Meet my newest child! I wasn’t going to buy any cacti (I wasn’t going to buy… anything) but this little creature was on the almost dead sale table at Hyde Hall, so really it had to be done. It’s a Christmas cactus. Well. It might be an Easter cactus. I bought it in May. The staff had no idea what colour its flowers might be, but surprise is the spice of life, or something. So far I’ve watered it once and admired its complete lack of attention seeking. Excellent purchase.
Remember the little courgettes? They have had mixed fortunes. They outgrew their makeshift pots so I put them outside in real pots. So much space for them to grow! Then we had AN UNHOLY STORM and my poor babies got pummelled. And, um, eaten by snails. By the time I got some proper growbags, we were down from nine sprouts to six. As of today, we have four or five. I’m only really confident that perhaps two of them will make it to the eating stages of our relationship. I should have kept them indoors for longer, and maybe played them more music. I’m 90% sure sound is good for plants, but I am basing that on a couple of newspaper articles and one passage in Good Omens.
So last time the peppers were just a pile of sludge. Today they are sprouts! They’re a bit more delicate than the courgettes were at that age (is that what you’re meant to say?). I’ve repotted them a couple of times because I ran out of soil, but so far so good? I’m not sure they’re up for the great outdoors yet, but they seem quite happy.
If you read my A Week in the Life of an Author post, you’ll have seen that I gifted my cousin and cuz-in-law this little thing:
Funny story: I bought it when it was a tiny baby plant, in ASDA, to take to E’s for dinner. The dinner never happened but Covid did, so the plant hung out with me for 18 months, growing merrily. I finally gifted it last week, by which point it was twice its original size. It also took until last week to learn it’s called a ‘Flaming Katy.’ Does it look like it might catch light? The plan was always to give it to E when I saw her properly, but I became quite fond of it, so I took a cutting and it’s doing all right:
Just a heads up, family, I might grow you all Flaming Katys for your assorted special occasions.
How are your house plants? Your garden plants? The verge outside your home? I don’t know if you can upload pictures to the comments section, but if you can… send me your photos. Or draw me a picture! Maybe not of those tall cacti, they could give the search engine scanners the wrong idea…
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