Slow, Slow Grow

Seedlings grow slowly! A watched seedling never grows, or something like that. The quick and exciting sprouting of the seeds has given way to the slow and less dramatic development of the seedling. The excitement has waned, at least for the moment. It’s a question of patience now.  As in everything else, patience needs to be cultivated with at least as much care as one gives to the cultivation of the soil.

Although at a snail’s pace, most things are progressing well with two exceptions: the zucchini seedlings and the last batch of mini pots I set with tomato and okra seeds. The stem of the zucchini, the part right at ground level, seems to have atrophied and withered, as you can see in the photo above. I’ve no idea why (too much water, too little water, bugs, wind?) but I’m curious to see if any of these seedlings make it. Squash is normally one of the hardiest crops so it’s a surprise.

As for the tomato and okra seeds, not one has germinated, and that should have happened about four days ago. It’s really weird – not one seedling out of something like 72 little pots. Another mystery.

Two positive things though on the seedling front.

The first is that I transplanted a couple of seedlings from the mini pots into the front yard a couple of days ago and they are still looking good. Photo above is a cantaloupe seedling. It's the tiny little green sprout near the bottom of the frame.  It's on the parkway (the strip of soil between the sidewalk and the gutter.) You can see the white car parked there. I’m not sure how much hope there is for this to survive unless I rope it off with big orange traffic cones, and possibly monitor with a security camera and alarm system ;-), but the thought of having a big sprawling cantaloupe vine with lots of fruit on it growing right there on the parkway is very motivating so I’m giving in a shot. (Besides the risk of being trampled there’s also might be a problem of not enough sunlight there under the big trees that line the street.) Don’t know until you try though.

Below is a tiny broccoli seedling, planted in the front yard.

The other cool thing is that I gave some seedlings today to the lady who watches Kong and Salty when I go out of town. She took a couple of broccoli, a couple of tomato and one snow pea seedling. The idea of giving away the seedlings and seeing how people do with them is just as appealing as cantaloupe growing on the parkway. But don’t worry Michelle, this is not a test!! And by the way Michelle is a fantastic dog watcher, walker, lover, etc so if you live in this area and you need to board your dog, or just have him walked during the day check out her website: www.inthenameofdog.net/

Well that’s it for me. I’m off at the crack of dawn tomorrow to the May Day immigration march in downtown LA. I’ll end with this pix of the hybrid bok choi seedlings, which are one of the things that are actually growing pretty fast.