Seedlings galore!

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I’ve been a bit preoccupied by seeds lately – those that I’ve set to germinate. Ever since the first Zinnia poked it’s little green seed leaves at me, I’ve been making excuses to go visit the nursery to see if there were more new arrivals … several times a day!

Thanks to that, I noticed a few other Zinnias beginning to uncurl their necks, so to speak, before straightening the following day to open their seed leaves. I feel such joy watching that happen.

Bachelor's Buttons seedlings

Then, finally, the Bachelor’s Buttons decided to get in on the act. I was peering in at the germination pot when I caught sight of a tiny speck of colour – a little purple stem was beginning to uncurl! By the end of the day, a pair of faded purple seed leaves had opened, and I was silently cheering them on. Another seedling joined the first a few days later, and I’m hoping for more. There should be several more viable seeds in the seed head I planted!

The Dahlberg Daisies piped up as well. The tiniest, littlest stem began to poke it’s way upwards late one morning – and I mean minuscule! The only reason I noticed it was because the bright green of the stem was in such contrast with the dark potting media. By late afternoon, the tiny seed leaves opened. DG told me that there are lots of seeds in each seed head – and I had several of those. I’d really love to have a bunch of these plants because they’re so pretty when planted in a cluster, so I hope a lot of them sprout!

Lemon basil seedling

Last, and certainly not least, a couple of lemon basil seedlings decided to pop up and say hi to me …but then one of them died the following day. Fortunately, a replacement came up a few days later. I really hope more seeds sprout, because I absolutely love the scent of the plant – just handling the seeds to plant them had left a pleasant, lingering lemon fragrance on my fingers, and I can imagine having that smell around the garden… :)

So now I’m just waiting on the sunflower seeds. And I was having so much fun that I went and got some coriander seeds to plant. Still waiting for those to grow, too.

That leaves the score at Zinnia: 6, Dahlberg Daisies, lemon basil and Bachelor’s Buttons tied at 2, and sunflowers and coriander at nil. Come on you seeds!!

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What’s been attacking my okra?

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Just look at my poor little okra:

Partially eaten okra fruits (notice the smaller one, too).

I’ve been wondering what caused this – beetles? Some kind of insect??

Well, now I know…

The culprit - a caterpillar!

Now do you understand why I’ve found it so difficult to spot these caterpillars? They’re camouflaged so well!

Grrr…

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The first Zinnias sprout

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Well, I went on a planting spree. It couldn’t be helped – not with all the seeds I got from DG last week. Every variety was planted – but not all the seeds, because there were just so many of some of them.

The first Zinnia sprout!

I decided to use a couple of my shallower self-watering containers (SWCs) in the process, and the Zinnias happened to end up in one of them. It’s probably a good thing because the weather has turned dry once again. The potting media in the SWCs is slightly damp all the time while that in normal flower pots needs water added at least once a day.

I sometimes cover the germination pot/container to help keep moisture in to help the seeds to sprout, and had put a loose cover over the Zinnia container. As a force of habit, even with SWCs, I check the dampness of the potting media daily, so when I lifted the cover on the third day, I was pleasantly surprised to see the first Zinnia sprout growing strongly. The next two showed up over the next day or so.

More sprouts - unable to shed their seed coats yet! I was amused by the one with the dried petal "hat" :)

Of course, I don’t know what colour the flowers of these sprouts are going to be. DG gave me too many seeds from too many plants while we were browsing through the community garden, and I didn’t have any other choice than to mix the 3 varieties of Zinnia seeds in one hand. (Refusing seeds? Not an option! :P) I’ll probably plant each seedling in an individual pot so that I can shift them around once they flower and I know what colour the blooms are. Apparently, Zinnias tend to cross-pollinate, so if you want to keep a line pure then you should plant them by variety.

Alternatively, I could just plant them all together in a general Zinnia patch and then save the seeds separately for the next round of planting. If they happen to cross-pollinate, then I’ll have some unique flowers down the line. I’m not complaining!

I’m really looking forward to seeing the colourful blooms in the coming months. When old enough, these plants will go to a nice sunny spot in the garden – hopefully where they’ll serve the dual purpose of attracting more bees, butterflies and sunbirds (which I’d love to photograph) as well as distract other insects from my veggies. Don’t worry, you’ll see photos when there are photos to be taken!

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Finally… pepper paprika flowers

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I mentioned way back in April that I had planted a number of vegetable seeds, among which was the pepper paprika. Only one seedling sprouted, and the plant just seemed to take its time growing at a leisurely pace. Nothing remarkable happened, so I had nothing to say about it.

Until now.

A month ago, I thought I’d be able to mention it when I noticed what looked like a bud forming. But, we were in the middle of that dry spell, and the bud aborted. Then, a week ago, I noticed another couple of buds forming. I’ve been waiting with bated breath, and I can finally unveil some news and pictures:

My pepper paprika plant is finally flowering!

Two forming buds - they're tiny at about 5mm across. Think peppercorn size...

It's really pretty when you take a close up look at it, but the opened flower is in reality only 15mm (1.5cm) across!

One thing, though – my new “buddies”, the whiteflies, are very attracted to the plant, so constant vigilance will be needed to keep this plant happy and healthy. I was rudely shocked when I looked at the undersides of some of the leaves and saw clusters of whiteflies and their eggs. I cleaned off the less infested leaves and removed the ones that looked too icky to touch. The whiteflies that got away weren’t too pleased with me, but I wasn’t pleased with them either. This is war, baby, and the pepper paprikas had better be worth the fight!

© 2010 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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