The paprika plant that was a mystery for a while, is getting fruit!

There were two flowers next to each other, and one of them is now growing a beautiful green pepper.

Well, the mystery is getting closer to a solution — the unknown plant has its first flower. And indeed, it looks like a pepper or paprika plant like many readers suggested two months ago.

Perhaps I should start placing it on the balcony, for some direct sunlight. At the other hand, it’s doing quite well in the study room.

We received a beautiful plant this week via the mail, a present from Jerry and Marjolein. It’s a bromelia and a pink orchid.

The plant arrived in a very solid box, with lots of protective materials and it arrived in perfect state. We transferred it from it’s temporary pot to a permanent one, and it’s beautiful and cheers up the living room. Thank you!

A few months ago I planted various herbs. Sadly, most of them died, but two plants survived.

Last weekend I tried one of the basil plants, and I took a bite from its leaves.

Well, it turned out that it wasn’t basil. Now I’m not sure what plant it is.

My first experiment in growing herbs was not entirely successful. Of all the seedlings I planted, only one grew out to a full and healthy plant, the others didn’t make it. I’ll try it again.

I’m not sure of what type the surviving plant is, we’ll find out over time.

We didn’t go to the official fireworks in the Bull’s stadium last night since the weather was really bad. We went for a walk around the Duke golf course, and about half way we heard a thunderstorm coming our way — we made it out just in time before the rain began. There was a lot of lightning, at least one per minute.

I transplanted some of the herbs that I planted three weeks ago.

It’s the first time I’m doing this; I’m curious to see how things will work out. Not all plants looked ready to go outdoors, so I’m keeping about half of them inside.

The weather has been really nice, but with the herbs outside I’m a bit worried about frost at night. It would be rare, but one night could be enough to do damage. I haven’t found an RSS feed yet that can tell me if there’s frost predicted for our area.

I’ve planted some herbs today. I like to use fresh herbs for cooking, but if I buy a bunch in the supermarket it’s usually too much, and the remainders will go to waste.

I’ve planted six different types: Genovese basil, thyme, a pepper ‘hot mix’, sweet basil, tomato’s and parsley. I’m growing them indoors, in a sort of mini hothouse, and it will take a week or two before the first leaves start appearing. A nice thing to look forward to, somehow.

A plant in our living room is sick.

There are little things on the leaves and the leaves look wet. I’m not sure what to do about it but it doesn’t look very healthy.

The plant is pretty far from the other plants and they seem to be fine but I’m worried that it might be contagious.

Is there a cure for something like this? Any recommendations?

The plant I brought home from work seems to be doing slightly better and it hasn’t lost as many leaves anymore the last few days. I’ve placed it next to a window in the living room where it gets plenty of sunlight. I am under the (unproven) impression that the lack of unfiltered sunlight in our office was the cause of the plant’s problems. We’ll see.

Because of the incredibly beautiful and sunny weather I have the water our plants almost every day.

Jason, a colleague, and his wife Liza were blessed with a baby son, Gabriel Louis last week. Congratulations!

This weekend I played with some software for work, experimenting with a Java client for a C++ server. They work nicely together. I expected that, but it’s always nice to see that it actually works in practice.

It certainly wasn’t for the lack of love or attention from my co-workers, but unfortunately my new plant wasn’t doing very well at my desk.

For a few weeks now it has been losing leaves, and while in the beginning I thought that the plant had to get adjusted to its new home (our office) it became clear that it was fundamentally unhappy. I think the main reason is that the windows are tinted, and not enough natural light makes it through to the plant.

So today after work I placed it in the car and drove it home. We still have to decide where we’ll place it, but I hope it will do better here.