably detached.

The only guide to real small gardens I've come across is "Big Gardens in Small Spaces" by Martyn Cox which I got when I visited his garden when it was open here in Waltham Forest - and it is less than half the size of mine.