berry seedlings
Growing berries from seed - a slow process that's bound to be unrewarding for quite some time yet, but man, the little guys are cute when they're babies!!
I planted a whole (mini-)packet of alpine strawberry seeds doing the paper-towel in a ziploc germination method. I did half direct from the packet, and put the other half into the freezer for two weeks since I read that the cold would be necessary for germination - both halves generated 8 or so seedlings, so apparently the stockroom seed was pre-frozen and ready-to-go. Those little sprouts (yes, all still <1.5" tall) have moved from ziplock to a tupperware full of seed medium to individual seed pots. I probably won't be putting them outside for a while yet (and I'm not 100% sure where they'd be going!!) but 14 healthy plants is pretty good. You can see the two batches, some that are significantly older than others.
I also ordered goji berry seeds (aka chinese matrimony vine, wolfberry, Duke of Argyll's teatree, and a couple of other things) Goji is a posh new miracle-vitamin-antioxidant food second only to acai in MLM schemes and hype, so I figured that 35-cents to get me 4 seeds wasn't bad. Turns out, that was 35 cents to get me 4 berries, each of which holds maybe 50 tiny seeds. I followed the instructions, soaked one raisin-like red berry, cut it open, scraped out the inside, rinsed off the little seeds, and scattered them over a seed tray. Then ate the berry, just to know what I was getting in for. It was tasty, with a faint sort of odd flavor that reminded me vaguely of other asian snack foods. Those seedlings came up like crazy. I thinned it down by about a third about the time they were getting true leaves, then last weekend moved the ~6-leaved 4" seedlings out of their communal tofu-container creche into individual seed pots (not the little 1"x1"x3" pockets, the 2.5" pockets that the strawberries came in) and I figured I'd let them grow there until I thought it was time to pick one of the big ones and move it on up and perhaps out. But I have 16 of these little guys. I posted an ad on Craigslist, and yesterday a nice lady gave me $5 for one of my 4-packs of exotic plants. whee!! That brings my total of $310 spent on plants and seeds down to $305 - what a difference!! I'll be a profitable farm any day now!
I planted a whole (mini-)packet of alpine strawberry seeds doing the paper-towel in a ziploc germination method. I did half direct from the packet, and put the other half into the freezer for two weeks since I read that the cold would be necessary for germination - both halves generated 8 or so seedlings, so apparently the stockroom seed was pre-frozen and ready-to-go. Those little sprouts (yes, all still <1.5" tall) have moved from ziplock to a tupperware full of seed medium to individual seed pots. I probably won't be putting them outside for a while yet (and I'm not 100% sure where they'd be going!!) but 14 healthy plants is pretty good. You can see the two batches, some that are significantly older than others.
I also ordered goji berry seeds (aka chinese matrimony vine, wolfberry, Duke of Argyll's teatree, and a couple of other things) Goji is a posh new miracle-vitamin-antioxidant food second only to acai in MLM schemes and hype, so I figured that 35-cents to get me 4 seeds wasn't bad. Turns out, that was 35 cents to get me 4 berries, each of which holds maybe 50 tiny seeds. I followed the instructions, soaked one raisin-like red berry, cut it open, scraped out the inside, rinsed off the little seeds, and scattered them over a seed tray. Then ate the berry, just to know what I was getting in for. It was tasty, with a faint sort of odd flavor that reminded me vaguely of other asian snack foods. Those seedlings came up like crazy. I thinned it down by about a third about the time they were getting true leaves, then last weekend moved the ~6-leaved 4" seedlings out of their communal tofu-container creche into individual seed pots (not the little 1"x1"x3" pockets, the 2.5" pockets that the strawberries came in) and I figured I'd let them grow there until I thought it was time to pick one of the big ones and move it on up and perhaps out. But I have 16 of these little guys. I posted an ad on Craigslist, and yesterday a nice lady gave me $5 for one of my 4-packs of exotic plants. whee!! That brings my total of $310 spent on plants and seeds down to $305 - what a difference!! I'll be a profitable farm any day now!