The bad news is that I managed to obliterate my baby apple trees.
First of all, the mothership is doing great.
There's been a lot of little mint coming in down at the base, as you can see.
And here's two of the mint shoots I decided to try to "clone." You just cut off a sprig and stick it in some water for a few weeks. The first one is Joon and the other is Benny (just for the sake of differentiating between them...)
They're obviously in descending order by date. The amazing bit, to me, is that the first five photos of each set were taken daily, consecutively. The sets as a whole span from April 26-May 11. Just look at how fast those dang roots grew in! I think they were in the water for a week or two before the roots started.
These guys are actually gifts for my sister, Bets, and my beau, Matt. Now that they're established in some soil, I think they're ready to come up north with me on Memorial Day weekend. (The mint plants, that is.)
I also started a third shoot, which I've called Skippy, because he's a little bit behind.
It seems like the bigger the shoot is, the quicker the roots grow. And vice versa.
Ergo, Skippy. It's taken him about three or four weeks to get to this point.
I'm not really sure what's up with the brown roots. They grew in white, and then I changed the water and they turned brown. I don't think they've grown anymore, either. Anyway, more white roots started growing in, so it's all gravy.
So, my poor apples. I've got photos of them, too:
The first one is the very first shoot to come out of the ground. I think it took about a week, which is insane to me. That was April 29; the next one, going down, is from May 4. Four of them sprouted! The next one, May 8, you can see that the outer shell of the seeds fell off most of them, but by May 11, they were completely dead. Actually, I think one of them may live. I stuck 'em in some water; it worked for the mint, after all.
Anyway, apple shoots are evidently extremely susceptible to root rot, which comes of overwatering the poor dears. And I guarantee you I overwatered them. I was watering them every day. They don't need to be watered every day. In fact, when I get another chance, I'm only going to water them once a week. If that. The moisture really stays down in the soil, which I didn't realize; I thought the top of the soil had to be damp.
D'oh.
Anyway, so I was fairly depressed about that for a little while, but I'm going to keep trying. I'm trying different methods of sprouting them... here's the count:
- 21 in the fridge in a wet paper towel in a baggie, after drying a week
- ~15 in a yogurt container full of moist potting soil, after drying a week
- 6 in water, after drying a few days
- 16 currently drying
- ~20 in a wet paper towel in a baggie in my desk drawer at work, after no drying
Dang, that's actually a lot of seeds...
I guess I should mention that the seeds that sprouted came from the yogurt container. The ones in the fridge were started at the same time, from the same batch of dried seeds, but they haven't done very much yet. Everything else was started within the last week.
Anywho, I've learned a lot about growing things. Don't overwater, because the moisture's down in the soil. And patience is good to have, too... though that's not my strong suit when I get so excited about the things poppin' up out of the soil.
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