Today I discovered that the last loquat seed has germinated. That means that 100% of the 20 seeds actually germinated in a period between 30 and 56 days. Not too bad.
Loquat Seedlings
I had dumped the three I had germinated in vermiculture, but I still have 20 seedlings. How’s that, you might wonder. It’s because loquat seem to be polyembryonic, just like lemons. You might be able to see that with the one on the bottom right corner. Three seedlings grow from one seed there.
Some days ago, new buds had developed in my English Oak and Almond Tree seedling. I was especially glad about the Almond seedling, because the leaves had turned quite red due to the amount and heat of the sun on my balcony. Of both species, I only have one, so new leaves means they are still going to live.
I’ve started with new almond seedlings, though. They are still in the soaking phase. Fingers crossed for more little almond trees.
Finally, I could convince myself to get some pistachio seeds on Ebay. One might ask – why don’t you just buy them at the supermarket? – Easy: because those are always roasted and half of them even salted, so they won’t germinate. They were offered as “Persian Pistachios”, which basically means that they’re from Iran. Iran is the largest exporter of pistachios, as far as I know.
So, those are not actually Mediterranean, but pistachios are grown in Sicily, and that’s my excuse.
So I ordered 10, but actually got 12, which is always nice. I read about how to get them to germinate and just followed the instruction: Soak them in water of room temperature for 16 hours. I might have soaked them for 20 hours and the colour of their shell did actually change, as you might be able to see in the pictures:
As you can see, I used an empty ice cream container. They are very useful and it gives me yet another reason to buy ice cream.
After they had soaked, I put them in the remaining vermiculite and covered them up. I only used five of the seeds so far, in case they all germinate (they probably won’t), I won’t get too many.
There’s only as much water in the box as the pistachios had on them.
I also got new plant labels, of which I taped one to the box. Because I have other projects in other ice cream boxes and I will have forgotten which is which after a couple of weeks.
In the article about pistachio germination, I found the information that soaking the seeds in solution of 1 percent potassium nitrate might help the germination rate. I want to try that with cheaper seeds first. I still have seven pistachio seeds left for later trials.
Wasp in IVAR
A bee (or wasp, I have no idea) has started to use my IVAR Bonsai Nursery, too. It has already filled up the hole at the bottom.
Ooookay, as long as we exist peacefully together on my balcony, I’m fine with that. I might wanna use some of those holes later, though…
On March 5th, I had started a new project to determine the germination period for mandarins/ tangerines. I think all the pips came from the same mandarin, but I’m not sure any more, because there wouldn’t have been a lot of pulp in that mandarin: I had put 16 pips in vermiculite and 6 into ordinary soil. I wrote down 6 at the time, but now I have 10 seedlings, so it seems one seed yielded several seedlings.
Mandarin Seedlings
It took them between 24 and 50 days to germinate. The seeds in vermiculite started germinating after 24 days and the ones in normal soil 33. The leaves look darker than the ones from the lemon trees.
EDIT:
I have re-potted the seedlings into single pots and it actually IS the case that one seed can yield several seedlings. There’s plenty of proof:
Bottle caps
Some days ago, I saw these bottle caps that turn an ordinary water bottle into a watering can – on amazon. What a great idea, I thought and almost ordered them, but then the shipping cost was higher than the actual cost of those thingies (2,95 €) and I thought better of it. If I would see them in a shop, I would buy them at once.
But then I thought that I could just drill some holes in the ordinary cap of the water bottle I already use for watering my plants. I tried that and it works just fine. The water might not go 100 % precisely where it is supposed to go, but I haven’t made a complete mess.
So here is how I did it:
If you consider yourself a bit clumsy and are afraid you will knock the bottle over and you happen to have a second cap, you can drill a hole in the side of the watering cap, attach a string, attach the string to the neck of the bottle and use the other cap to close it properly.
Attach a string to both caps, actually, so you won’t lose either.
Some weeks ago, my sister brought me these herbs in cans by Inspirion GmbH, but I’m sure there are other companies that sell those. What a kind and interesting idea.
Canned herbs: Mint, Oregano and Basil
Today, with it being the last but one day before a colder period, I decided to do some can gardening. I tried to follow the instructions in English first, because they were the first given. Soon, I discovered that the English (as well as the Italian) instruction are a bit faulty. So, I switched to German, which was almost perfect. And I decided to make an illustrated instruction, because I know that my sister got some cans for herself.
I had a friend over this weekend who’s a biologist and after we had watched Il était une forêt (I couldn’t find an English title, it seems not to be available in English – shame really) in the cinema (in German) and did some more indoor stuff, we decided that today would be a more outdoor day. So, after our exercise in the morning (she running, me unicycling), we had breakfast and started off to the park/ forest to collect some Allium ursinum. The forests of Leipzig are quite notorious to grow it. It smells like garlic and the leaves look similar to those of Lily of the valley (which is highly poisonous). We later made pesto of it with walnuts and pecorino cheese.
Bear’s garlic (allium ursinum) pesto
After the park, we went on past the zoo where we encountered some ostrich sex (that’s nature for you) and then further to the Botanical Garden. There wasn’t a lot going on except for some early flowering plants, but they’re on all at once this year, because there was hardly any winter and it was around 20°C today (31.4°C on my balcony). Here are some impressions:
My smartphone isn’t smart enough to know when I want to take macro photographs, so couldn’t take good pictures of buds and some blossoms.
Ginkgo Seedling
Either I have accidentally turned the seed while re-potting them and this is the root coming up or it is the Ginkgo’s attempt to grow properly. I will see on Sunday, because I’m going away for the weekend.
Ginkgo leaf
This is one of the leaves of my little ginkgo tree. It is about the size of my index finger’s nail.
Mediterranean Bonsai 