Monday – To-Do’s: Gardening Journal.

Your Daily Tasks

1. Launder all white linen from wash to put away.

2. Open a window in every room in the house and fling the doors on to the garden wide open.

3. Vacuum throughout downstairs fpr an instant domestic pick-me-up.

4. Challenge yourself to fill a bag full of rubbish wherever it may be hiding.

5. Go on a dusting and polishing mission to make the house glow.

6. Water and feed all houseplants.

7. De-clutter your make up bag and gently wash make up brushes and sponges.

8. Update your Life-Book for a new season.

9. Get into bed early with a cup of chamomile and lavender on your wrists.

Your Daily Treat…

The minute the clocks go forward I am possessed by the urge to bring my little postage stamp of a backyard to life. Most years the Easter holidays are given over to cleaning and clearing and planting and planning, with many an hour spent wandering haplessly around nurseries and pouring over gardening books as I fill my head with the promise of Summer self-suffiency and the fragrance of English lavender…

But gardening, good gardening takes organization and planning and commitment, and above all, it takes a degree of discipline if we are not to go completely bonkers and abandon anything resembling a planting scheme, and just plant willy-nilly and feed, prune and water when we feel like…

This week take yourself out shopping for the prettiest, hard-backed journal you can find, and let’s give ourselves a project to while away the forthcoming Summer…

You see I rather think a Garden Journal might be just the thing to keep us organised: a place where we can note down planting dates and care instructions, stick in seed packets, and inspirational garden photographs from the loveliest of home and garden magazines, collect gardening tips and quotes and stuff it full of the prettiest vintage gardening images we can find…

But remember, a gardening journal, like the best of recipe books, is meant to get a little grubby, to tell the story of it’s journey and the part it played in creating your garden so try not to get too precious:

It can be quite the most work-a-day of journals, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string and still be some kind of beautiful if at the end of the Summer it describes a garden planted with love and enjoyed by all…

Let’s get a little green-fingered!