I have seeds from a long red chilli drying in a bowl on a window shelf. Mandarin and orange peel is drying on the kitchen bench. Empty egg shell cartons are being stacked ready for a sprinkling of spring and summer seeds.

There's a garden hand fork jutting from soil at the back and front doors for an impromptu five minutes of weeding. Sprigs of fallen wattle or the dried remains of gifted bouquets fill posy vases and jars, and garden guides and seed catalogues adorn the coffee table.

My favourite gardening reads are the P.J. Hurley's This Week in Your Garden, a compilation of newspaper gardening columns from the 1950s, and The Garden Lover's Log, with monthly notes from Olive Mellor, written in 1940 and sold as a fundraiser for Red Cross.

For August, the recommendations are to plant seeds for spring and summer flowers, including antirrhinum (better known to us as snapdragons), aster, ageratum, begonia, carnation, clarkia, didiscus, gaillardia, godetia, African and French marigolds, nasturtiums, petunia, phlox, pyrethrum, scabious, verbena and zinnia.

For the vegetable patch, the seed recommendations are broad beans, cabbage, carrot, celery, leek, lettuce, onions ("for spring onions only"), peas, potatoes and turnips.


Enjoy the rest of your 'almost spring' weekend

I'll happily trade garden produce for a cuppa
Play with your poo paper
What farmers are doing to save our bacon (okay, maybe just dinner)
All my favourite flavours in a cake