I’m in too deep. I’ve gone in over my head and planted way too many seeds and now I can’t turn back. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin–we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep.
I was a little hesitant at the beginning to try and plant seeds, because it seemed like a difficult thing to do. I had read online about seedling heat mats, comparisons of different grow light set ups, sterilizing your potting mix, watering with distilled water, etc. It seemed like pretty high maintenance. On the other hand my dad threw out a bowl of tomato seeds I had been saving from a rotting tomato into the compost bin, and it grew into a plant without us even trying. Because of these two conflicting narratives, I planted a ton of seeds just in case 90% of them failed. I also had many bags of viability tests for seeds that were over 3 years old, because germination rates go down apparently after the expiration date.
It seems like I had nothing to worry about. In fact now I have a different problem on my hands: how do I get the garden ready before all these seedlings are old enough to transplant?? I also have many successes from the fresh 2017 batch of seeds I purchased:
The corn was one of the first to come up. I hadn’t realized how fast they were at growing. it had been 4 or 5 days of sowing the seed, and as if overnight they suddenly became an inch tall. I really have to scramble to find somewhere to plant them.
The roots were growing at an alarming rate, and like a fool, I had planted them in a very shallow tray. Today I did an emergency transplant of the corn and the red okra I planted in order to hopefully have a more successful transplant later on. Okra have a long taproot and if you disturb their roots when you transplant them it could stunt their growth or kill them. I ended up having to make a bunch of little newspaper seed starting cups so I can just plant them directly in the garden later on. What a fool I have been.
In other news my Lamphranthus Blandus is blooming! It’s always a surprise to see what succulent blooms look like because it’s usually a big contrast to the original plant. I also found a great deal on a 2 year old Discorea Elephantipes, which I had been searching for for a while. You can look up photos of the fully grown version; they’re quite curious and stunning. The caudex is formed and has a woody surface but it will probably take a while for it to become geometric and crazy turtle-shelled. I’m surprised the little green part made it through the post. Welcome to the crazy garden little crusty bread ball.
Planet B Six Twelve 