the deep moans round with many voices

The Lazarus pepper continues to chug along. I don't think the current flower is going to produce fruit, but the plant itself seems to be gearing up to sprout some more leaves and flowers, so hey, we'll see what happens over the summer. :)





The new pepper seedlings all continue to do well. (...I'm going to have to find pots for all of them, aren't I. Oh, bother.)


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Meanwhile, the squash are doing... not so well. Of the four I transplanted last week, only one (Meeny) seems to be thriving. One (Miny 1) already died and has been replaced by one of the previously un-transplanted seedlings. The replacement is now unhappy in turn. Another of the initial transplants (Eeny) is in the process of dying; I expect it to be withered by morning. And the fourth (Mo), like the replacement transplant, is... let's go with 'not happy' and leave it there, yeah?

The moral of this story is that I should A) not plant squash at all until mid-April and B) plant them directly in their final homes -- probably two or three seeds to a container, and then thin to whichever seedling seems healthiest after three weeks or so.

We learn by doing, I suppose, and I have plenty of squash seeds left. I will plant a couple of them in Eeny's container later this week, once I know whether I'll be replacing Miny 2 and Mo as well. (I have no seedlings left to transplant; the remaining three have all died.)


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So... the Lazarus pepper has developed three new buds??? I am greatly perplexed, and as before, I rather doubt any actual fruit will be forthcoming, but what the heck, I support this ridiculous plant and its refusal to say die. (Next week I might be able to start putting it outside during the day, which it might enjoy.)





Several of the pepper seedlings are starting to grow true leaves.





A bunch of the squash are also growing their first true leaves. I think a couple of the plants are unhappy, which doesn't surprise me, but eh. I also bought four plastic storage tubs on Sunday and will hopefully get around to repotting four of the more promising seedlings later this week.

And in indoor and inedible botanical news, I repotted Damocles (one of my big spider plants) tonight and hung its pot back up in my living room window. No pictures yet, though I may take one of Damocles and Babylon (the other big hanging spider plant) sometime later this month.


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The Lazarus pepper has not yet lost its flower/fruit stem... but it's turning suspiciously yellow rather than starting to thicken in preparation for supporting a pepper, so. Probably not a miracle after all. *sigh*





Meanwhile the pepper sprouts are doing nicely. I don't know how clearly it's visible in this photo, but a number of them have developed that little 'joint' between their cotyledons and a couple have even started to sprout the tiniest promise of their first true leaf pair. I am so proud of them. :)





And the squash seeds are just chilling underground, I guess. Maybe next week they'll be more visually interesting. *wry*


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I can has SPROUTS!!! :DDD

I have decided, for convenience of discussion, that I will name the sprouts on a grid pattern. Columns are A through F while rows are 1 through 6, which means the lower left square from the viewer's perspective is A1 (and also empty) and we go from there.



1) pepper sprouts, Monday, 6 March 2017 (~7:45am)


( two more images under the cut )


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4) pepper sprouts, Monday, 6 March 2017 (~8:00pm)
5) sprout E4, evening


( two more images under the cut )



8) the Lazarus pepper, Monday, 6 March 2017


Meanwhile, the Lazarus pepper continues to bloom, but some of its leaves are going a little yellow and sad, so as before, I do not really expect it to produce an actualfax pepper fruit at this point. I am impressed enough that it pulled off a flower.

And in other gardening news, I bought a packet of summer squash seeds today, which I think I will plant next weekend (once I have enough applesauce cups to use as pots). I will eventually transplant them to the yard below my back porch, where my former upstairs neighbors attempted a garden some years back, and where my current upstairs neighbor is attempting to grow raspberries. We shall see what, if anything, comes of that experiment.


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The pepper seeds look exactly the same as last week -- ie, nothing is visible above the soil -- which is to be expected.





Meanwhile, the Lazarus pepper has lost one bud (it shriveled and is about ready to drop from the plant) but the other is hanging in there and might be thinking about actually blooming. I firmly expect any bloom to be lopsided and weird, and then to probably shrivel and drop off itself, but you never know. Miracles do happen! (And there's a reason they're called miracles, and it's not because they're common. *wry*) Anyway, I mixed some crushed eggshells into its soil, which will probably not do much indoors and away from helpful bacteria and such, but the peppers did seem to like their eggshell supplements last summer so whatever; I doubt it can hurt.

More next week, as always.


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