White and Brown

A week of expectations is now over. One week passed since the last batch of planting. Here is what the "white patch" looks like today. White patch is the 16 planted in white PVC tubs, as opposed to the "brown patch" where 14 seeds were planted in the natural material brown containers.

November 10, 2012

Out of eight seedlings planted two weeks ago on Oct 28, five are firmly above ground (1,2,4,6, and 8). Note, that a mix of two types of soil (black and light brown) was used for that batch as described in previous posts. Out of eight seedlings planted one week ago on November 3, only two showed signs of getting from underneath the soil (13 and 15). Neither of the two have green leaves completely out of the ground. Four seedlings planted in heavy black soil (9-12) showed no signs of movement towards the surface.

The brown patch, which was planted a day later on November 4th, fared no better than the heavy soil. Note, that these seedlings were planted in a very light-weight material specifically chosen for seeds. So, this is zero out of 14 planted a week ago:

November 10, 2012

For the white patch I used approximately equal amounts of water for all but 9-12. 9-12 heavy dirt remained (visibly and on touch) wet. I would use three squirts from the water bottle on each seedling amounting to about 10ml (half an oz.) of water per day. Then I would do a wide area mist on the entire patch from a greater heigh just enough to get soil barely wet which was judged by the changed color of soil.

For the brown patch I would repeat the same as for the white patch. The only difference was the brown patch remained significantly dryer than the white one. The light fluffy material absorbed water slower but extremely well. I added about 5ml of extra water to brown patch samples 17-21 (left column on picture above).

From the living seedlings the ones that were above surface and "liberated" from the seed casing, four are doing very well. Number one which was the first to grow but had it's prison cell on too long is still doing okay despite the dead brown clump on top:

#1 November 10, 2012 Two week old

The two healthiest seedlings at this time are #4 and #8 (two in the far row in the picture below), reaching approximately the same height of about 1.25" or 3cm:

White patch side view November 10, 2012

Here is a zoom-in on #8:

#8 November 10, 2012 Two week old.