![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeTomatoes: the 'heritage' tomatoes have germinated with such enthusiasm that I have had to thin them out to only six or so seedlings in the pot. The two pots of towel-tomatoes (I balanced a second batch on the narrow kitchen windowsill, where they quickly starting germinating and caught up with their predecessors) are coming up much more raggedly and less vigorously in their second generation, but we will have to see. I currently have at least one vigorous seedling and several more somewhat weedy ones, and some that are still trying to shake off their seed heads.
The weird thing is that several of these seedlings seem to be coming up with *three* seed-leaves, or else with one of the leaves partially forked -- I know there is seed from two different individual towel-tomatoes there, and I wonder if one of them had mutated in some way? (They are in-bred, after all, having presumably fertilised themselves... unless they cross-bred with the magazine tomatoes!) One of the strongest seedlings definitely has three equally-spaced and perfect leaves.
(It seems this is a known phenomenon in chilli peppers, tomatoes and cannabis: https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33935
https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/37660/a-seedling-with-three-instead-of-two-cotyledons )
I'm pretty sure that none of the surviving seedlings in the pots labelled 'basil' are, in fact, basil; slugs ate off the most likely candidates :-(
I have planted some more seed in the toy greenhouse, and we'll try again.
My sole surviving pansy has died, but I'm really not surprised (it was only a weedy shoot from the base of the original plant) -- I was more surprised that it managed to hang on into a third year and flower last December! Flowers in winter
The second batch of Swan River daisies has now germinated, in the same pot -- clearly nothing wrong with the seed itself, so I have no idea what happened to the first batch.
Most of the marigold seedlings that got frosted a couple of weeks ago have survived on the inner edges of their wilted foliage, and are now putting out fresh leaves -- but of course they are now a fortnight behind in their growth. I only really have one vigorous marigold plant at the moment (although in the long run having them spaced out in terms of development is a good thing for succession in flowering).
I think some of the marigold seed I tucked into one of the other pots in a panic has finally come up, which means I have two or three more seedlings at a very young stage.
No sign of germination as yet from the Demon Red chillies, which I have moved to the vacated spot on the kitchen windowsill after the success of the tomatoes there. I have to be careful not to knock them off while washing up...
There have been a total of eleven hits on Chapter 5 of Hertha since uploading it to AO3 on Friday -- or at least on the story as a whole, since AO3 doesn't provide chapter data -- which is depressingly low for a chapter that took me so long to complete typing and editing... but the only moral to be drawn from *that* is that I should get round to typing more quickly, since this is definitely a niche story and viewing figures aren't likely to increase. (Especially if people are really tracking their reading exclusively by tagged favourite 'ship': https://archiveofourown.org/comments/516425749 )
On the other hand, those eleven hits are at least enough to propel it into the "Top Five By Hits" display which is displayed by default on the stats page!
The bicycle has been temporarily patched up -- which involved waiting around for five hours, since the shop in question is five miles away and walking home and then back again really isn't an option unless absolutely unavoidable. But they were quite frank that the wheel is worn out and needs to be replaced altogether. I hope I've sourced a replacement (dated 1973, so even older...)
The weird thing is that several of these seedlings seem to be coming up with *three* seed-leaves, or else with one of the leaves partially forked -- I know there is seed from two different individual towel-tomatoes there, and I wonder if one of them had mutated in some way? (They are in-bred, after all, having presumably fertilised themselves... unless they cross-bred with the magazine tomatoes!) One of the strongest seedlings definitely has three equally-spaced and perfect leaves.
(It seems this is a known phenomenon in chilli peppers, tomatoes and cannabis: https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33935
https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/37660/a-seedling-with-three-instead-of-two-cotyledons )
I'm pretty sure that none of the surviving seedlings in the pots labelled 'basil' are, in fact, basil; slugs ate off the most likely candidates :-(
I have planted some more seed in the toy greenhouse, and we'll try again.
My sole surviving pansy has died, but I'm really not surprised (it was only a weedy shoot from the base of the original plant) -- I was more surprised that it managed to hang on into a third year and flower last December! Flowers in winter
The second batch of Swan River daisies has now germinated, in the same pot -- clearly nothing wrong with the seed itself, so I have no idea what happened to the first batch.
Most of the marigold seedlings that got frosted a couple of weeks ago have survived on the inner edges of their wilted foliage, and are now putting out fresh leaves -- but of course they are now a fortnight behind in their growth. I only really have one vigorous marigold plant at the moment (although in the long run having them spaced out in terms of development is a good thing for succession in flowering).
I think some of the marigold seed I tucked into one of the other pots in a panic has finally come up, which means I have two or three more seedlings at a very young stage.
No sign of germination as yet from the Demon Red chillies, which I have moved to the vacated spot on the kitchen windowsill after the success of the tomatoes there. I have to be careful not to knock them off while washing up...
There have been a total of eleven hits on Chapter 5 of Hertha since uploading it to AO3 on Friday -- or at least on the story as a whole, since AO3 doesn't provide chapter data -- which is depressingly low for a chapter that took me so long to complete typing and editing... but the only moral to be drawn from *that* is that I should get round to typing more quickly, since this is definitely a niche story and viewing figures aren't likely to increase. (Especially if people are really tracking their reading exclusively by tagged favourite 'ship': https://archiveofourown.org/comments/516425749 )
On the other hand, those eleven hits are at least enough to propel it into the "Top Five By Hits" display which is displayed by default on the stats page!
The bicycle has been temporarily patched up -- which involved waiting around for five hours, since the shop in question is five miles away and walking home and then back again really isn't an option unless absolutely unavoidable. But they were quite frank that the wheel is worn out and needs to be replaced altogether. I hope I've sourced a replacement (dated 1973, so even older...)