Whoopsie!

Life has thrown a few curve balls in the last couple of weeks, and the blog has suffered. Will be up and about with some new posts very soon. In the meantime, enjoy this little bizarro ditty from my garden.

Green Progress & Vain Bug

Since repotting my boot fair plants there has been some progress in growth! 

The chile plant has flowered! We will hopefully be seeing some tasty fruit soon. This is the 'normal' chile plant... 

the habanero is growing nicely, but no sign of flowering yet.

The cherry tomato plants have flowered too, and they are a LOT taller than they were when I repotted them.

Oh, and while I was in the garden this bug was just begging to have his photo taken so I indulged him. He was saying something about how great the shadow he was casting was. Man, these garden bugs can be so demanding! 

In other news this weekend:

•  had a highly successful trip to Ikea where we bought new bedroom curtains, some new bed linens and storage jars
• sliced my finger open on an unruly refried bean can. Lots of blood, but nothing serious.

To-Do list

In an effort to give myself a break and stop worrying about all the stuff I "should" be doing and enjoy and appreciate the things I am doing, I made myself a relatively simple to-do list yesterday. morning. ** yesterday was, I think, Wednesday, but Blogger was down and it's taken me this long while working the day job to get this post posted! ** Suffice it to say, "should" is one of my least favorite words in the English language, and I do try to fight against it when I'm aware I'm succumbing to it.

On my list:

1. Nettles: There was a ever-growing family of stinging nettles getting out of hand on the right side of our garden that got to the point of actually blocking the path on the way to the bird table (gasp!) Nettles simply don't let themselves be ignored. I tried, but it didn't work. So I went to town on them in the midday sun, and I'm happy to say the area is now nettle-free (although still not altogether pretty!) and I only sustained two minor stings! This last bit is definitely an achievement because it seems like you could be wearing a coat of armor and they'd still manage to get you somehow.

2. Re-pot plants: The plants we got from the boot fair last weekend definitely needed re-potting immediately. They were in the tiniest little pots and their roots were desperately trying to get out the bottoms! This is one of those funny kinds of chores that I will put off for ages, but once I start getting dirty I really enjoy it. It occurred to me yesterday that if we owned our own place I could really get stuck in to some gardening. Something to look forward to in the future...

3. BBPhoto: That's scribble code for Blackbird Photo. A doofy blackbird was getting ecstatic on the edge of the deck the other day, with its mouth hanging open... and then it began to SING. I grabbed my camera and got a couple of shots through the kitchen window before it flew off. I was going to try to use one of them for my banner on here, but wasn't super happy with how his face was shaded. Any opinions?

4. Marlowe: I kept meaning to look up the Marlowe Theatre online to see about an upcoming production of Top Hat, apparently the first ever stage production of what used to be one of my all-time favourite Fred Astaire movies. Slightly cautious of disappointment, but I think I might take the risk! Stay tuned...


5. Howlett's: Was briefly thinking about taking the train to the sto near our favourite conservation park (read: zoo, but without all the nasty bits) and getting their free peak season shuttle bus into the park. Dan and I go all the time when we're off together, and I wondered what it would be like to go on my own. The task on my list was simply to look into the option, and as it turned out that's as far as it got! ... but now I know, for future reference.


6. Video for Monkey: I really didn't think I'd be brave enough to complete this item, but towards the end of the day (evening really) after I'd treated myself to a vodka and diet pepsi, I took out my Ricoh, set it to video mode, and ventured out to the deck in the garden where my newly potted plants were to show my great friend Monkey (aka MONKEY) the work I had done. Sorry, but this video was for her eyes only! ... but I did it, that's what counts right?


7. Blog: and this final item was to do a blog post, and as was mentioned before, it's taken a few days to complete it!


All's well that ends well... ?

garden morning

Decided I needed some fresh air today to clear my head and take a break from everything running around inside. First thing, I set to work pulling out the many weeds that have sprung up in our front garden, and when I finished there, I started on the back. It's far from done, but at least I feel like something was accomplished. Yesterday, when I took a photo of the poppy below at the back of the garden, it cooperated so much that I thought I might return the favor and separate it from the stinging nettles growing nearby. The nettles, of course, weren't so friendly. No matter how careful I think I'm being, I always manage to get quite a few nasty stings. Nevermind! The nicest surprise today was to find two tiny little frogs hiding in the corner! Cute little guys, about the size of my pinky fingertip. I tried to get some photos, but I doubt they came out very well. If I did get something, I'll post it here. Off to hang some washing over my newly mowed lawn!

Chili, chilli, chile ... as long as it's tasty

Aaahh progress! Lovely day this time... warm and sunny. See that bowl up there? That's the sign of a novice... it's my large kitchen mixing bowl. At least it makes for a pretty picture.

So today I re-potted the chillies, as well as the sweet peppers, and sowed the seeds of some swiss chard for germination inside. Now I can sit back and wait...
(while also panicking about anything else I might grow and whether I will be doing it too early or late, weighing up whether it's best to grow seedlings indoors or sow them directly outside after realizing I've used 'heavy' compost for the swiss chard seeds instead of the presumably 'lighter' seed mix, getting the now flowering tomato plants into the grow bags in some part of the garden, buying canes and ties, organic tomato feed, and nets for birds, stockings for tomato clusters, and anything else I can think of to prepare for the probable onslaught of slugs, hungry birds and mischievous neighborhood cats. That and a few thousand other things that I haven't thought of or learned yet.)

You know, pretty much just relaxing.

You Say Tomato

It's a horribly rainy, cold day here in lovely Kent... but I thought a little discipline would do me some good -- so I managed to re-pot the cherry tomato plants bought at a 'local-ish' farm shop into bigger (albeit not big enough) pots for the time being. Then I potted my little plum tomato seedlings into their new little homes. I know, I said 'homes'. Yes, they are just little green bits, but they are damned cute if I do say so myself, and I reared them from seed. (Oh shut up) Is it possible to get attached to a seedling? Anyway... all of it feels very productive and it was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. This is despite the fact that I was squatting (danger danger!) down in the dimly lit garage to do it because it was raining cats and dogs outside. I've got my eye on Monday now, when it will hopefully be sunny and I can re-pot some chili and sweet pepper seedlings that Dan brought home the other day. This I plan on doing at the comfort of the picnic table -- the searing pain in both of my knees and subsequent ibuprofen gulping has reminded me that squatting is not my friend, under any circumstances.

And there you have it, my first 'real' foray into gardening... so far so good.