It's been a while since I posted one of these.
A huge dragonfly was sitting on the lily for ages. I don't like bugs.
These potatoes keep growing over my budgies' graves. No matter how many times I cut them down, they just keep springing up. Whereas the ones I plant deliberately never do well. So I guess I should take it as a gift from my little idiots:
I got a bumper crop a couple of years ago, but the taste was nothing to write home about. I made them into oven chips.
Last year, I also used the cooking water from my purple carrots...
... to do a little experiment. The cooking water turned a really deep red the second time I cooked some of these. And I wondered if it was because I added a ittle vinegar to the cooking water. So I experimented with adding bicarb, and yes, purple carrots also produce a universal indicator! We dyed some fabric with it, and hung it outside to dry, but then it rained, so it all washed straight out. It was a fun experiment, though!
I gave my mum's crab apple extra potassium phosphate, and it got a bumper crop this year! They tasted nice, too, a little like Golden Delicious. Last year, all the buds fell off and died.
I still can't get rid of those blessed thrips. They infested my room AGAIN, so everything had to go out. I lost two of my Chocolate Peppers to them. I got a pitiful harvest of two little peppers. All the other flowerbuds just fell off, even though I was artificially pollinating them. So everything had to get chucked out this year. I had a couple of chocolate pepper seeds left, plus I bought some Yolo WOnder seeds off eBay.I ended up planting too many, as they all germinated.
There are a few Black Beauty eggplants, and even though they're flowering well, they just aren't fruiting. They probably aren't getting enough warmth and sun, and I planted them all too close to each other.
We also have an infestation of baby snails. They were all over my dill plant, and my family used up all my organic slug pellets, without asking, I might add, and none of the local hardware stores have them anymore.
So normally, I would grow these in my room, but thrips. I have only my areca palm in my room, which doesn't seem to have suffered any thrip damage, but I don't think my room is going to be clear for a long time, if ever. Neem oil does absolutely NOTHING. My thyme seeds won't germinate, and my poor budgie hasn't had any in months. Yeah, I should probably buy more seeds. But I still have nowhere to grow them 🙁
My passionflower died after particularly cold weather, but its baby was still around and has taken its place. I'm just leaving it to its fate. It hasn't flowered yet.
These sunflowers will end up being stolen by the squirrel, if my parents aren't careful. Frickin' écus.