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:

December 18, 2012

Two days after their first watering the specimens still have moist soil and noticeable new green growth.

Repurposing a blog

This blog was originally purposed for informing the small clientele of the even smaller plant nursery, Plant Diversity, I owned and operated from 2009-2012. You can tell I wasn't very interested in updating it.

I will be devoting the next few months of blogging to a science experiment. The science experiment in question is this one that has been floating around on Facebook for a while now. http://usahitman.com/microwave-test/

I do have a preconceived notion that filtered watered would benefit a plant just as much as microwaved water; however, my experiment will not be trying to prove this. My experiment will be to see what happens when I grow plants of identical species using water "harvested" in different methods. Sadly, I have no access to filtered water. This instantly changes my experiment from the experiment being passed around on Facebook. 

The water being used in my experiment will be harvested in the following manners.

-Well water from the tap I drink from allowed to sit at room temperature for 15-60 minutes.

-Well water from the tap I drink from boiled in an electric kettle, then allowed to sit at room temperature for 15-60 minutes.

-Well water from the tap I drink from boiled in the microwave, then allowed to sit at room temperature for 15-60 minutes.

-Rain, snow, creek or river water collected from what looks to be an untainted source that is then allowed to sit at room temperature for 15-60 minutes

I will water the four specimens with a 1/2 cup of water for the start of the experiment. The quantity and frequency will fluctuate in the following days and weeks due to atmospheric and vitality differentials of the four specimens. The alloted time for the water to acclimate to room temperature will vary as well, yet all waterings will still be done at the same time to ensure all specimens get water at the same temperature.

The species I have chosen as my four specimens is the common green onion. I bought these plants at the grocery store and used them culinarily. Once they were cut down close to the white bulb I saved them until I was ready to start my experiment. I decided on using this monocot as opposed to the dicot in the original experiment for its ability to withstand the cold and dark situations that will occur in my house.

HYPOTHESIS

I believe there will be no noticeable differences in plant growth or health among the different forms of watering.

PROBLEMS I PLAN ON ENCOUNTERING

-I live in a small cabin rural Norway. It is winter time and my house is heated by a wood stove. I plan on encountering an occasional cold house. 

-I may live south of the Artic Circle, but I still have very short days and the winter solstice is still five days away.

-Lack of uniformity of the drainage in the makeshift pots I am using to contain the specimens. This would be unavoidable even with traditional factory made liners due to how the soil settles. Watching the watering will be key to correcting this problem.

HOW WILL I CALCULATE MY RESULTS?

I do not plan on measuring plant growth to determine which watering method is best. Since all of my specimens are currently at different stages of growth I think  they should be evaluated on a three point scale. These points will be...

-Healthy

-Unhealthy/sick

-Dead

It should be noted that in the first two to three weeks of experimentation we should not attempt to calculate any data on the viability of the plants. Even under uniform settings any of the seven specimens have the potential of not growing roots and possibly dying. In the event of a death I will replace the specimen with a fresh one and attempt its method of watering once more.

The pots I am using-

The onions I am using-

The soil I am using-

The drainage holes-

The potted specimens (I purposely put the single crappy specimen in the container with percipitation. The other six were chosen at random)-

December 16,2013

The first collection site for percipitation-

Close to one hour after water collection-

It's been ten minutes since watering. No observable changes to report.

Peppers, Eggplant, new herbs & MORE Tomaters!

Finally! It's been quite the wait. This week we will be bringing the first round of peppers and eggplants to market! The just couldn't resist growing after almost two weeks in the 70's and many days of sun. I think I may have grown as well.
Some of the new plant varieties I will be bringing to market Thursday the 31'st will be
Long Thin Cayanne, Ancho Magnifico, Golden Star Bell Pepper, Black Beauty Eggplant and culinary Sage to name a few off the top of my head. Round 2 of Creole & Cherokee Purple tomatoes will be there as well.
It has been perfect weather for gardening & my garden is reaping the benefits.
These are pictures of two stunners in my garden.
Mayapple Podophyllum peltatum
Yellow Columbine Aquilegia chrysantha

Tomatoes

It's been a bit too long. We had and are still having an unusually cold south Louisiana winter. That hasn't stopped me from going nuts with the Spring vegetables! We are growing a mother load of tomatoes, peppers, squash, eggplant, gourds & pumpkins! For now we only have tomatoes ready for sale. If the sun would poke its head out & the temperature would rise to 60+ we would be able to bring peppers quickly. Till that day, this is what we are looking at...
TOMATOES
-Anna Russian 70 days Ox heart variety dark red -purple hue 1 pound tomatoes indeterminate habit
-Black Krim 75 days Beefsteak. Dark hue. Indeterminate habit.
-Brown Berry 72 days cherry tomato indeterminate habit.
-Caspian Pink 80 days Beefsteak. Indeterminate habit.
-Cherokee Purple 80 days Beefsteak. Purple hue. Indeterminate habit.
-Creole Tomato 78 days Beefsteak. Indeterminate habit.
-Fuzzy Black 70 days a sport of Anna Russian that may have a slightly fuzzy flesh.
-Martino’s Roma 75 days 4oz. Roma meaty. Determinate habit.
-Principe Borghese 80 days Grape Sauce/Drying Tomato. Determinate habit.
-Purple Russian 80 days Large Roma great for sauce & salad. Purple hue. Indeterminate habit.
-Stick Tomato 65 days small globe tomato. Bizarre form. Indeterminate habit.
-Viva Italia 85-90 days Sauce Tomato. Firm and juicy fruits ripen uniformly and store well for 2-3 weeks. Determinate habit.

These are all the varieties I have started. Principe Borghese, Viva Italia & stick tomatoes will not be available for another week or three. Everyone else is ready to take home!

CACTUS AND SUCCULENT SHOW AND SALE!

I had a great idea at last Thursday's market. For some reason there was a lack of interest at my table and a great interest at others. I decided a great way to gain interest is to bring some interesting plants from my succulent collection and make it BIG! I plan on bringing some of my show plants, large mother plants (not for sale) and quite a few smaller plants (for sale). The sale will probably take place on December 17th at the Mid-City Green Market from 2:30 to 7:00. The plants I will be selling will most certainly be a limited quantity. If you are a serious collector or would like to give an unusual plant as a Christmas gift try and get to the Can Company early! Feel free to drop by even if you are not interested in a purchase. Keep checking back for updated info.
Thanks!
Mammillaria threase & assorted cacti
Astrophytum myriostigma
Mammillaria ritteriana

Cripplers!

I finally got motivated to start all of my fall veggies...again. I probably sewed 10,000 seeds since the last day in July & I had every single one of them die on me about 2 weeks ago. Thank goodness for cool weather! I just got back from a trip to the Texas Hill Country! While I was there I received a large load of Horse Crippler Cactus (Echinocactus texensis). I will be bringing five specimens to market on Thursday. Four are in one gallon pots & one is in a five inch. These are some superb looking cacti. They are very hardy & easy bloomers in spring. They also grow exponentially faster with Louisiana's rain fall than central Texas'. Next Spring I hope to bring some of the larger specimens. When I say large I mean LARGE! Some of these plants are having trouble fitting in a five gallon pot!
In other news...Last week at the market I brought a small collection of seeds for sale. They are all seeds I harvested from plants I grew then packaged them myself. They have been stored properly for the last year & germination rates should be high. This Thursday I plan on bringing seeds to California poppies, Liatris, Texas Bluebonnet, Love in a mist and Red buckeye. The buckeye seeds were collected in the last few days. They are ready to be sewn immediately! Hope to see you at market.
Jesse

bushy germanders!

WILL THIS RAIN STOP?! It has been unseasonably warm even by south Louisiana standards as of late. It is becoming near impossible to grow cool weather crops successfully without a green house. Not to mention every time we get these monsoon style rain storms it washes all the soil and seeds out of my seed flats. I'm giving up until we get some cooler dryer weather. On the positive side...I am going to be selling loads of beautiful one gallon bush germanders (Teucrium fruitcans) this week! I will also be pushing some thin but still stunning Gulf Mulhy grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) along with some three gallon Tulip Poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera) Not much else to report. I have made a few trips to the other location this week. All my one gallon Echinacea, Rudbeckia and Penstemon cobeas will be over wintering there. Hope they like it! I don't know if I have made a rant about the huge cache of buckeye nuts I've come across. Well, they are germinating like mad right now & I am half way pleased to announce that I have a good handful of albinos!!!!!!!!!! I have a feeling they will die do to a lack of chloraphil though. I'll share pictures.

Slacker

I'm getting pretty bad about posting. Sorry about that. I've been sewing flats like mad lately. Unfortunately my lack of consistent attention to all these seed flats, heavy constant rain and extreme heat after a few days of cool weather have been killer on many seedlings. The weather has been great for cuttings though. Lots of roses have been rooting very nicely! I've also been potting up trees and grasses into larger pots. These include Tulip Poplars, Sycamores, Persimmons, Gulf Muhly and Texas Bluegrass. These guys are beginning to look terrific! I have recently commandeered a source for seed to one of the Native Buckeyes (Aesculus pavia). The seeds are germinating a lot more quickly than normal. I will leave with a picture of them.

hectic

So, it has been a while since I last posted. I just haven't had much time or much in general to write about. I have been planting like mad lately and now I am in dire need of bringing more plants out to the new location. In the past two weeks I have only been able to make two trips out there and I have not brought very many plants either time. I have been making adjustments on the irrigation though. Everything seems to be working out well so far. Last I heard was that Saturday night those plants got six inches of rain in six hours! I hope none of the aloes got uprooted. Here at the home base I have been sewing loads and loads of seed flats & having the pleasure of watching the seedlings pop up. I can't wait till the weather gets cooler so the struggling fall vegetables and herbs can flourish. Luckily though, most of the fall bedding plants are happy as can be. I'm glad I got the seeds in the soil so early.
This past weekend was spent in Birmingham, Alabama. I had a very nice visit and was shocked at how much potential this town has. I am willing to bet it grows exponentially in the next five to ten years. While I was there I was able to take cuttings of several new types of Sedum, a native succulent growing on a granite bald probably in the Portulacaceae family, seeds to a beautiful Datura that was a perfect cross between the native white and that gaudy double purple and last but certainly not least Castanea dentata a.k.a. American Chestnut (The story of this tree has intrigued me almost all of my life click here for more). I believe that the seeds I aquired are American crossed with Chinese; however I must admit that most of the 30+ Chestnuts in the area did look as if they had the blight at one point in their life. This means that they are either true Americans or Chinese crosses from a time when the crosses didn't have a very good resistance to the blight. This is why I am going to be selling these fellas just south of their historical range. Hopefully they will have a better chance of living a blight free life this way. Send me an e-mail or comment if you want first dibs!
Your pic.-o-the post is of the succulent growing in habitat in Birmingham. I will eventually look it up. But if someone happens to know off hand I would be delighted to be informed. The other plant is Whitlow Wort (I ought to think about growing that one).

SQUILLY

I don't have much time before I fall asleep typing so I'll try & keep this one brief. Not much work was done plant wise this week. But I did get some plants moved to the new location. I finally set up irrigation at the new location. A spotted squill I gave to someone about three years ago was just severely thinned and the rest was given back to me. This means I will be selling loads of squill soon! This picture of the spotted or silver squill was taken without permission from this web site. I'll put up a picture of my own when I have more time. In the mean while tell this guy not to press charges, cause that would be a waste.

Find your happy place.

After a week of constant potting I'm ready for some change. I hope the plants are too. Today they are going to find their happy place! I made two trips moving the drought tolerant plants to the new location this past week. Thank goodness too. I was getting really cramped around here. Today will be split moving some one gallons into shade, consolidating flats of four inch & moving those flats off the lawn and onto the concrete where the one gallons were. The rest of the day & possibly into the night will be spend seeding flats. I will mostly be doing Swiss Chard, Brussel sprouts, Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Calendula and I just might do an experiment with getting California poppies, Rose campion, Foxglove and Columbine to germinate in the heat.
Your picture for this post is of my newest mother plant. It is a type of Rain Lily called a Copper Lily (Habranthus tubispathus). I visited the city of Mansfield, La. a few weeks ago and these boogers were blooming like mad all over the place. I found a large patch on the side of a vacant Sonic restaurant where I gathered six bulbs. Hopefully they send off pups quickly or I won't have any to sell for years to come. I was also hoping I wouldn't be able to find it's scientific name because dubbing a plant 'Sonic Rain Lily' really appealed to me.

It was a slow day at work today. All I did was shift some pots around, bump most of the one gallon Liriodendron tulipifera (Yellow or Tulip Poplar) into three gallon pots and transplant several flats of cuttings into four inch pots. I also ordered more one gallon pots. This is partly why things are going so slowly. Once they get here I will be shooting plants out of the wazoo! Specifically Aquilegia chrysantha (Gold or Texas Yellow Columbine) and Lychnis coronaria (Rose Campion). I will probably also be placing many different varieties of Dianthus, Abutilon & Malvaviscus in them as well.
Your picture of the day is of one of my Cheddar Pink Dianthus cultivars.

Greetings,
This past week was spent potting 4" to gallon & making new plants. Hundreds of new plants! I made about four trays of cuttings & just seeded out one flat. The cuttings included Rosemary, Turks Cap, Patrick's Abutilon, Golden Pineapple Sage, Russelia coccinea, spotted tradescantia, Dwarf Lionstail, Shrubby Boneset, Mexican Mint Marigold, Chitalpa & several more I'm sure. The one flat consisted of Aristolochia fimbriata & some very old Lemon Rose Mallow seeds. I will be shocked if either of them germinate. Sunday I ordered some fall seeds. Lettuce, a red Nicotiana, Brussel Sprouts, Parsely, Cilantro, Swiss Chard & Dill. I suppose it is a good start. I'm sure I'll have some tricks up my sleve for fall, but let me know if you have a request. The only significant thing that happened Moday was fertilizer & pyrethrin day. Tuesday was spent moving about 200 one gallon drought tolerant plants to [THE NEW LOCATION]!!!!!!!!!!! The plants included Our native blazing star Liatris, Asparagus, seedling Chinqapin Oak trees, Yellow Bulbine, Pink Rain Lily (Z. grandiflora), Agave (tequilliana, coloradata, weberi & parryi v. truncata), the lovely Texas Blue Grass! & my personal favorite that I can not wait to distribute abundantly around south Louisiana Hippeastrum puniceum (a very elegant simple & small amaryllis).

Quick plant list for Thursdays market.
Assorted succulents, Basil, Brazilian plume, Bush Germander, Cardinal flower, Dwarf Lions Tail, Golden Pineapple Sage, Gollum Jade, Gulf Coast Penstemon, Lemon Balm, Mountain Mist Dianthus, Okra, Oregano, Patrick's Abutilon, Spice Lily, Turk's Cap, Shrubby Bone Set, Salvia madrensis, Clock vine thunbergia (the rambler) & stick tomatoes.