Studio and Life

Gotta stop the plants getting used to the luxury of the greenhouse, so they got turfed out this morning to spend the day outside. Apparently this is the 'hardening off' process. It's still too cold for them to stay out over night; there's always the chance of frost for a few more weeks.

Well, this is what a handful of YouTube videos tell me I should be doing anyway, and who am I to argue?!

End of the day they'll be going back in.

Had to spend an extra couple of hours this morning sorting out all the extra bulbs and plants from the garden centre. I don't think I'll be able to fit any more in here... unless, hanging baskets.

Went to the garden center and bought far too many things, so I spent the day figuring out a) what to do with it all and b) where to put it.

Can still get out in the morning early enough to need the fairy lights. But pretty soon they won't get turned on again until Autumn.

Middle child got me this lovely whale pot, this cornflower will grow too big but I liked the way it looked like a spout of water. I'm going to have to find a plant that'll stay small, but also look cute like this.

Last of the Iris, all flowers have been cut and collected now. Not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I'm drying them here, but I suspect what's going to happen is all the colour is going to be sun-bleached out of them as they dry. I'm probably supposed to boil them, but I don't have any of the equipment yet, and I'm pretty sure Nixie will be annoyed if I use the food prep saucepans 😁

Crocus doing well. The white ones aren't going to make for good ink, obviously, I doubt the purples ones either, but I'm enjoying having them around. Next step is figuring out where to stick 'em in the ground.

Meanwhile the Marigolds I planted last week have already started sprouting, keen!

Enjoying my writing desk even more, smells like gardening. I have no idea if I'm supposed to dry or boil these flowers to make ink.

Yeah, more greenhouse. Mainly I'm just delighted I have this spot I can sit and write in. I thought it was going to be all about growing flowers to turn into ink, but really it's about mental health. Who knew?!

More bulbs are starting to flower, and soon my journal writing desk will be very colourful and making me very happy! Progress.

The studio has been getting out of hand, stuff on every surface. Got around to putting everything away where it's supposed to go today and feeling a lot better, like I can get on with things now.

Still cat-sitting this one, also, it's my birthday today!

Crocuses and the bulbs are doing really well. Bit of a mild update I know, but you know, I like to report in now and then.

Cat sitting this one over the weekend.

Things are definitely growing in there!

Swapped studio for the day. I tend to be over in the Riso studio on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but I needed to have a quick meeting so I popped upstairs to Sam's studio.

Pretty sure this "Studio and Life" project should just become; Daniel's Gardening Blog.

As some point it'll converge when flowers get turned into watery ink and I stick them into fountain pens in the drawing machines.

But until then, sometimes it'll be the studio, and a lot of time it'll be flower progress. Until I inevitably split them out anyway swearing I should have done it soon.

Some of the seedlings are "leggy", that's probably bad, and it means I've been a bad seedling parent, but at the same time I don't like seeing the seedlings growing all sideways and everything.

So I 3D printed these little supports.

I do have some wooden stakes, but they are too big for seedlings and as it's still winter and damp they keep having mold growing over them, they are wet wood after all. But plastic is pretty neutral.

It's super cold in the studio so I had trouble 3d printing them, they kept separating from the base plate. I've ordered a new base plate that's supposed to run better cold, will see if it makes any difference.

The Iris Harmony bulbs are doing well, not sure what I'm supposed to do with them yet, but you know, here they are.

I've been down to London the past few days, and took a moment to pop Tate Modern on the first evening. But after that it was all very busy and I didn't have a chance to do much else. I only just managed to take one photo each day for my photo365 project.

Also, the kettle had a fun face!