exordinarily ordinary » garden

Reappearance with flowers

sourrain — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:00:26 +0000

Apologies for vanishing without a trace again – I have been displaying syndrome of early-winter depression again. This happens on a yearly basis and I absolutely hate it! Over the past two weeks the weather have been utterly horrible – with strong winds, snow and hailstorm across the UK. I am absolutely not ready for it! Winters in Fresno starts in the middle of November, and even then it is not this cold. With the changing of daylight saving time as well last weekend, all this week I have been having some sort of jetlag. No doubt its only an hour, but I can’t sleep long enough even though I am absolutely tired!

Before the snowstorm hit, I took one last look at the sunflowers in my garden. This year was another chilly summer, and my sunflowers did not actually bloom until the cold hit again

title="brimmingham 120 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 120" />
Dewdrops on the petals. No, I actually sprinkled water there.hehe.

title="brimmingham 117 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 117" />
Using my macro lenses, this did not come out as nice as I wanted it to due to the wind – and the fact that it was 7 ft high and I could not reach it!

title="brimmingham 115 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 115" />
Double bees

title="brimmingham 101 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 101" />
One of the good things about having a DSLR is that my pussy actually looks good in it – you do not know how hard it is to photograph a black cat!

title="brimmingham 105 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 105" />
Roarrr..

title="brimmingham 083 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 083" />
I love this sunflower selection – looks like an angry flaming sun

title="brimmingham 092 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 092" />
This was one of my smallest sunflower due to the fact that I grew it in a pot, smaller than my palm. It looks so dreamy don’t it??

title="brimmingham 096 by sourrain, on Flickr"> width="500" height="333" alt="brimmingham 096" />
Sunflowers always makes me happy – and it reminds me of my good friend magges who loves it:)

Just a short one today – I should have a ‘surprise’ blog about something more substantial in the next few days. Just awaiting delivery!

And stay safe trick or treating!

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Unveiling the garden

sourrain — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:17:28 +0000

Due to torrential rainpour and pure laziness last year, nothing was done to our garden last year. The only thing that grew was strawberries, which we already had the previous year and just came back. Bought a couple of lavender plants -but that was about it for the garden last year. This year, however, I intend to be back bigger than before….presenting the back yard 2008!

The strawberries are still there – we’re coming up to summer no.3!

Hanging baskets by the garage wall. Love em black cat hanger thing . We spent about £30 in sorting them all out..whoever says gardening is a cheap hobby?

This is also the year of pansies – bought about a dozen of them bright flowering plants

I love the yellow pansy

The veggie/sunflower patch

My siew bok choy which is currently being ravished by greenflies .

I love this dark green bok choy

The baby carrots grow at last!! Planted them in March but I guess it’s been too cold to sprout

Looks like rocket, but I don’t think it is. Yes, I am not sure what the heck I planted..

View from the top. Yes, I try very hard to develope a Yorkshire tan in my sunlounger, nearly freezing in the 15deg temperature. Note the ladder by the garage wall – bacon installed the bracket for the hanging basket way too high and I need to climb on the ladder to water it…:/

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Waving goodbye to my very first garden..

sourrain — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:08:00 +0000

This will possibly be the last shot of Le Jardin chez Bacon for the year. Seeing that I am one of the most untalented (and possibly laziest) gardener in the world, I had done superbly well for a first try. Even my mother, the acclaimed gardener (my friends describe my mom’s garden as ‘hotel manicured’) do not believe that I had actually grown anything – she thinks I’ve just bought it off the supermarket and took really nice pictures of it. So she is insisting that I take pictures of it coming off the ground to prove myself.

The best has got to be the comment my mom’s friend made when I told her that I’m growing strawberries, ” HAH?You grow vegetable ar? But you used to be so happening wan wor….aiya,what happened to you girl?”

Lolz.I feel so honoured.

Since we are moving homes in 3 weeks time, anything that are not in pots will be left behind…which is most of my plants and that includes my cherry tree and multiple root plants. So join me as we wave goodbye to the product of my 4 months of laziness….presenting my blooming garden in September:

My dark orange sunburst sunflowers – this is dedicated to my fav mom-to-be, maggie (her fav flowers!)

Fresno chilli peppers and Apache chilli peppers – more fiery than cilipadis

Fresh from the ground; my albino carrots, onions and beetroot.

(cat grown with love,not miracle-gro)

Watch my garden grow
Dead blooms
Cabbage Patch moi
Plants are growing

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The plants are growing!

sourrain — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 06:01:00 +0000

The garden had exploded in the past few weeks to now resemble a mini jungle.However,this explosion also meant that all my plants which I had given up on had started to grow at an alarming state

Its a sun shinny day after all in le garden

Well, he loves it.

Something to remind me of my time in California – they’re actually quite fiery

Fuschia & orange of my all time fav blooms

Still waiting for my tomatos to ripen on the vine.

And my teeny weeny carrot which is not exactly ready…

….but yummy otherwise!

I actually have 5 more tomato plants that are comming along nicely, a couple chillii plants and a whole row of beetroot..just not thought of taking a pix of.The only thing I regret is missing lavender season this year – I have no lavender in and its right now smack in the middle of lavender season.Aaargh!

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A gardener’s tale

sourrain — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:59:00 +0000

I don’t believe I’ve picked up gardening with deft hands. With my fluorescent green gloves (hate dirt under my nails) and green watering can, I have been religiously watering my little plot for nearly two months.

My 3 varieties of strawberries

From left to right, rocket, little gem,carrots & sunflower. Can you see my pink aunty laundry basket at the background?

Closeup of my ‘mixed oriental salad’

Radishes, with more of the ‘mixed oriental salad’ on top right

My tomato plants in a bag..

The fruit of my labour! Now tell me that don’t look luscious

My small pathetic radish..the only reason I planted radishes was because they are apparently the fastest growing vegetable

I do feel that I’m like a lost sheep in a big city, but the other way around.It’s like being in a kindergarten class…I did not know that straberries grow from the centre of the flowers.Yeah,me is stupid city girl.I proudly asked my mother..but she shut me up by saying of course she knows.Hehe.

Its highly amusing to see things grow from seed and I am frankly proud of myself to had actually planted a usable garden filled with interesting things.I do wish they would grow faster though…my highly impatient nature is taking its toll on the slow creeping growth of my plants.I get highly offended when I find things have been eating into my plants….I found holes on my chilly plants on saturday and placed an SOS call to my mother…people call their mothers to ask for recepies, me to ask for ways to protect my plants.I even bought some Miracle-Gro thingy to make my plants bloom faster!

I guess there are things that you miss when you are a city-zen…like the joys of seeing things grow..not to mention practicing your patience with the slow growth!

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Dead blooms

sourrain — Fri, 12 May 2006 14:34:00 +0000

My hyper gardening foray lasted approximately a week.

Seeing that it’s been malaysia-like weather here ,I’ve been going out straight after work the last couple of days, and had completely neglected to water my garden.When I whinged about it, Bacon told me that it’s ok…a couple of days without water is not death to plants…he should know,he has grown more things than me. So like a trusting little bunny, I ignored my garden for a few days,choosing to sit out and pretend im at a mamak.

I came home early yesterday,and decided to fill my watering can up before Bacon gets home and its dinner time. Imagine my shock when I realized my daisies are completely dead. Kaput. Die-liao. Boh-liao.Wilted.The stalks have an unnatural 10 degree bend downwards , like its 5.30 on the clock. The flowers have a faded shade of orange and pink..looking like orche color,or what I call shit-colored.So I poured about 1 liter of water in each pot, in hopes of reviving it.Waited for 30mins.Not ressucicated yet. Oh shit, I might have drowned it. Poured the water out..and then decided to re-water it. Still dead! How now?

Guiltily, I watered the rest of my plants, hoping to revive any who are on their way to veggie plot heaven. Strawberries are ok, chilly plants are ok, choy tum are ok…all still green.Good. Oh, picked up a couple of slugs whilst watering, systemetically trampling over some weed-like looking plants who seem like a 2-leaf clover…which Bacon later berated are my arugula/rocket sprouts…my seeds are sprouting and I killed them! Thank god I sowed quite a few of them, and there are still quite a number of sprouts left on my veggie plot. I’m such a gifted gardener.

Amazingly, my tomato seeds are also sprouting! Will be replanting them in a couple of weeks when they look less like a taugeh (beansprout) and more like a clover.Have not seen a sight of my sunflowers,beetroot,radish or carrots yet…I’m starting to get worried.

Being in such a foul mood, we went out for a drive in the countryside after dinner, looking at other people’s veggie plots which are flourishing unlike mine.When we got back 2 hours later, I insisted on showing Bacon my dead daisies. Amazingly enough, most of the flowers are standing upright again! Yay! They had even started to lose their ochre looking pallor! There was only one drooping bloom left, and I hope it will be revived by today…we’ll see.

I bow to the gifted greenfingers.

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Cabbage patch, moi?

sourrain — Thu, 04 May 2006 20:46:00 +0000

Being a city girl through and through, I am more used to polluted concrete jungles rather than green lushness. Of course, I fancy myself quite an island girl as well…being born on an island itself, I love the sun sea and sand.But I’ve never really liked hills,muddy swamps and all that…and the only thing I plant are grass that grows on top of a potato-like wrapped up soil…comes in all shapes and sizes (animal shapes to human looking) and was really popular in the late 90s.Oh, and beansprouts when i was 8. Not sure if lucky bamboo counts..those curly things that comes out during chinese new year and you just add water to them occasionally.

So it’s strange that I have been having conversations with YC on the state of my new gardening venture.Well, me typing, she laughing her head off at the country bumpkin that I fancy myself to be.

Yes, dear readers..yours truly is turning into a cabbage patch doll. On Monday I ventured into a place previously only known to my mother ; the garden centre.Fuyioh, it looks like IKEA complete with a proper cafe and a pet centre…they sell rabbits and birds in there as well, don’t play play. With my huge IKEA-looking trolley, I picked up two pots of gerberas. One is orange with two flowers already blooming and another one is just a little strange looking…pink, with two buds but four flowers. Why you ask? One is a proper pretty flower,whilst the other one is a three headed monster of a bloom as big as my head. Well, retards will always prefer retards

Then off to the seeds! Two packs of sunflower seeds (not the edible kuachi ok!) , a pack of mixed chinese vegs (siew pak choy ect) ,arugala seeds, carrots,tomatoes….by this time I was nearly dizzy with confusion.Not satisfied with my picks, I went off to the live plants section and picked up a tray of living choy tum sprouts which I hope will grow big enough for me to devour.

Too much greenery…I picked up two strawberry plant on my way out. With my existing two cherry trees (which, by the way, is blooming bloody sakura blooms), blackcurrant and redcurrant bush, my strawberries will join the jam patch babies! Now readers,listen up. Sourrain’s preserves will be on the market in 3 months time! Limited edition packages with labels exclusively designed by YC.I kid you not. Well…unless all my strawberries end up being eaten up by slugs, which brings me to my next point…

…my plants are fertlized by Starbucks coffee grinds. You can take the girl out of the city,but not the city out of the girl. Sigh. Before you think me mad for feeding plants with expensive coffee, these are used coffee beans that if you asked nicely from your starbucks waitress, will give it to you for free.So there.

Seeing that it doesn’t get dark till 9pm, I’ve been ‘working the land’ the past couple of days. Before you think any different, Bacon just stood and supervised me, as I wanted it to be my own garden….yes, I even did all the digging and weeding! So now this city girl is the proud owner of a few rows of veggies,fruits and flowers. My mommy would be proud of me.

Wait till I get my matching gardening gloves,watering can,spade,trowel and wellies.I can go for Miss Cabbage Patch competition.

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