Today is the day I launch my blog.  I've properly got butterflies...please be nice.

We had an utterly delectable day yesterday here in London - the kind of day that makes you want to take a fair amount of clothes off and feel fresh air on your skin.  The garden is slowly but surely taking shape.  I started off in the middle of February, with a larger-than-average space, pretty much all of it lawn.

After many days of ruminating and cogitating and many more days of digging and weeding it looked like this:

...and then after many more days of planting and planting and more planting it finally looked like the beginnings of a garden:

This garden is about creating a space for my family - a space to play and eat and sit and love.

This blog will chart the development of the garden right from the beginning (complete with all my mistakes...I LOVE mistakes).

All this will go into my second book, which will show you how to create a garden from scratch, and have it up and blooming come summertime, without haemorrhaging money or having a hideous time with builders.

I'd love and adore it if you'd come with me, and leave your comments and criticisms.

Elsewhere I'll be showing you fun, easy, chic stuff to do with plants even if you don't have a garden (this is my first one, and my pot-gardening habit isn't going anywhere) - I'm still a windowsill girl at heart.

So yesterday I had the sunshine on my skin, and  the urge, suddenly and without warning, to eat slices of beef tomato with basil en masse (so to speak)...If you've read my book, you'll know that I've had a nightmare with growing basil from seed, so I tend to get a basil plant from the supermarket and divide it into little bits...this way it lasts much longer than it normally would, and you can start munching in a few days rather than a few weeks.  I did this yesterday, using the remnants from my division to feed my desire for summer flavours and planting up the rest into three little pots.  I must say though, that I have managed to germinate some basil just before I moved, (fluke of flukes).  This makes my heart sing and I want to run out into the street and hug total strangers...It was easy peasy to do and I'm going sow some more tomorrow to make sure it wasn't a complete fluke...