Wet Wonders

The flooding/drying routine seems to have worked. All the plants seem to be doing just as well as when I left them. I still counted 15 strawberries when I arrived, so none seem to have died. The qualifying language is because I accidentally killed a few when I watered them. They are so delicate that even the slight motion of water entering the bowl rips them into two. Also, I added some potting soil to make the ground level, which buried some of the plants that were lying flat.

I mentioned in a past entry that plants can handle temporary dehydration pretty well. In fact, the estimate I gave that it takes 6 hours for them to prop back into shape was way over. I've included pictures of my weed bowl (not the ganja) that were struggling with a dearth of water. The first one is when I arrived. The second picture is 35 minutes after I watered them. The third picture is 5 hours after I watered them. The difference between the first two is so drastic that the movement is practically visible to the unaided eye.

I was also very pleased to see that the apple seeds sprouted. The roots came from the pointy side of the seeds, which challenges my assumption that the first apple seed that "sprouted" had a root coming out of the side. I probably was not looking at a root (but rather a chunk of paper towel or something), but now that it's in the soil there's a reasonable chance that it is sprouting too. I hope to soon take out the rest of the apple seeds from the refrigerator. Note: The picture is one of the apple seeds that just sprouted. I covered it in an inch of soil after taking the picture.

The other pits that I took out of the refrigerator about 10 days ago are still sitting in water, unchanged. I expect they will take much longer to show any progress, since they are drupes. Basically the hard outer shell is preventing much water from coming in, and also preventing me from seeing any progress that's going on inside. As with the apple seeds, I plan on being very patient with them. One thing that the strawberries taught me is that the seeds sprout when you least expect them.

Water Trouble

Today I'm leaving NYC for Thanksgiving, which means there's no one to water my plants. I've frequently considered in the past a way to make an automatic watering device, but it would be pretty difficult. Assuming I have an automatic timer that can flip a switch and then turn it off anytime, and that I can get my hands on some kind of motor, I don't know how I would be able to make a machine that extracts just as much water from a reservoir as I need. The problem is made worse because my plants all require different quantities of water. At some point I would really like to get such a watering device.

In reality, this won't be a problem for the next few days though. I allowed the soil of my plants to dry up yesterday. Today I will give a double-portion of water, so it'll last for today and tomorrow. Assuming the plants don't drown (which they probably won't do if it's just one day of flooding), then they'll just have to survive for one day without water, because I'm coming back in 3 days.

The only problem I have is with the little strawberries. There are currently about 15 little plants in the bowl (some doing better off than others). I don't know whether they'll be able to survive the flooding/drying routine, because they're so small. To make things worse, they're not all at the same elevation, so some strawberries will endure too much flooding while others will endure too much drying. I also don't want to take them with me, because it's more likely they'll die on the voyage than while staying here. It seems like I have no choice though. I suppose that this must be an application of survival of the fittest.

Earth and Water

There are a few issues that I thought might be interesting.

The tallest avocado plant is, for some reason, not doing too well I think. Its leaves look a little crumpled and flaccid. The pictures are to compare its leaves to those of another avocado plant which is doing much better. I'm thinking it may be because I don't water it enough, but I give it rather a lot (a cup every two days). I am worried that if I water it any more, the roots will suffocate and rot, and the plant will die (this is an extremely common cause of death). Plants are much better at coping with a shortage of water than an excess of it.

For example, there is a picture of the pepper plants. Last night they were almost all lying flat on the soil, and looked nearly dead. (I wasn't worried though, because this has happened before). Today they look as alive as they ever have. Usually, within an hour of watering a thirsty plant, it will start to move back into shape. Within about six hours it's pretty much back to where it was before.

There is a picture of the strawberry plants. I was worried that they might actually be weeds, but decided yesterday that this is highly unlikely. Aside from the fact that I boiled the soil before planting them, sterilizing it, the plants are all so similar. They all look the same, they sprung out of the soil at almost the exact same time, and grow the same way (a quick growth followed by a sudden stopping of growth after it reaches a half-centimeter). This makes me conclude that they're the same plant. Also, if they were weeds, I expect they would have grown much faster.

One thing I'm still worried about is the soil. I think if it gets too hard the plants will die. Yesterday I opened up a package of potting soil that my girlfriend got for me. It was so soft and fluffy (and also looked very rich and black). I wonder how they are able to make it so fluffy. I think it has to do with pieces of styrofoam flakes that they put into it or something. If I could find a way to do this to all my soil, that would be really useful.

There is a picture of an avocado pit that is just splitting. This is the first step in its growth. I will try to monitor this over time to show the transitions.

Sometimes things go wrong in the growth process, and in the past I have given up on the avocados and dispensed myself of them. The main things that happen are: roots turn black (which doesn't happen to me much anymore; I think it happened due to not changing the water often enough), roots break (which happens to me a lot; I drop the pits as I'm cleaning them out), and stems get moldy. But avocado pits are surprisingly resilient. After weeks of sitting in water, they usually spring out another root, and develop new stems. Sometimes they already have multiple roots growing side-by-side with the main large one. The growing of new stems is, for some reason, often preceded by the inside of the avocado turning green. I don't know if the green area contributes anything to the survivability of the avocado, or if it's just a consequence of sitting dormant for a long time. There is also a picture of an avocado that I accidentally broke in half after it split. The half that lay dormant for the past few weeks is now developing something which will precede the roots and stem. I will try to monitor this also, to show the process. One thing I have learned from the avocados pits is that they don't give up easily, and all they need is to sit in clean water for a long time. There is one avocado pit that I had for about six months (it was one of the first). Its roots have died many, many times, and its stems have all rotted. Now, there is another stem that is emerging, and there are also new roots (which I put in soil). This pit will hopefully grow up to be a real plant.

The seeds and pits that I took out of refrigeration last week are still sitting in water. They don't seem to be changing at all, but, given what I learned from the avocado pits, I will have patience for these seeds. Maybe in a few weeks they'll start to grow.

Apples Analysis

These are the seeds and pits that I put in water a few days ago. It seems that one of the apples has a root sticking out of it, but I'm not sure. It might just be a piece of paper towel. I decided to take the seed and put it in soil. The soil pictures are just for future comparisons.

Assigning Preparatory Post Latent Exploration Squad

I have always wanted an apple tree. The problem is, apple seeds don't just sprout right away. It takes patience. So, about 10 weeks ago, I put a few apple seeds (and peach and cherry pits) into refrigeration. After this period of stratification they should be ready to grow, but I don't want to jump into anything. As a result, I've assigned three apple seeds, two peach pits, and six cherry pits to be my pioneering project. I put them in bowls with a bit of water, to see what will happen to them. If they sprout, I will take out the rest of the seeds. Otherwise, I will put them all in the freezer.

The reason for my uncertainty is that, I just researched the USDA hardiness zone of apples, and apparently the highest frost temperature they take is 35ºF. Since the refrigerator only goes down to about 35ºF, I am worried that I did not store them at a cold enough temperature. I probably should have put them in the freezer, but we'll see what happens; maybe they'll still grow.

PS
It seems that one more strawberry seed sprouted, so now there are five. Although the soil is getting very hard and I am worried they might not make it.

Welcome to the Jungle

These are my plants. The first picture is of some sort of weed apparently. When I added some soil to my plants a couple of months ago they started growing out of nowhere. After some confusion as to whether they are something I planted or random weeds, I decided they are just weeds and replanted them in a separate pot. I am waiting to see what they grow up to be.

The next few pictures show the life of an avocado seed. When I put them in a cup of water, they start to split open. Roots come out of the bottom. As the roots grow, a stem pops up from the top. The young avocado plant with a few leaves grew out of an avocado that I accidentally broke a month or two ago. To my surprise, one half of the avocado still grew roots and a stem, which is what you see. The other half lay dormant for a while, and is now also apparently starting to grow roots (I have yet to see whether it grows a stem). Another avocado I planted actually grew two stems out of the same pit, one short and stocky, the other long and thin.

The plants in soda bottles on the right are tomatoes. I accidentally hit a ball into one of the bottles and it fell four feet and landed upside-down. Most of the tomato plants inside looked pretty bad after that, but are starting to recuperate.
The aluminum pan is full of pepper plants. They were once in a small container, but after they reached a certain size they stopped growing. When I planted them in this larger container they suddenly grew a lot faster.

The other plant you see is a bean plant, which is the offspring of one of the original beans I planted last year. It looks rather small and weak, but hopefully it will get better.

The other tiny plants are strawberries, grown from the seeds that I plucked by hand out of an actual strawberry. The longer plant is about five millimeters, and the shorter one is about three. Last night I watered this container because it looked a little dry, and by this morning two more similar plants appeared, so now there are four. I am afraid they might die for the same reason the watermelons did, because the soil is getting hard.

Setting the Landscape

My name is Asaf and I live in New York City. Over the past year, I have developed an interest in cultivating plants. When I started, I did not have much experience, and even now I am still learning much about how to care for plants. My goal has always been to minimize casualties, but nevertheless, I have lost many plants along the way. I have had to research a lot about my plants, but sometimes this simply wasn’t enough. Through experiments, I gained knowledge about them, but many mysteries remain. My friend recommended I start this blog to record my experiences and share them with the world, and hopefully receive answers to my questions.

In creating this first entry, I had to decide whether it is better to recollect everything I have done until now and list it all at once, or circumvent this and just mention bits about the past in tangents. I decided that the first option is more boring, but also more logical and easier to follow than the latter. Therefore I will continue with a history of my planting over the last year.

My fun started one year ago, when my girlfriend was making a meat stew, which required beans in the ingredients. There were more beans than the stew required, so they were left submerged in a pot of water for more than 24 hours, and consequently started to sprout. I decided that, instead of throwing the leftover beans in the garbage, maybe we can save a few. I gathered about ten beans, and placed them in a plastic bowl padded with very moist cotton. The beans grew, and I transferred them to a pot filled with soil. As they started to compete over space, I decided to split them up. As an experiment, I took the three largest and healthiest bean plants, and planted them outside, around June. The next day, after a heavy rainstorm, I checked up on them, and all three were already wilted and brown. I still don’t know why. One of the beans that I kept inside managed to produce a pod, with a bean in it. Shortly after, the parent bean became yellow and died (apparently due to overwatering and/or not enough space), and I planted its baby. The baby rapidly grew to a foot tall, although it was very thin and could not stand on its own. I submerged most of the plant in soil, exposing only the top, hoping this might help. The plant now has three small leaves, and is not growing fast at all. I don’t know why.

A couple months after I started with beans, I tried to plant avocado pits. I took about ten pits and stuck three toothpicks into each one, evenly spaced around the pit. I then placed them atop cups of water, submerged halfway. Originally I put them pointy side down, but this was wrong. When I did this, they still sprout, but the roots were on the wrong side and started to curve down, so I had to flip the avocados around. Basically when the avocado pits germinated, they split in half, with a root coming down from one side and a stem later coming out of the other. When the stem grew to about an inch long, I planted them in soil. When I did that, they started growing a lot faster, and soon sprouted leaves. For some reason though, one of the avocado pits that I put in soil a few weeks ago didn’t keep growing. It’s still there, but looks pretty much dormant.

After I started growing avocados, my girlfriend gave me more seeds. She gave me a bag full of tomato seeds and another full of pepper seeds (both taken straight out of the vegetables). I didn’t know what to do with them, so I kept them sitting there for a little less than a week until I figured out what to do. Surprisingly, the tomato seeds started to sprout tiny roots (since they were also sitting in a bit of the tomato juice that they came in). When I saw this, I took some soil and poured a lot of boiling water on it. This is supposed to kill unwanted weeds, fungus, and insects that might be in the soil. I then poured out the water and allowed the soil to cool down, after which I placed the seeds in it. The seeds grew to plants which are about 8 inches tall now. I also placed water in the pepper seed bag, and the same thing happened. The pepper plants are now about 4 inches tall. Unfortunately, I later tried to take seeds and juice from “tomatoes on the vine” and repeat the process, but they just rotted. I am not sure what’s different about these tomatoes that caused them to not sprout.

Shortly after planting the tomatoes and peppers, I tried to plant seeds from a foreign watermelon. I basically kept them submerged in water, like with the other seeds. About a sixth of the seeds developed a small semblance of a root and then stopped. I moved these seeds and placed them on top of soil, and the roots started to grow again. Once inside the soil, the watermelons grew stems, about 8 inches long, and even some leaves. Suddenly, however, the stem of one of the plants looked like it was pinched, and then the pinch expanded along the stem until the whole thing became thin and died. A few days later, this happened to another one of the plants. Over the course of about two weeks, all eight plants died this way. I don’t know what caused this epidemic. I took good care in watering them right, and they received direct sunlight. For some reason though, the top of the soil became hard over the couple weeks. I don’t know why that happens, but I think it’s what caused the watermelons’ deaths, since the roots of these plants are generally pretty shallow.

There was one more experiment I’ve been working on. I have been collecting seeds and pits from peaches, dates, apples, cherries, walnuts, olives, and a citron. Some of these seeds from cold weather fruits don’t germinate unless they’ve been through a period of frost. Therefore, I put them in the refrigerator during the summer, hoping that by the winter I can plant them in soil. The day after tomorrow will be ten weeks from when I put the apple seeds in, meaning that, hopefully, they will be ready for growing.