Egging my seeds on

I bought dwarf and big sunflower seeds. So far, I have tried the big ones. All but 3 didn't succeed. And the the 3 that did? One died because of all the rain (not enough sunlight coming into the balcony). So when I tried the new batch, I planted them in egg shells.

Some marigold and one solitary sunflower seedling (keeping fingers crossed)

So far the egg shell one (you see the one in the foto? top right eggshell) is doing well despite my lousy transplanting skill. I cracked the egg shell, ok? So I was frantically trying to bury it, seedling and egg shell into the soil and hoping no one would see my mistake. Other than my portulaca with the tiny red flowers. I only have yellow chrysanthemums and am now raising sunflowers and marigolds (I am having better luck with them). I am toying with the idea of buying more plants from the nursery but I feel like it is kind of like cheating.

feathered perpetrator - "your <s>base</s> leaves are now belong to us"

This morning, I was on leave. Walking around the L-shape, I thought to myself that Mr Lime (the taller one) looks kind of miserable. I had thrown a green net on the two lime plants to dissuade the naughty black birds (we call them mynahs here) from plucking their leaves for their nests. However the strong wind accompanying the rain seemed to choke the poor things with the net despite my efforts.

So I decided to take the net off. Less than 10 minutes later, I came out of the apartment to see the bloody black birds doing window shopping at the lime plants. zzzzz.

Back went the net again. Sigh.