We made a bit of a start at some damage control last week, but here’s a walk through what we’ve got to work with.

The view from the inside
So the apartment is in a bit of a mess from the planting and re-potting that’s been happening. What we’ve got here are loads of coffee plants, our rescue poinsettia found by the bin in our basement, the red amaryllis that’s just shooting up, a couple of lemon plants, two jalapeño peppers with curled twisted leaves from last year’s aphid horror, our two tomato plants (black cherry) that survived the aphids and were brought in to the windowsill in a grow bag over winter, recently re-potted, a little tomato shoot in a big pink pot (black krim) and our Medusa looking aloes that we inherited when we moved in. There are a couple of black planters here too with Borettana onions and Swiss chard (bright lights).

The perch

Moving outside you can see the winter winds did their worst and gave our little balcony a battering.

The grow bag contains our purple carrots that were planted a bit too late last year, we probably should have thinned them out when they sprang to life. When we finally got the courage to clamber out a couple weeks ago, we picked off the thick blanket of dead leaves and found dozens of teeny tiny carrots fit for a doll’s house. But alive! (ish) We took out the biggest to eat (about 4″ or 5″) and spaced the others a bit better back in the bag. More on those another day.

Not sure if the football boots are alive.

Yes so we have our work cut out for us. The table and chairs were donated by a neighbour and we’ve vague intentions of doing them up and making them beautiful (not all that into the frosted chrome effect… Dermot Bannon would not approve…)

We had ladybird and bee solar lights that formerly adorned our tent at Electric Picnic but neither they nor the bamboo fencing withstood the gales. There’s an old grow bag with green goo inside that needs a good scrub that housed our potatoes last year. We made the mistake of planting them up then heading off to Glastonbury on what was a bit of a scorcher of a week. When we got back they had shot up about half a metre without giving us the chance to gradually top up with soil. Last week I finally dared to empty the bag and you can see the old stalks and some of the teeny potatoes that now have little stalks sitting in the red windowbox. I planted up a new green grow bag with the ones that looked most promising.

You’ll also see our gnarled lavender, probably dead or dying fennel herb, probably dead purple tiger chillies (were never very healthy but have valiantly stayed alive for 3 years), assortment of dead herbs (basil…something else…) some garlic planted before the winter that’s still got some green going on.

So that’s where we’re at, lots to clear up, order to restore.