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

This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
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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?

The art of bonsai

Was introduced to the art (and some say, science) of bonsai as a kid when I discovered a book on it, in my father's bookcase. It really fascinated me and I finally understood why my uncle kept pruning that small plant of his.

Bonsai comes from the Japanese words "Bon" meaning "tray" and "Sai", "growing" or "planting". It literally means potted plant and refers to plants grown in containers and miniaturized aesthetically.

You may ask what makes it different from other potted plants. One of my friends actually thought that they were genetically dwarfed plants when he found out that a small tree growing in a pot was more than 20 years old. They are NOT genetically dwarfed.

The Bonsaigardener.org, is a great site if you are interested in learning more about bonsai. Erik Olsen, the webmaster of the site, has written more than 200 articles about the hobby. I really liked one titled "Geeks Turning to Bonsai to Combat Stress".

He's the author of Bonsai Gardening Secrets, which you can download from the site. You can also sign up for a free bonsai email course.

Tags: bonsai gardening

Trips to the tip

I finally cleared up most of the junk in our backyard. You won't believe the amount of stuff that was lying there.

Simply can't understand why people would throw bottles, cans and other rubbish into your backyard when there is an excellent Waste collection service that comes every Thursday.

Anyway, had two make two trips to the Public Waste Recycling and Disposal Facility (the Tip)off London Road yesterday. It was back breaking work but it was worth it.

Related post: Getting the gardening itch

Self rewinding hose reels

Slowly but steadily, I am transforming our garden. It is proving to be quite tough as I have to deal with tough grass, lots of pieces of junk buried in the soil and deep roots of the brambles that the landlord cut down a few months earlier.

Right now I am using a watering can to water my plants, which is not very convenient. I thought about buying a water hose but I know of the problems associated with hoses, namely rolling up them up and storage after use. Just imagine the work if they are a 100 ft or more in length.

I was surprised when I read about the NO-CRANK™ range of hose reel. As the name suggest, these hoses are hands-free rewinding garden hoses. Intrigued by it all, I found out that Hydro-Pro™ system is a water piston engine that uses the water pressure to rewind up to 175ft of garden hose. In other words, it is like an engine and powered by water.

The hoses are available in various designs and different price ranges to suit every gardener. I am seriously considering getting one.

About Narcissus

You learn a lot of interesting thing while surfing the net.

Yesterday, I bought some daffodils to plant in our front garden. However, the tag said Narcissus and these were white, scented and smaller variety unlike the more common large trumpet yellow ones and I had some doubt.


A look at this site confirmed that these were indeed daffodils too. Both belong to the genus Narcissus. Daffodil is the common English name now used for all plants under this genus.

The variety I planted is called Bridal Crown.

The site had some interesting trivia. The daffodil is the emblem of Wales and Prince Charles is paid one daffodil annually as rent for the unattended lands of Scilly.

The name comes from Greek mythology from the guy who fell in love with his own image. Yeah! It sounds so stupid but looking around, it doesn't seem so stupid after all.

Getting the gardening itch

It's warmer now-a-days and you can feel that Spring is on the way. Seeing the barren backyard really spoils my mood every morning and I am thinking of doing something about it.

To tell the truth, it's 100 times better now as compared to when we got here. There were thorny brambles everywhere with all short of junk underneath it. To say that the backyard had been neglected would be an understatement. It was like a junk yard. We were so turned off by the sight of a jungle in the backyard that we were thinking of moving out after a few days. However, our landlord cleared up most of the mess along with his father.

You would be surprised to learn what turned up under the vegetation. Several empty bottles of beer, furniture, dustbins, carpets, bricks, tiles, toys and loads of other junk, even a traffic cone. My landlord had to make several trips to the tip and even after that I loads of junk turned up which I got rid along with our household rubbish.

I was able to salvage a composting bin which was in good condition.

We burnt off the dried brambles and grasses on Guy Fawkes day.

Anyway see the transformation of the backyard:

When we first arrived


Nov, 2006


Jan, 2007

Today I planted some roses.

Tesco is having this gardening promotion and today I bought a 6 pieces gardening set for £5. My first project would be to prepare a herbal garden. I prefer to grow something I can eat.