Baby apple trees

Over the last few months, I've been working very diligently on my experiments in growing plants. Working so diligently, in fact, that I managed to destroy most of them!

The main thing I've learned about plants is that you do more by doing less. In the beginning, I just wanted to be a good plant mommy, and water my plants all the time, and spoon-feed them little drops of sunshine, etcetera. Since then, I've learned that plants are not like babies. Plants are more like teenagers. They just want to do their own thing. If you dote on them, they wither.

(I base this statement on my own experience with being a teenager, which wasn't too long ago; I was a bitch, Mom would agree.)

Mostly, I overwatered. Overwatering killed maybe ten or twenty apple seedlings, my one chamomile shoot, my random garlic cloves, and my one orange seedling. Rest in peace, guys.

Since then, I've decided to stick with sprouting apple seeds, since I've always got a supply of them. The mint is also around, but it's infested with aphids and some other bug that makes a really sticky substance. It's irritating.

I've learned so much. At the beginning, this was my mindset:

• Plants need soil, water, and sunshine.
• If a plant gets all three of those things, it should grow.

Now I know:

• Each plant is a little different.
• Plants generally need soil that drains well, a little water, a lot of sun or fluorescent light, adequate air flow, and an appropriate temperature range.
• Apple seedlings like soil that drains well, very little water, tons and tons of light, cool temperatures, and high humidity for their little leaves.

Now I have something like ten apple seedlings, and only a few of them succumbed to root rot. So I can pat myself on the back a bit.

Here's the method that's finally yielded results, if you're curious:

1. Sprout the seeds. Check the seeds in the apple. If they're already sprouting, put them in a moist paper towel, and put that inside a plastic baggie. (Or, for a non-disposable option, use a washcloth or rag and put it in a tupperware or other sealed container.) Wait one week. If they're not sprouting, dry them for 1 week. Put them in the moist paper towel + baggie apparatus, and put that in the fridge for 3-4 weeks (checking every week). Take it out, and wait one week.
2. You should have at least some seeds with a white tail sticking out. These are your future apple trees. Throw away the seeds that didn't sprout.
3. Prepare a home for your seedlings. I like to convert plastic containers into pots -- plastic cups, yogurt cups, water bottles chopped in half. Punch three or four holes in the bottom, and fill it with potting soil. For best results, you'll want one for each sprouted seed, but I tend to stick them two or three to a pot. Another small tip: I found it's easier to use clear plastic containers and fill them half full of soil, and you'll see why in a second. Water the soil until water flows from the bottom, and let it drain until there's no more water coming out.
4. Plant your seeds. Make a little dent with your finger, put your seed in there with the root pointing down. Cover the root gently with soil. I find I get the best results if I let the seed rest on the top of the soil, or very near the top.
5. Create good growing conditions. This means light, and lots of it, temperatures from 60-75ish, good humidity with adequate air flow, and moist soil. Basically, here's how I do it: cover the top with a plastic baggie, and punch some holes in it. (That's why it's handy to use half-full clear plastic containers; they admit light, and your seedlings won't be crushed by the baggie.) Since it's summer and it's too hot out for these guys, I keep them inside on my shelf all day, and I use a CFL bulb to give them light from about 7 AM - 10 PM. I've got a few at work, and they only get light from 8 AM -5 PM, but they seem to do all right.
6. Let 'em be. They'll shoot right up in a matter of days. I water mine maybe once every week or two. And I water from the bottom, not the top. Just put some water in a shallow dish and set the pot in the water; the soil soaks it right up through the drainage holes. You can still overwater this way, so be conservative. Apple seedlings like it a little on the dry side; a little on the wet side will kill them, easily. Just note that you should really try to alternate watering from the top and the bottom, so that the salt doesn't build up too much in the soil. The only time I intervene is to pull off the woody seed case. Generally they should be able to cast 'em off on their own, but sometimes they do need help.
7. Pull the ones that don't do well. If one gets root rot, you'll know it because it won't grow as fast as the others. When you pull it up, it'll have brown roots that are sort of soggy. This sort of thing is communicable, so you want to get rid of it. If they start to wilt, or if you see any brown around the roots, you want to get rid of it. They progress as such: first, they should pop up off the soil, with the seed shell still on. They cast this off, and the false leaves spread and start photosynthesizing. There'll be a little shoot between the false leaves; these are true leaves, and it's so cool to look at them every day and see how fast they grow. If the leaves look really, really super-green, you want to pull back on the watering. Light green is a good color for the leaves.

The thing you want to remember is that these guys may not bear fruit, necessarily, when they get older. And they also may not bear fruit that resembles the apple they came from. Apples these days are grafted, which I'm not really sure what that means, but you basically do something to the roots so that they grow up really small, and they produce the apple you want them to.

Johnny Appleseed, who I read about on Wikipedia, evidently did not believe in grafting due to religious beliefs. I'm with him on this one, more for ecological reasons than anything else. We really should have trees that grow tasty apples naturally. Actually, we should really have more fruiting trees in the wild, period. Because they're cool. Yeah, I won't see an apple from these guys 'till I'm 30. So? I still think it's cool.