hello spring

we've been waiting for you.




© pachadesign

sun

© pachadesign

the last day of our open studio was yesterday and was lovely and warm and sunny. it felt like how summer is supposed to feel .... but today went back to grey and mist and rain. we want more sunshine please.

thanks to everyone that popped in to see us at the studio over the weekend. it was nice to see friends and meet some new people too. details about more summer shows coming up soon.

seedlings

we have lots of seedlings growing at the moment {and a few things planted out in our vegetable garden already}. this little selection lives on our kitchen windowsill at the moment. tell us what you are growing this year, we'd love to know.

giant sunflowers and sugar snaps

opal dark red basil and poached egg plant

p.s. there will be garden updates soon.

images: copyright © pachadesign 2011

a little garden update

alot of our garden looks dead at the moment but in a beautiful way, with dry stalks and twisty vines and dead flower heads here & there.
we are still picking cavolo, cress, japanese salad leaves, chard and leeks, and a little bit of purple sprouting broccoli has appeared.
and, after clearing away all the fallen leaves from the garden and the flower pots, we discovered new things growing - little yellow crocuses and delicate white snowdrops.




more about our garden {here}

images: pachadesign garden copyright © pachadesign 2011

winter

it really feels like it today.
fresh & blue but with an icy chill in the wind.

and we have neglected our garden for a little while now.
it's covered in autumn leaves .... but it's still there.

think we may have some more collections coming up soon.




enjoy your weekend.


{credits}

image: dead flowers by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

series: collection 4 honesty

honesty (common name)
lunaria (latin name)

the seedpods of the plant honesty are one of our favourites. the seed capsules are like little discs that have two outer walls that fall away to reveal a beautiful papery thin transparent partition inside and small flat dark seeds. even the name is beautiful - lunaria, derived from luna meaning moon.
ever since I was really young I have been a little obsessed with this plant - I used to string the papery discs together and hang them everywhere and in college I made sculptures using them too. we made some mobiles again this summer with the seedpods we had collected and have hung them in our house.


this is the last of our collections for now - hope you liked them and we shall post some more from time to time too. if you missed the other's you can find them all {here}


{credits}

images: collection 4 honesty by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

series: collection 3 columbine

columbine (common name)
aquilegia (latin name)

we picked the seedheads from our aquilegia weeks ago and dried them out on our kitchen windowsill - they look like little crowns and contain shiny black seeds. we've collected so many seedheads but thought we'd show you a few we have kept in a little glass jar.

hope you are enjoying the collections so far. a couple more to come soon but we are sure we will be showing more of our little collections regularly, especially as autumn is just around the corner.

collections 1 poppies {here} & 2 foxgloves {here}


{credits}

images: collection 3 columbine by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

series: collection 2 foxgloves

foxglove (common name)
digitalis purpurea (latin name)

the foxgloves in our garden are self seeded, probably from the hedgerows around here. in the summer, the headland down by the beach here is scattered with them everywhere. this year we left the foxgloves in our garden until all the pretty pink bells had fallen off, and the spikes had formed their little seedpods, then cut a few stems for a vase in our house. a few seedheads that had fallen off were perfect for a little white bowl on our windowsill.


collection 1 poppies {here}


{credits}

images: collection 2 foxgloves by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

series: collection 1 poppies

poppy (common name)
papaver (latin name)

we have collected so many poppy seedheads this year and there are still a few flowering in our garden. the flowers are so delicate, one gust of wind and the petals seem to fly away. we won't pick all the seedheads, we shall leave some so the seeds can be scattered by the wind.


{credits}

images: collection 1 poppies by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

series: collections

we've been collecting seeds and dead flowers from our garden all summer and especially over the last few weeks - lots of plants are started to go to seed but they still look just as beautiful, some even more so. we thought we'd share what we've been collecting with you in a little series.
the first collection will be coming up later today.


{credits}

image: collections by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

poppies

yesterday it seemed that all the poppies in our garden opened up at once. these ones are growing in one of our vegetable beds, in amongst the onions and the lettuces. they look beautiful.

hope you all had a lovely weekend.






{credits}

images: poppies in our garden copyright © pachadesign 2010

wild flowers

we managed to grab 10 minutes in our garden yesterday and timed it just as the sun came out - it's been pretty overcast here lately and a little rainy too, but warm and muggy, which consequently means our garden has gone mental. lots of weeding to do (again) but lots of lovely stuff ready to eat too .... baby broad beans, mange tout, green & yellow courgettes, potatoes, lettuces, shallots, cavolo and we are going to make some jam and other yummy things this weekend with our redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries.

there are so many lovely little flowers growing in our garden too, mainly wild ..... red campion, wild marjoram, borage, forget-me-nots, poached egg flower and lots of poppies just about to flower. we picked a few to put on our kitchen windowsill.

hope you all enjoy your weekend.


{credits}

image: wild flowers copyright © pachadesign 2010

thankyou

a huge thankyou to everyone that came to see us at the Exeter Craft Festival this weekend - the rain held off this year so it was a really lovely weekend. if you couldn't make it, we have one more event this summer - our open studio in august as part of Welcombe open studios (more details soon).

and a huge thankyou to pia for featuring our little garden at twilight photo set! {here} - it was a lovely surprise to come home to after our show. pia has been posting about quiet spaces and featured our garden along with beautiful photographs from heidi swanson & katarina krizanovicova. thankyou pia!





{credits}

image: twilight in our garden © pachadesign 2010

our garden {part 3}

a little glimpse at twilight in our garden

{part 1 & 2} - {here}

{credits}

images: twilight in our garden © pachadesign 2010

our garden {part 2}

a little later than anticipated, but here is the 2nd little glimpse into our garden. it's come on a long way since {part 1}. we have had such beautiful weather over the last few weeks and planted lots more flowers so it's looking lovely. I think we must have lots and lots of friendly insects because we don't seem to be having any problems (even the slugs don't seem to be doing too much damage). We grow everything organically so pest control to us is planting flowers and herbs to encourage beneficial insects.





1. buttercups, spinach, mixed salad leaves (rocket, red giant mustard, green wave mustard & mizuna kyoto), mange tout
2. bordeaux spinach
3. bordeaux spinach and desiree potatoes
4. mixed salad leaves and edible flowers
5. lettuces (red & green salad bowl, paris island cos, ice queen, lollo rosso, lollo bionda & corn salad) and cavolo, calabrese & tagetes


we still have more to do on our garden, lots more to plant and lots more to show you, so there will be a {part 3} coming soon.


{credits}

images: pachadesign garden copyright © pachadesign 2010

indoor climbing beans

we didn't mean to grow indoor climbing beans .... it just kind of happened.




borlotti beans & french climbing beans.

p.s. we haven't forgotten about our garden {part 2} - it's coming up. catch up on {part 1} here.


{credits}

images: pachadesign indoor garden copyright © pachadesign 2010

insects

we can't quite believe how beautiful the weather has been here today .... and it's forecast to stay this warm & sunny for the next few days. we finished work a little early today so we could spend some time in our garden. we managed to tidy it up a little and weed around our vegetable plants. we've had a couple of misty wet days this week so the slugs were nibbling on our salad plants, beans and courgettes. we need some friendly insects, so time to think about more flowers. we need ladybirds, bees, lacewings & hoverflies.




to attract ladybirds & lacewings: plant alliums, dill, fennel, yarrow, wormwood & calendula

to attract hoverflies: plant yellow flowers such as broom, yarrow, knapweed & poached egg flower. also calendula, sage, borage & tagetes

to attract bees: plant comfrey, jasmine, lavender, vetch, borage, poached egg flower, nigella, sage & calendula


hope you have a lovely weekend.


{credits}

images: british insects {from here} top - bee & lacewing, bottom - ladybird & hoverfly

our garden {part 1}

our vegetable garden seems to be coming along nicely, most of our seeds have come up - apart from peas which we have had to sow again (maybe we did them too early ?) and flowers are starting to come out too - daisies, comfrey, red campion, buttercups. we still have so much to do on the garden so we'll show you more later, but for now here's a little glimpse of some of the things we are growing.




top: climbing beans & borlotti beans
middle: comfrey, broad beans, onions, chives
bottom: rhubarb, chives

we have lots more to show you, so keep an eye out for {part 2} in a week or so's time.


{credits}

images: pachadesign garden copyright © pachadesign 2010

seeds

we've started planning our veggie garden for this year - digging over the beds, working out what's going where, sorting out seeds. we can get a little obsessed with planting seeds. growing stuff from seed is magical. which is perhaps why we think this is so stunning ...........




.......... the UK Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is the Seed Cathedral designed by Heatherwick Studio. It's 20 metres high and is made up of 60,000 transparent fibre optic rods. Each 7.5 metre long rod has one or more seeds enclosed at it's tip - 217, 300 seeds in total. The fibre optic rods gently sway with any wind movement and draw daylight into the interior to illuminate it during the day, while light sources inside each rod makes it glow at night.



Heatherwick Studio designed the pavilion to explore the relationship between nature & city and to encourage visitors to look again at the role of nature and wonder whether it could be used to solve the current social, economic and environmental challenges of our cities.

the beautiful photography is by Daniele Mattioli and you can read more about the Seed Cathedral on yatzer.

{credits}

found via yatzer {here}
photography by Daniele Mattioli {website}
Heatherwick Studio {website}
UK Shanghai Pavilion {website}