White Lilies

These are white lilies in my garden - my wife's favourite flowers. I bought them at a car boot sale and they only started flowering yesterday.





This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.


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Strawberry season

It's strawberry season again. The fruits are 100% organic and they taste delicious. However, it's not the first time I am tasting the 'Fruits of my labour'.





My Green Thumb Sunday post this week.
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Roses in Bloom

My Valentine's day roses are blooming again and isn't that colour wonderful. I have to say that roses are my favourite flowering plants for a number of reasons. First of all, the flowers are sweet smelling. They last long as well and the plants flower several times in a year. You also don't have to replant them every year as I have to do with some of my other flowering plants. Last of all, they are quite hardy and easy to propagate as well.



The two hybrid tea roses (one with yellow flowers and another with orange flowers) I bought at a car boot sale last Sunday are doing great as well.

My Green Thumb Sunday post this week.
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Pink flowers

Noticed a strange plant coming up all over the place. Uprooted most of them and I don't know why, left this one. Quite recently it started flowering - beautiful pink flowers. Like usual, I have no idea what this plant is. Now I am regretting cutting the plants. The amazing thing is that I have no idea where they came from.




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African daisies and dahlias

Took my mother-in-law and the kids to the Furnace End car boot yesterday morning. My daughter obviously enjoyed herself on the bouncy castle and the merry-go-round.

Saw these African daisies on sale and got three plants for £2/. Hopefully they will later look as good as the pictures of the flowers I look in Cornwall.



My mother-in-law liked these miniature dahlias and bought two of them as well.



Took the pictures yesterday evening. I had wanted to post them up as part of "Green Thumb Sunday" but couldn't as I slept early yesterday.

Busy and tiring day

It was a bright and sunny day today yesterday (just realised that it's 12:25 am). Decide to write one post before I go to bed. Here's a snap shot of a day in my life:

Sent of the kids to the nursery in the morning. My son fell down right in front of the entrance and cut his lips. few tears. Nothing serious though and he was OK after a few minutes.

Took my in-laws to the University of Warwick campus. Took some photographs. Left after having a cup of coffee at the Viva cafe. Forgot to bring my camera and took pictures with my Skypephone.


The ducks are enjoying the sun as well.

Dropped by the B & Q at Avis park and bought some blinds. It's now my favourite DIY store.

My mother-in-law wanted to buy a shoe and I took them to a shoe warehouse near my house. Spent quite sometime there.

Mowed the lawns in front and back of the house. Really tiring work. Covered in sweat.

Trimmed the hedges.

Picked up the kids.

Fixed the main blinds to the bay window in the living room with the help of my father -in-law.

Picked up the wife from the University.

Fixed the two smaller blinds on either side of the main one. Much faster this time.

Now I am dozing off as I write this. And that was my day.

Blue Hyacinth

Saw these beautiful blue hyacinths at the local grocer and decided to get some for my garden. One of them finally flowered. Some of the buds fell off while I was planting it. It would have looked much better otherwise.






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The cabbage that survived

Some of you might recall my post "Cabbage and caterpillars" that I posted last year showing pics of my cabbage plant infested with caterpillars.

You might be surprised to learn that the cabbage plant is still standing. It survived the caterpillars



the winter


and is now even taller than my son.


A true survivor.


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Weeds or useful plants

Woke up this morning to find the backyard covered by a layer of snow. I know it's crazy. It almost the end of March. It is supposed to be Spring - warm weather, flowers and greenery everywhere.

Anyway, noticed that a lot of weeds had come up in the garden. Among the most prominent are the 'Dandelions', with their bright yellow petals. As I was digging them out, I recalled reading about their medicinal properties in a book. Apparently the leaves can be eaten as well. However, I won't be trying that out any time soon.



Here is what Wikipedia has to say about their uses. Reading about their various medicinal properties makes me wonder whether they can still be termed as "weeds".

Has anyone tried eating Dandelion leaves?

This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
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Daffodils emerging

It's amazing. Every Spring you will see daffodil flowers emerging from the ground everywhere. The bulbs had lain dormant through the winter.



This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
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Wet Roses

I haven't been making any Green Thumb Sunday posts for quite sometime. The garden is almost bare and the only plants doing well are the lavender and the rosemary. Went though my collection of pictures to see if I could find anything to post up and I found this picture of my roses taken after a shower on a September afternoon.



This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
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Cabbage and caterpillars

Haven't been posting any pictures for Green Thumb Sunday. The reason is that I don't have any new plants in my garden. Not really sure whether this is suitable but posting it up anyway.

Anyway, I have this huge cabbage in my garden:


One day I noticed that it had like hundreds of small caterpillars everywhere. My first thought was to kill them all but I changed my mind. I decided to leave them alone and see whether they turn to butterflies. My wife says I am crazy.

Well it's been about a month now and they haven't turned to butterflies yet but they are really huge now.






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Bees and flowers

Even though my daughter is not terribly fond of them, I really like to see honeybees in my garden. They are doing a good job pollinating my plants.

It's fun watching them buzzing from one flower to flower. They will suddenly stop flying for a while and the flower will suddenly bend under their weight and the bee would start flying again and move on to the next flower.


bee on our mint flowers


Bee on our marigold flower


bee on our lavender flower

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My herbal garden

When I was starting my garden, I decided that I will have plants that not only look good but lot of edible ones as well.

I have drawn up a list of medicinal and aromatic plants that I want to have in my garden. So far, I have spearmint (Mentha spicata), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and basil (Ocimum basilicum).






My tomatoes are doing really well and it looks like I won't be buying any for quite sometime.


It looks like 'green fingers' does run in the family.

BTW, this is my Green Thumb Sunday post.

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My garden this week

This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week. My garden is really doing well and I am happy that my effort has come to fruit.

Harvested some more potatoes, the day before yesterday. Got a small bucket full of them. There are a few more plants but they are not ready yet.



We also tasted the first tomatoes from my garden. My daughter loves the small cherry size ones. They are really tasty.



I have this huge cabbage growing in my plant (at least according to the guy who sold me the seedlings). However, the leaves don't form the usual compact cluster. Not really sure what variety it is. I tried it in a soup and it tastes just like any normal cabbage.

And here are some flowers:


Lavender


Rose


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My first Green Thumb Sunday post

As most of my close friends are aware, I have taken to my new hobby - gardening like a slug to beer. Only thing is that unlike in the later case, it will probably help me lead a healthier lifestyle. I read somewhere that 30 minutes of gardening a day can help protect you against heart disease.

Anyway, I recently joined another blogroll started by Tricia called Green Thumb Sunday.


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Here's are y first contributions:

While clearing the garden when we initially moved in, I noticed this plant near the fence and decided to leave it. I am glad I did because it started to flower recently. It's quite unique with pinkish flowers.



Does anyone know the name of this plant?

My several months of effort in the garden are also starting to pay off. I harvested one potato plant today.







Think that I might have been too hasty as they are still small.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Here's the blogroll:

Vatentine's day roses

Picture taken over 4 days starting on the 3rd of this month. I didn't take any picture yesterday as we were away to Nottingham.

This is the first rose to bloom in my garden. It is from a stem of rose from a bouquet that I had bought for my wife on Valentine's day this year.

All I had done was strip flowers and leaves off the stems and stick them in the soil. This was the only one that survived

Fruits of my labour

These strawberries are the first fruits from my garden.

Of course, there will be people who feel that gardening is all a waste of time and some people might argue that you can get a big pack of big juicy strawberries for only a pound in the local grocer.

However, the feeling that you get when you sink your teeth in something that you grew yourself - is Priceless.

Related link: Strawberry on Wikipedia

Garden update June 07

Early in February this year, I wrote about 'getting the gardening itch'. It's been sometime since then and a few guys have been asking me about my progress.

Well, it's not that bad but could have been better. A serious obstacle has been the slug infestation. I finally went along with my sister's advice (initially recommended by my landlord) - the beer trap. I bought a 4 pack of the cheapest beer in the market, which happens to be Tesco's value bitter. I then put disposable plastic containers in my vegetable patches, with the top level with the surface. These were then filled up with beer in the evening. In the morning, I would find that they were overflowing with dead slugs. I have pictures but they were too disgusting to put up.

Anyway, I now have the following plants growing in my garden:

1. Strawberries
2. Mint
3. Potatoes
4. Tomatoes
5. Lavender
6. Rosemary
7. 1 rose plant (the rest died)
8. a few marigold plants.

I have also planted carrots and chilies but they are yet to germinate.

The lawn is coming up well too. Our landlord gave me two boxes of hard wearing grass seed and I sowed them just before the rains. They are a bit patchy now but I am sure it will slowly grow over the bare patches in the future.

Take a look at how far our garden has come:

When we first moved in

In April 2007

Now

Got the idea for this post from Skeet's blog.

Slugs away

I have planted a few flowers, herbs and vegetables in my garden. However, apart from the lavender and rosemary which were untouched, all my other plants had their leaves eaten away in a few days.

The culprit - Slugs.

I had initially wanted my garden t be fully organic - no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. However, at the rate the slugs were eating the plants, I would be left with no plants in my garden if I didn't do anything soon.


Finally decided to go for a slug killer. I just scattered the pellets on the soil near the plants. Next day, there were dead slugs all over the place.

Take a look at a few. Aren't they ugly?