The forest and the ladybug apocalypse.

It's been a wonderfully outdoorsy weekend!  Lots of walks and really feeling the autumn right now.  Not much has happened with my plants at the moment.  The seasonals are on their way out and my chili pepper plants are just growing along fine.  In fact I have discovered a little pepper on one of my serrano chili plants!  Photos to come soon!  But right now I just want to share some pictures of my weekend.

-  On Saturday, we got on a bus out to East Berlin.  We went to Müggelheim which is where the Müggelsee is.  We walked in an impressive forest, which from the top looks out over one of the lakes.  The day started out really foggy.  It was crisp but not that cold.  The colour pallet of the day was mainly brown, yellow and grey.  It was beautiful.  I know I have been totally overusing the word autumnal, but it was super autumnal.  That's the only way I can describe it.  Here's the view on the way up through the forest.  There is a downhill mountain biking course through it!  There were some guys mountain biking down the course.  They were pretty fast and were jumping off ramps and stuff.  I was impressed.

Once we had made it to the top of the "hill", this was the stunning view we had over the smaller Müggelsee.  (It's called the smaller lake although it is mahoosive!)

-  Sunday, the weather was completely the opposite to the weather on Saturday.  I woke up to the sun shining and a cloudless blue sky!  We went to the Hasenheide, which is a park in Neukölln just across from Templehof.  Over the course of the day it got really warm and people were sitting in the park topless!  Really crazy when you think that it's already the end of October!  There was one thing that was really bizarre about today...there were soooooo many ladybugs flying around EVERYWHERE!  Every minute there was one landing on me after another one had just flown off.  I wonder if this is a common thing for October and that just like there is that one flying ant day, where ALL the flying ants EVER come out, that there is also a flying ladybug day.  I really enjoyed the ladybugs' company though and I managed to take this really cool photo of one about to take flight!

And here is a photo of two ladybugs flying in the blue sky!  It just looks like there are two black dots in the air, but they are ladybugs!  I promise!

-  After the Hasenheide I continued my journey home and popped by the Comenius Garden which was buzzing with people enjoying the sun.  The trees were just über-vibrant and full of colour!

Anyway, it was a perfect day for soaking up some autumn sun.  The paths were covered in crispy orange and yellow leaves and accompanied by the leaf crunching sound of my feet, it was just glorious.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all have had similar autumnal experiences!
..love..

Pillow Clouds.

After last week's heatwave this week has felt a little bit colder with quite a few storms that brought in a real chilliness with them.  Although this evening was a super mild and beautiful evening.

-  Let me begin with my nasturtiums.  Their stalks are just going crazy, growing wild twists and turns in all directions.  I had to take a photo of it from below as the leaves are pointing down.  It worked quite well I think.

My nasturtiums look good, but I went for a walk in the Comenius Garden today and all the nasturtiums there are already blooming.  I cant wait for mine to bloom so that I can make some nice salads with the nice orange blossoms.

-  Look my tomatoes got bigger!

-  So I've started taking pictures of balconies around Berlin that I see and like the look of.  Especially in the summer you can see greenery sprouting from even the tiniest balcony here.  Some are more intriguing than others of course.  And some are just absolutely wild.  Like this one that I found whilst cycling around Neukölln yesterday.  These lilies are in danger of falling off of the balcony.  They are absolutely huge...I don't mean to toot my own horn but I really really love everything about this photograph.  The second balcony photo I took today also in Neukölln.  Also of plants that are hanging over the edge of the balcony.  Not as wild and crazy as the lilies but still very interesting textures peeking over the side.  I think the leaves on the right are belonging to some courgette or cucumber plants. 

(contrast and Instagram filter Rise)

(contrast and Instagram filter Rise)

-  This evening as I was going for a little stroll, I found out that yesterday and today were the open garden days in Potsdam and Berlin.  And I missed it!  I did manage to do a short visit to a small garden here in Rixdorf.  I had no idea that the alleys I went down actually led somewhere.  I totally forgot that I was in Berlin.  That one little alley has the view and the feeling of a small village somewhere in the countryside.  Wow.

That's all for now guys.  Thanks so much for reading and I hope you have a great week.

..love..

Rain and shine.

- Today is gloomy and rainy, kind of perfect for sitting indoors and writing about things that make me feel warm inside.  I spent my day yesterday reading in the Comenius Garten in Rixdorf, Neukölln.  I was reading, leaning against this statue of Comenius, who was a teacher, educator and writer.  It's really funny that the man who founded this garden and patrols every so often to make sure that nobody is leaving garbage lying around really looks like Comenius.  It's like his ghost is walking around the garden!

The flowers are really blooming in there now, there are all kinds of yellow's, red's, blue's, white's, pink's, and green's around.  Very pretty.

 - My first ripening cucumber!  The last one that I photographed and showed on here shriveled up and fell off.  Now I've got this one which looks like it will go somewhere.

- I haven't talked about my propagating succulents in a long time, so here we go.  As you know I placed the leaves onto a soil bed and little mini succulents started growing out the ends.  I then waited until there was a mini plant on the side to see if I could just rub it off the leaf.  They all just fell of the leaf after they had sucked all the moisture out of it.  And then I finally planted them into an old peanut tin and some normal soil.  Usually succulents have their own soil mix (cactus soil) but I didn't want to have to buy a whole bag of soil.  I am going to keep them on the dry side and not water them too often since there is no drainage in the tin and the soil is pretty absorbent.

- Also, my corn has grown loads already in just a week!  I just hope that they keep growing and bulk out a little bit.  I was told to be careful of them getting leggy, meaning that they don't have enough sunlight and are stretching to where the sun is.  Let's cross our fingers that the growing process will be fine.

- When I was young I got a sprouter either for Christmas or my birthday.  I don't remember which.  Anyway, I was really obsessed with sprouting alfalfa seeds.  I remember vividly taking my purple Hello Kitty lunchbox to school with my supplies for making my sandwiches which were toast, tuna, and alfalfa sprouts.  I can't remember what happened to the sprouter in the end, but I looked online for methods where you don't need a sprouter and found a way of sprouting seeds in jars.  So I tried it with success, and ate my wonderful wonderful alfalfa sprouts last week, on tuna sandwiches of course!

Thanks for reading and have a lovely evening.

..love..