Project terminated

We have had three good weeks of sun and warm temperatures. I have done three waterings that I did not record over the blog. I'm afraid that I can't continue this project for two reasons though. I have been planning on terminating the project for the last week because I am having serious trouble keeping up with the special watering needs of the four plants. If I don't water before a windy day the leaves get really tattered and give the plants a sickly look for a while. That was the first reason. Reason 2: When I woke up this morning the plants had been snowed on. This means that all of the plants except for the percipitation plant has been tainted. The results are that no plant seems to be more or less healthy than the others. At least one plant in each pot had flowered and no casualties are to be reported. I'll attempt to write up a full summary of the project soon. 

This is a photo I just took of the plants getting sleeted on. 

Blooming onions

The other day I noticed that the well watered plant had a bud coming up. Without thinking I snapped it off. I don't want their energy going into blooms. I want leaves to eat! After I realized I screwed up I took a picture of the snapped bloom. Anyway, no biggie now since all the pots have at least one plant with a bud on it. The well watered plant has a bud on the second plant in the pot and the boiled watered pot has two as well. The pots watered with microwaved water and percipitation still just have one bud. All plants look very healthy and are not suffering the lack of sun problems that the first batch did. In fact, today is the first day the plants were forced to stay indoors without sun since we have had rain and snow all day. 

The first bud. 

Those two shots were from earlier this week. Here are the plants today.

Now that this is documented I will decapitate all buds. 

I watered today

All of the onions look about the same. I just noticed today that all pots except for the well water pot have their first new shoots of leaves. I can feel the trunks of the well water plants though and I can feel that their new leaves are coming. All plants are the same shade of green and very firm to the touch. They have spent every day since planted outside and every night indoors.

Second time watering

It's March 27th and I will be watering once the boiled and microwaved water cool down. Since I planted this round of onions I have noticed similar verticle growth in all four pots. The boiled water and microwaved water pots started growing a new leaf! The plant that was left over from the last experiment has also started growing a new leaf, its color is looking healthier and it appears to have more water in its leaves now too.

The other two pots look just as healthy, but no new leaves are in sight just yet. 

PHOTOS!

Note the two new leaves in the microwaved water pot (right) and the new leaf on the boiled water pot (left).

Starting from scratch

Yesterday I wrote a long post about how my onion experiment was a failure due to the lack of sunshine. I didn't post it because I wanted a picture of the plants in the sun shine. Later in the day I got emails from google recommending that I change my password. Somehow this is what killed the draft of my blog post. 

I plan on writing the same post but in a really half assed manner now.

All the onion bulbs were dead or close to it.

One plant in the well water pot had a real nice root system compared to all others.

One plant in the microwaved water pot was alive and salvageable probably because it was planted with few roots and much later than all the others.

I discarded all plants except for that one.

Replaced all plants with fresh ones.

Fresh plants had few roots and hacked bulbs so I let the sit in dry soil for a few days before watering.

Received another onion a day after planting and I placed it in the pot for wicrowaved water.

Here are pictures. 

Sorry this was such a crappy post. It was very nice. Stupid internet.

First week of February.

I watered on January 26. Here is the shot of what appears to still be healthy plants other than the obvious stretching for light. 

I can also announce that we started harvesting our first green onion leaves around this day. No taste difference was detected between any of the four water harvesting methods. All did in fact taste like green onions though. 

BAD NEWS

Yesterday, February 6, I can finally report my first bad news. It is happening slowly, but I am about to receive some deaths. I am certain that he problem is not from the water harvesting methods though. I believe that the problem stems from a combination of overwatering and lack of sun. I noticed the start of serious rot on the stem of an onion in the well water pot. When I pulled it out to see if it was salvageable I noticed the same problem, although not as severe, on some specimens in the three other pots as well. The following pictures display the problems. Ironically, the microwaved water specimen currently has the least amount of rot. This could have to do with it being the specimen closer to the indirect sun, but I think it just has to be luck of the draw. Note the writing on each pot in these photos. 

 The specimen pulled out is from well water. Microwaved water is on the left. 

I will continue with the experiment while trying to nurse them through this tough time. We have seen the sun fewer than 7 days in the last month and a half so I could be fighting a losing battle. 

I'm an awesome blogger"!"

Let's face it. Blogging is kind of lame. Here's a quick run down since the last post. 

I've only had to water the plants once since the first watering. Nothing special to report about this. 

All of the plants seem to be stressed out from the lack of sun and not the water. Stretched pale leaves are a sign of this and are occurring on all specimens. 

After the last watering I added new plants to their pots. 

All plants seem to be healthy and are at a stage where I can begin harvesting for my culinary delight.

I will continue with this obsurd project until I get too lazy to continue. 

As it stands right now my conclusion is: 

No noticeable changes detectable between the four watering methods. 

Here are photos from the last watering on January 1: