green fingers

Sorry for my absence. I've been spending a lot of time outdoors and have just arrived back from an early summer holiday. My gardening obsession is still in full force though.

Here are some recent botanical based images from our house and garden taken from my Instagram feed.



Planting out the beans on Ben's birthday // Pest control - collecting the snails for relocation.



African daisies (Osteospermum). I like their purple undersides // Love in the mist (Nigella) - we have these everywhere!



A new pot for a tiny succulent // Aloe vera (I've been meaning to get one of these for ages)



How the garden grows. Our veg patch before and after our holiday // Bringing the garden indoors - a mini bouquet.

Now that we have a lot of things planted outside the garden is looking nice and full. Unfortunately we have already lost our cucumber plants to those pesky snails, but the cabbage, courgettes and beans are growing nicely (despite being a little nibbled). And we have a lot of tomato plants on the go. Four different varieties!

We planted out some more seeds yesterday too. Some wildflowers have been scattered around the garden, and the Cima di Rapa and Cicoria I received in the secret seed swap have been potted and placed in the greenhouse.

I'll keep you posted on how things get on.

make the house a home

WE'VE MOVED!!!

We have been in our house for just over a week now and it's great. It's been a pretty exhausting couple of weeks what with packing/unpacking/cleaning/etc, but we're starting to get on top of it all now and the place is beginning to feel cosier and more familiar. A nice home.



To make it feel a bit more homely while there are still lots of boxes everywhere I've been populating most of the rooms with flowers and houseplants. Just a little touch here and there.

This morning I popped round the corner to the car boot sale and picked up a couple of mini succulents to add to the collection. I planted this super mini one in an enamel espresso cup I picked up from Workshop in Brighton a couple of months ago.





I also finally got around to planting my little cat Chuppon that I got from What You Sow towards the end of last year.



The little cat drinks through a straw which helps grow the little mint plant that sits in his backpack. It's so cute! I think Lyndsey said they were one of the most popular items in her shop - I'm tempted to grab myself another one next time they are back in stock.



I hooked the little cat over this little vase that Ben bought for me at Art Junky just before Christmas. Such nice colours!

Oh, and talking of presents, I couldn't not share a photo of the housewarming present my brother Tim brought round for us on Sunday...



He found it in the street on the way to our house (thrown out by a granny no doubt). It's pretty dated but it matched our wall so exactly that we had no choice but to put it up.

And I do like donkeys.

potted plants

Remember the avocado seeds we started nurturing way back in the summer?

Well, we finally got round to potting them over the weekend. We probably should have done it a lot sooner, but it's pretty amazing how big these things managed to grow with just some water and the nutrients packed into the seed.



They're pretty bizarre looking really, and weirdly totally different. My one on the left grew very tall and thin - too tall to fit in the photo! - and Ben's is short and thick with little fat leaves. We were wondering if they might be two different kinds of avocado?

I hope they continue to thrive now they're in soil - fingers crossed their leaves keep growing and they start looking a bit less odd.

Here they are all planted, and ready to go back indoors...



Ben's pot was too shallow to cover the seed, so it still looks pretty bonkers. Oh well, it's that kind of gardening experiment I think.

plants for the house

I acquired a few new plants for the house this weekend. All of them were sort of by chance, but I'm very pleased with my new collection.

A neighbour on my road was giving away some plants so I helped myself to a couple. There is a pretty strong and healthy cheese plant (monstera delicosa) and a little spider plant which looks like it needs a little more looking after. To make it look more cheerful I have put it in this nice blue pot I picked up in a charity shop in Worthing on Friday.



Ben and I are also trying to grow some new plants from these avocado seeds. I've seen it done already by a couple of fellow bloggers so fingers crossed! Here's a helpful guide I found if any of you want to give it a go too.

I also want to try and grow a pineapple - but we'll see about that one...