Update: Lotus, White Pitcher, and Venus

Lotus
Both lotus plants now have 4 leaves each and I see a fifth leaf coming up. I currently don't have my camera right now but when I do, I'll be providing pictures.

White Pitcher Plant
Only one of my White Pitcher Plants has survived. The last remaining one looks like it probably won't make it. I will do anything I can to keep it alive.

Venus Fly Trap
I currently have three Venus Fly traps growing.

Growing Water Lily Bulbs

So far my water lily seeds haven't sprouted. I need to wait for the materials I need to replant them. For the time being, I bought a water lily bulb and I'm going to attempt to grow that.

According to the instructions in the back of the package, I need to place 3/4 of the bulb in substrate (aka river rocks) then submerge it in water. The package says that the water lily is guaranteed to grow within 30 days. We'll see how the next 30 days go.

Water Lily Bulb

Water Lily Bulb in the substrate. My finger is pointing to the bulb

Update: White Pitcher Plants, Venus Fly Traps

White Pitcher Plant & Venus Fly Traps

Last time I said that I thought I saw 2 white pitcher plants growing, one of them even had a seed attached. Well the one that had a seed attached was actually a Venus Fly Trap. Another plant started growing in the same compartment and a seed started growing in the Venus Fly Trap section. The plant that was growing last week matches the one in the Venus Fly Trap.

Update: Lotus and Pitcher Plants

White Pitcher Plant

That grass like thing that I showed a few months prior is still here with no change. However I have noticed something with the other 2 white pitcher plants. I see a little green stem coming out in both compartments, one of them also has a seed attached. I tried to take a picture of them but they are too small. Hopefully in a few weeks they'll be big enough.

As a side note I will be spraying the pitcher plants and Venus fly traps with my homemade fungicide.

Lotus
One lotus plant already has one leaf that has opened completely. The other plant, the leaf is almost completely open. Both plants appear to have second leaves coming in.

Lotus Leaf

Update: Lotus

The lotuses are now peeking above the water. Hopefully in a few days the leaves will show.

Lotus Plant

Other Lotus Plant

I have noticed a minor mosquito problem since I started growing the lotuses outside. On top of that, I've noticed a lot of bugs (probably mosquitoes) floating on top of the water. I bought some gold fish and placed them in the bucket with my plants. The bugs in the bucket have gone down so hopefully so will the mosquito problem.

Lotus Seeds Planted

I put some garden soil in 2 buckets and filled it with rain water that I collected. I waited a few days but the water has not settled yet but I went ahead and dropped the seeds in. We'll see in a few days how the seeds are doing.

The soil I used is store bought garden soil. Online I saw some people just dug some soil out of their backyard. Unfortunately, my backyard is full of grass. If these seeds fail, on my next attempt, that is what I'll be doing.

Possible Delay In Germination

There is possibly going to be a delay in the lotus, water lily, pitcher plant, and venus fly trap seeds. These seeds require warm temperatures and lately it's been cold. Today is the first day of spring and it's still pretty cold so that seems to be delaying my plants.
According to what I read online lotus seeds are suppose to start sprouting within 4 to 5 days. Well it's been 6 days and there's not even a split in the seed yet.

Growing Water Lily Seeds

I went online and bought some Hardy Water Lily seeds.
The colors are

• Pink
• Hot Pink
• Sensation Pink
• Blue
• Yellow
• White

I'm trying to grow them in a rather unconventional method.
I'm using one of my 12 compartment seed trays. I filled each compartment halfway with gardening soil. Then I slowly flooded the compartment with rainwater. I let the soil settle overnight.
I grew 2 seeds of each color, one seed in each compartment. According to the person who I bought the seeds from, it should take 3 to 4 weeks for the seeds to sprout. Since this method is not your typical method it may or may not work but if it does, it is easier for me. We'll see how things go 3 to 4 weeks from now.

Update: Lotus seeds

There's not much to update except for that now my other lotus seed is lumpy too. So I should be seeing a green shoot within a few days.

Growing Lotus Seeds

I went online and bought 5 lotus seeds. I'm currently growing 2 of them.

Lotus seeds needs to be scarified in order to germinate. Online I found 2 methods. One is to use a knife and cut a slit until you see the white parts. Another is to file the outer coating until the white part shows. I tried the filing method, I gave up after an hour. Cutting a slit is tough but much easier than filing down. (In nature lotus seeds spend 50 to 100 years at the bottom of a pond before they germinate. You can see how tough that coat is)

To get the seeds to germinate you're suppose to soak the seeds in distilled or rain water. I put the seeds in a jar and covered them with rain water that I collected. Place the seeds in a warm location and change the water every few hours when it gets cloudy.

My Seeds

My Seeds Scarified

It's only been a few hours since I started the seeds but I have noticed something. From what I read online the outside coating gets lumpy due to water absorption. That happens after a few days. The one that I filed down is already lumpy. We'll see if that speeds it up in a few days.

Venus Fly Traps and Pitcher Plants

I got this urge to want to start growing water and swamp plants. So I went online and bought some water lily, lotus, Venus Fly Trap and Pitcher Plant seeds. Today I decided to plant my Venus Fly Trap and Pitcher Plant seeds.
These are the requirements I found online:

1. Use nutrient lacking soil such. I'm using peat moss.
   
2. Use only distilled or rain water. I placed a large trash can on the corner of my house and caught the rain.
   
3. Keep the area humid and warm. I'll be using a plastic dome which will serve as a greenhouse over the seed tray.

I have these 12 compartment seed trays. Online I bought 50 Purple Pitcher Plant seeds, 10 white pitcher plant seeds, and 10 Venus fly trap seeds.
Here's how I planted the seeds:

1. I filled the seed tray with seed starter.
2. Using a water sprayer filled with rain water, spray the soil until top appears soaked.
3. Slow pour rain water into each compartment. Keep pouring until water is dripping out of the bottom holes.
4. Plant the seeds. I'm planting 6 Purple pitcher plant seeds, 3 white pitcher plant, and 3 venus fly traps. Gently push the seeds in, but don't worry about covering them.
5. Cover them with the dome and place in a spot with a lot of sun light

According to the research I did online, it could take anywhere from 14 days to a few months for the seeds to sprout. I'll post when they sprout.

Extracting Kiwi Seeds

This is the method we used to get our kiwi seeds

You Will Need

• Sharp Knife
• Butter Knife
• Bowl of water
• Coffee Filter
• Sieve
• Bowl

Instructions

1. Cut the kiwi into quarters
   
   
   
   
   
2. Remove the middle white line
   
   
   
   
   
3. Gently scrap the seeds off with a butter knife
   
   
   
   
   
4. Rinse the seed covered knife in the bowl of water
   
   
   
   
   
5. Let most of the seeds settle to the bottom
   
   
   
   
   
6. Put a coffee filter in a sieve and the sieve in a bowl. Gently pour the water/seed mixture into the coffee filter. The coffee filter will drain the water but keep the seeds.
   
   
   
   
   
7. After the water drains leave it to dry overnight.
   
   
   
   
   
8. You should be able to easily scratch the seeds off of the coffee filter once it is dry. Now they are ready for use.
   

Growing Apricot From Seeds

My neighbor has an apricot tree. Every year she let's us come over and pick as many apricots as we want. There's always too many to go around. This year I saved some pits and Trevor and I are going to grow them. Before I get into details there's no guarantee that the seeds will produce apricots. My plum tree is right behind, back to back from the apricot tree. The apricot flowers bloomed just before the plums but there was an overlap so there is a chance the seeds are of plucots (apricot and plum hybrid). We'll know in 3 to 5 years.

I found 2 methods of growing apricots on the Internet so it's experiment time.
First step is to crack the pits with a hammer or nut cracker. I used a hammer. I found putting a pit on it's side and hitting the edge works best.
We have 18 seeds so 9 of them will be put in between a moist paper towel in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. The other 9 are in a jar with moist soil in the refrigerator. The seeds need a 30 day stratification period so after 30 days in the fridge we will check for sprouting.

Growing Blueberries From Seed

I bought some blueberry seeds from The Kentucky Blueberry Growers Association a few months ago. Their seeds are already stratified so you don't have to worry about doing that. A few weeks ago. April 25 to be precise, I start some seeds. Following the instructional video they have on YouTube, I used my miniature greenhouse. I filled it with seed starter, which is most peat moss, and sprinkled some seeds on top. To be on the safe side, I sprinkled a pinch of seed starter on top to cover the seeds. I used the greenhouse because according to the instructions given to me with the seeds, blueberries need a temperature of 70 to 80 degrees and need to stay moist. The greenhouse keeps those consistent. Heat and moisture are a perfect environment for fungus to grow so I gave it a spray of fungicide every week.
Four weeks later, on May 23, the first of the seeds germinated. More seeds are germinating everyday so I expect to have a full tray by the 6th month. Right now the blueberries are too small to take pictures of but they are growing nicely.

Granny Smith Apple Time

We have a total of 13 Granny Smith apple seeds (not including the already sprouted one) and today we starting the whole planting process. Just like with the previous 2 seeds we placed them in a folded moist paper towel and placed them in a plastic bag. Since we got such a high germination rate with the Gala apples in room temperature, we're going to leave the seeds at room temperature. The Gala apples started sprouted in a week so it shouldn't take that long for the Granny Smith.
As for the Granny Smith apple seed that was already sprouted, it is doing quite well. We'll have updated photos up soon.
Something I have noticed so far with all our apples. They have all gone through the stratification process. Maybe not directly as seeds but definately as the apple. When we bring the apples home they go straight into the fridge. So in a few months Trevor and I will be trying a different experiment, "Is Stratification Absolutely Necessary For Apples?" In August or September we will be going to a nearby apple farm and picking apples directly from the tree. We are going to make sure they don't get refridgerated.

We Are Going To Redo the Gala Apples

We were wondering what was taking the Gala apple seeds so long to finally sprout so we decided to dig up some of the compartments. Apparently, the most recent bag of seed starter we bought is very low quality, it doesn't seem to want to absorb water. Due to that the seeds got no water and the roots dried up. We dug all 9 up and only one is still alive. We changed the seed starter for that one so hopefully it will still grow. We are going to get a new bag of seed starter and collect Gala apple seeds again. Since there are still a dozen or so Gala apples in the fridge, we still plan on going ahead with our comparison experiment. After we get 30 seeds we'll do the experiment side by side.

Avocado Update: Pits Have Shoots

Well the avocado pits now have shoots. Apparently both shoots sprouted at about the same time. There was not even a day between them.

Water
I had to move the pit that was in water from the cup to a jar. There is a small shoot.




Avocado Pit in Water
Soil
The pit grown in soil has a longer shoot and the root found its way out of one of the drainage holes




Avocado Pit in Soil
Conclusion
Apparently, there is no difference whether you grow the avocado pit in water or in soil, just leave the skin on. But I did realize, putting the pit in water, it was much easier to see it's progress and when it needed more water.



Side by Side

What's Next?
Well I'm going to transfer the soil pit to a larger pot but I'm going to keep the water pit in water. I will make my decision when to transfer it to a pot when the jar is full of roots or when the shoot is 1 ft tall, which ever comes first. Like how most Internet instructions say, once it reaches 1 ft I will trim it down to 6 to 8 inches.

Growing Pineapple

Pineapple is going to be one of the few things not being grown from seed.

We have all probably heard of the way to make a pineapple plant. Cut or pull the head with the leaves off. Make sure all the fruit is cut off. Tear some of the bottom leaves off, then put it in a cup of water or in moist soil and wait for roots to grow.

Just like my avocado experiment I am conducting an experiment to see which method is faster. Unlike my avocado experiment I cannot start both heads at the same time. Instead I will be comparing growth on experiment days. (eg. Day 7 of pineapple in water compared to Day 7 of pineapple in soil)

On Saturday I started a pineapple head in water. Today I started a pineapple head in a pot of soil. The one in water has a 2 day head start. I will keep them watered and check on their progress at least once a week.

Growing Grapefruit From Seeds

Today we planted our grapefruit seeds, we are also running an experiment to see which method is ideal.

I have heard to either germinate them in soil, or between wet paper towels. Also I have heard of leaving the skin on and peeling it off.

Peeling off the skin is fairly easy. Look for the small point on top of the seed and bend it. A part of skin will come off as you peel it downward. It should leave small flaps at the top. Use those flaps to peel the rest of the skin off.

Over this past week we have been able to get 14 seeds. Using our greenhouse seed trays, and wet paper towels in a Ziploc bag:

• 3 were planted in soil with skin
• 3 were planted in soil without skin
• 4 were placed between wet paper towels with skin
• 4 were placed between wet paper towels without skin

It will take 7 to 28 days for the seeds to germinate.

We will be repeating this experiment with the honey tangerine seeds but on a larger scale. We were able to get 20 seeds from just one fruit today and we have one more left.

Growing Asparagus From Seed

Asparagus is one of those plants that produce vegetables for 10 to 20 years. They are usually grown from root crowns but I bought some asparagus seeds online and I'm going to give them a shot. I will have to wait an extra 1 to 2 years before I get asparagus but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I placed 6 asparagus seeds between a wet folded paper towel and I put the paper towel in a Ziploc bag. I had to wait up to 3 weeks before the seeds germinated. The first seed germinated within 2 weeks.

In my 12 compartment seed tray I placed the 6 seeds that I germinated between paper towels. As an experiment, I placed 6 seeds in the other 6 compartments. I'm just going to see if the paper towel speeds up the seeds compared to planting them directly in soil.