I’ve begun dead-heading the nasturtiums. The flowers are beautiful but they have a limited life-span, and in order to help other flowers grow I must regularly remove the dead ones.

Today’s regular “aren’t they pretty?” picture therefore also shows in the background a very dead one. This one was removed shortly after the picture was taken. There are still squillions left so it won’t be missed.

This picture shows the whole of our house, and also all of the sunflowers. Bearing in mind that the patio is about a foot lower than the ground floor (there are three steps down to it from the kitchen or the dining room) you can see just how tall these things (especially number four) have got.

I’m extremely pleased!

You can also see how the nasturtiums have clambered all over one of the bushy things (bottom left of the picture) in the rockery! I asked Nancy if this was cause for concern but she thinks the bushy thing will be just fine. The nasturtiums are quite brittle so I’m sure she’s right.

The nasturtiums are really rampant now - sprawling all over the edge of the patio, and also snaking through into the territory of other plants. And, best of all, there are about a dozen flowers!

The nasturtiums are rampantly attempting to suffocate their pot and take over the entire patio.

Behind the leafy façade there is a spaghetti-like jungle mesh of stems competing for light and water.

And, amongst all that chaos, a bud has developed! I was wondering if the nasturtiums would ever get around to actually flowering - and now it looks like that they will (eventually) as Mr Batty found this yellow thing whilst waiting for the chicken to roast. I shall be monitoring carefully in the next few days for more buds…

Unfortunately it seems that sunflowers one and three have broken free of their bonds at some point today. I tied them back to their sticks, and they still look a bit wobbly, but I think they are going to be OK.

Number three’s leaves are all pointing in odd directions (since I think he was slumped on the floor for quite some time and therefore had to adjust to look at the sun) which makes him look most peculiar. It is reminiscent of the early days when he didn’t know whether to grow up or down.

The nasturtiums meanwhile have taken on a more battle-scarred look after their encounters with snails, slugs and drought. They’re mostly healthy, and contesting competitively for the sun with their neighbours the strawberries.

All looking good, but, even being watered pretty much every day, the nasturtiums are showing signs of being parched. I’m always worried about overwatering them in case I put so much water in that the compost gets washed away and their roots get dislodged. Perhaps I shall visit them twice on the watering round.

The sunflowers are looking spendid - these high-angle shots don’t quite do them justice.

Witness here no less than three snails heading towards the nasturtiums (in the terracotta pot in the background):

These two were playing football with a stone.

Whilst this one was cavorting about on the sundial.

Worse was going on in the rockery amongst Nancy’s alpines - in fact some parts of it resembled a snail-orgy. Also, this was where I found the one and only slug (I was expecting to find loads).

Whilst other bits looked like a massacre had gone on, seemingly with gooey bits of goo just dripping off the leaves.

Today was cooler, but not without it’s problems. I was curious as to why a couple of the nasturtium leaves were all curled up. A closer look revealed a load of black eggs on half a dozen of the leaves! I wiped them off and gave a liberal application of some insecticide which will hopefully stop them coming back.

Not only that, but some good-for-nothing grub has eaten one of the leaves too!

Here are the nasturtiums. Notice that even the floppy looking ones have perked up and are now looking healthy. These pictures were taken at 9pm - so about 3 hours after they lost direct sunlight.

The sunflowers are looking a bit parched though after two days in hot hot sun, and the falling-over incident yesterday.

The nasturtiums are mostly perky, although some of the bigger ones look a bit limp, and, er, asleep from the ordeal of moving. They’re still very green though so I think they will pull through.

Cora licks her lips for some reason. No, she didn’t eat them.

There are loads of nasturtiums coming up now.

Whilst the sunflowers are looking a bit furry.

An exclusive shot from outside, showing the nasturtiums pressed up against the (paint smeared) window, clamouring for sunshine. The sunflowers today are boring by comparison.

And by the next morning, the nasturtiums have turned around the face the sun again. Magic!

The nasturtiums are looking well happy. I’ve turned this tray around 180 degrees too, so you can see their happy faces all pointing the same way. In theory by tomorrow they’ll’ve craned their necks around so they’re looking at the sun again.

The sunnys continue to grow well. One and Two are starting to sway a bit and are in need of a supporting stick, whilst Three continues to restlessly churn it’s compost up. Still only three of them though, which is a bit disappointing since I planted eight.

Meanwhile, sturtium One has some well-developed leaves, whilst others are starting to sprout nicely.

The sunflowers have gone green (which makes them look a lot better), and some of the nasturtiums have come up! As you can see I have moved the nasturtiums to the windowsill.

Sunflower three (at the top-right of the lefthand tub here) continues to give cause for concern. After his reburial yesterday he’s kind of all wriggled back above the surface worm-style, rather than growing upwards and nicely in a straight line. Hopefully he will sort himself out - I’ll continue to make sure his white bits are covered with compost as much as possible.

Two of them seem very happy, if rather yellow, but the third one to have popped up seems to be some sort of mutoid sunflower/furry/maggotmonster, and the fourth seems to have come up, decided it didn’t like it in the open air, and then ducked back down undercover ostrich-style. Since the box says to put them in the light when “small shoots appear” I’ve put the sunflowers on the windowsill.

On my Dad’s advice I dug up sunflower three and replanted him, since it seems like I may have planted him upside-down in the first place, hence the weird mutant growth pattern.

No sign of anything happening with the nasturtiums, so they’re still in the pantry in the dark.

Here’s the tub before I started piercing holes in it (as per the instructions)

Then I filled it with compost and stuffed the little nasturtium seeds into it, covering them up as I went

And here’s the other one done, together with it’s drip tray. The drip tray is the bit labelled “DRIP TRAY".

And here is the completed assemblage.

My attention then turned to the sunflower seeds. The one at the top of the packet looked a bit skanky so I didn’t plant that one.

And here they both are, finished