The Greens Experiment :: Growing is hard work
As you might have captured from a previous post, I like growing things, I think it’s my rebellious nature that’s protesting against all the concrete around me. This does not always amount to a beautiful fully grown plant. But I like studying the plants every night to see if they’ve grown. With the current weather not being able to decide whether we’re going to need Noah’s ark (hot ‘n rainy) or whether we’ll need skis soon (cold ‘n shivery), I’ve been growing things indoor although my pot with moss on the balcony is surviving the moody weather just fine.
Experiment n° 1 : ginger
Well sadly my little ginger plant can’t be fooled into thinking it’s the right season, probably mainly due to the sometimes low temperatures emanating from the passive ventilation in my apartment. It’s something I can’t shut off (unfortunately) and is quite irritating since it’s placed on the window that is the most exposed to the wind and creates a cold draft in the apartment at times.
As a result my little exotic friend hasn’t grown since I took the last picture and is currently struggling to survive. I’m quite curious how the root has grown since I’ve planted it, so I might be replanting this lovely one soon.
*edit* I replanted this lovely one this weekend, above you can see a picture of the new root of this beautiful ginger plant. The darker brown piece is the old piece of root I’ve planted, the greener piece of root has been grown since I’ve planted this lovely one.
Experiment n° 2 : pumpkin patch
Of the bunch of seeds I’ve planted, I had a total of 6 sprouts living very happily together in a tiny pot. So about two weeks ago I decided to replant the sprouts to give them more room to grow. Since then 5 of my sprouts died but one is living very strong and happily in a it’s new home.
When I was replanting the sprouts, I found that the seeds I had planted had nearly all or all split in two and the current plants were no longer attached to them, quite interesting really. As you’ll see in the picture, the roots had gotten quite long already, making it hard to untangle them. I probably broke some, which made so many of the sprouts die off.
Experiment n° 3 : strawberries
While I was walking back home with M. from stretching our legs somewhere along New Years day. I stopped all of a sudden near a fence, exlaiming “Hey look! Aren’t those strawberries?”.
Strawberries creep. They create a “tentacle” and grow a sibling at the end of it (I just found out it’s called a runner). Once the sibling starts growing the tentacle will disappear. And it was one of those tentacles with a sibling on the end of it I saw dangling through a fence.
My friend M. agreed it were probably strawberries and deciding it might be worth the try, I pinched off the little plant and planted it in a pot in my living room.
Since then my courageous friend has grown a new tiny green leaf and seems to be living quite happily next to my green giant of a plant.
After some reading on the web I found out strawberries are very susceptible to diseases in the soil and you should not just pick a strawberry plant and plant it like I did. Ah well, even if I can’t eat any of the eventual strawberries, I’ll still have fun growing them.
Experiment n° 4 : marigolds
After seeing all that green I wanted to grow some flowers as well. So I bought some marigold seeds (nl: stinkertjes, fr: œillet d’Inde). Why those? I remember mom telling me that they keep away certain insects that can be harmful for plants. So I planted the seeds next to my pumpkin sprout and that might have been a mistake.
The roots of the marigold emit an antibacterial substance which in fact keeps away the insect pests but also kills off certain plants… So I might be looking this up some more and then I’ll go save my poor pumpkin sprout from certain death!
Keep growing!
Sources:
- Tagetes @ Wikipedia (Marigolds)
- Strawberries @ Wikipedia
- Growing strawberries @ gardenorganic.org.uk
Categorised as: Life
hey, dat ziet er niet slecht uit. Als het nu eens goed weer begint dan zal je alles eens zien groeien. Binnenkort is het tijd om tomaten te zaaien….Good luck!!