baby praying mantis.

I know, this is the second bug picture I’ve posted in about ten days, but isn’t he cute?!

Found him on one of our radish leaves.

I urge you to blow the photo up and have a look at the water droplets on the leaf! They look fab.

germinating basil plants.

In the absence of anything real to post about this morning, I think I’ll pop a picture of up my lovely germinating basil plants. They’re not the only thing we’ve got going – also rhubarb, parsley, tomatillos, fennel, chervil, carrots and borage – but they are the one I’m most excited about.

a cicada.

I found this handsome critter while out watering the garden yesterday. Isn’t he just beautiful? I think he must have just finished shedding his skin too, as he was sitting pretty much on that shell, and also didn’t seem to have much energy – he never even moved except to look at me funny when I got right up in his grill with my camera.

garden updates (and seeds, stage 3).

Casual Spray n Wipe in the background …

I bought some seed trays today, lined them with newspaper and filled them with potting mix (yes I know, naughty, naughty but I’ve really not had any problems using the wrong mixes before).

seeds. stage 2.

All of these seeds have been on their paper for two days now.

Pak choi seeds! After a day, they were still firmly seeded up last night. However, when we woke up this morning we discovered they had germinated spectacularly! Look at the beautiful little roots on them. And every single seed in there is sprouting. Strike rate = 100%. No joke.