Windowsill update
9 May 2016 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI've planted the rest of the packet of £3 mystery seeds, having deliberately saved some back for a second, mid-May, sowing in the knowledge that there were too many for one tray. Of course, it turns out that the ones that were left in the bottom of the packet were mostly the ones like fine dust (the largest of them are the black-and-white sticks), so it will presumably come out as a somewhat different species balance from the previous one!
I've been thinning out the largest and most vigorous varieties identifiable in the first batch to only two or three specimens each. I hope the small sorts manage to struggle through in between. The extremely fleshy fuzzy ones are odd (and very weak-necked; they tend to straggle sideways across the soil rather than grow upwards).
The fate of the apple pips has been instructive. Of the three that were most developed when I planted them, one was (I think) dug up and eaten by a squirrel while the pot was outside on the coal-bunker -- a better environment for it than my windowsill, but clearly not safe, at least not for seeds with bits of apple core still wedged around them, and the other two, which had well-developed shoots and roots before earthing-in, never really established and eventually rotted away before ever working out which way was up.
One that was less advanced before planting managed to come up with its neck bent in the approved fashion and open out its leaves, but it only made a very short seedling and now seems to be dying too.
Three more germinated much later from seed that had barely started to move, or not started at all, and have produced fine tall seedlings that are just producing their first true leaves. Obviously premature germination out of the ground is not healthy for apple seed.
I've been thinning out the largest and most vigorous varieties identifiable in the first batch to only two or three specimens each. I hope the small sorts manage to struggle through in between. The extremely fleshy fuzzy ones are odd (and very weak-necked; they tend to straggle sideways across the soil rather than grow upwards).
The fate of the apple pips has been instructive. Of the three that were most developed when I planted them, one was (I think) dug up and eaten by a squirrel while the pot was outside on the coal-bunker -- a better environment for it than my windowsill, but clearly not safe, at least not for seeds with bits of apple core still wedged around them, and the other two, which had well-developed shoots and roots before earthing-in, never really established and eventually rotted away before ever working out which way was up.
One that was less advanced before planting managed to come up with its neck bent in the approved fashion and open out its leaves, but it only made a very short seedling and now seems to be dying too.
Three more germinated much later from seed that had barely started to move, or not started at all, and have produced fine tall seedlings that are just producing their first true leaves. Obviously premature germination out of the ground is not healthy for apple seed.