Germinating some seeds indoors

[stevelau1911]

One of the seeds that I've been growing for about a month are finally starting to germinate. 3 out of 7 of my amorphophallus titanum(corpse flower).

They are in a plastic container with sterile play sand under a heat mat which keeps the soil around 84F with the way I have it set up, and I typically keep the lid slightly open just to let in a bit of air. Once they develop some more, I'll need to move them to bigger containers, but a few things about this plant is that it is absolutely necessary to keep them on the warm side, ensuring the soil medium is completely sterile to prevent pathogens, and not to over-water. They also appreciate indirect light.

[MadHatter]

It is a shame that a flower that impressive and showy stinks like road kill. I hope you have a lot of fly swatters.

[stevelau1911]

I think if flowering happens, that would be many years away unless I manage to get a hold of a bigger plant and this plant appears to be very temperature sensitive as it appears to require the heat mat in order to make any real progress. It still grows very slow as this is all the progress that has occurred within 2 months. They seem to stay dormant if the temperature is not warm enough which means if flowering occurs, it will be outdoors.

At this rate, it won't be until April before these things actually have a leaf pushed out.

Here's how they look now with the tallest one one only slightly over 1 inch tall.


This shows how the roots slowly come out of the base of the sprout, and they appear to grow at about the same rate as cactus.



This B-52 venus fly trap was not grown from seed, but I'm taking this one out of dormancy early to see how it can perform, and I'm quite satisfied to see that the traps are showing noticeable changes on a daily basis even with hardly any daylight on a east facing window.

2days ago.


Today. Looking at the longer of the new traps on the furthest right, it appears that it should only take 2 weeks for a new trap to be produced. I'm not giving it optimal temperatures either since I want to keep it semi-dormant at least until spring.

[marcat]

If you make a go of them they might be worth some peso's when they near maturity Zoo's and such seem to like them.
Good luck.
MarCat
P.S. stinky as they are they are still a great crowd draw

[stevelau1911]

I haven't updated on the indoor plants in a while, but here are some of the same plants from before, now starting to pick up some speed as they are finally feeling the effects of increasing daylight intensity.

Amorphophallus Titanum: Not all of them will be viable, but when they are, they appear to be easy to take care of. Only one appears completely leafed out by now.


Many are far behind as they do grow notoriously slow.


DCXL Venus fly trap finally picking up some steam


B-52 looked dead, but coming back


Drosera Regia, getting bigger leaves, but doesn't seem to increase in number of leaves. Maybe needs a fly by now.




I intend to wait until after the next major freeze until attempting to germinate magnolia seeds as the windowsill is still very cold.

[johnw]

Exactly two weeks ago I filed the bottom of the seeds Nelumbo nucifera v. komaravii, the extremely hardy form of the subtropical Oriental lotus found west of Vladivostok, Russia. Interesting process, overnight the seeds in water were swollen, 48 hrs. later they split, next day a shoot emerged and now they look like this - those shoots are more than a foot long already. They are just starting to produce roots so will need to be potted indivudually in round not square pots.

[stevelau1911]

I haven't tried lotus yet, but my regular vegetable seedlings are starting to come along. It's still dropping into the 30s in the night, and 50s during the day so these seedlings may need to stay indoors for another month.

I'm not really sure what is wrong, but the tomato seedlings are the only ones getting chlorosis.


Luffa seedlings are very dark with the same treatment, except larger pots due to more vigorous root systems.


Fuzzy gourd



The largest DCXL venus fly trap has produced a 1 inch long trap, and should only keep getting bigger from here on out. I am not feeding it until the bottom 2 traps open back up.

[Tarzanus]

Steve, what are you spraying them with? It seems that it's not just the chlorosis, it looks like tomato leaves are showing some kind of burn or mold infection.

--edit--
Or perhaps that's iron residue if you sprayed it with chelated iron to treat chlorosis,...

[stevelau1911]

Just showing off some of my A titanum shoots now. Some of them in this batch are over 2 inches in length now. The leaves can sometimes get up to a foot high even on the first shot depending on how much light it gets, and how large the seed is to start with. The more important factor is how big the leaf gets so it can get as much photosynthesis as possible.

These grow at all different rates, and can take 2-5 months to fully turn into a leaf depending on the seed so they grow much slower than bamboo shoots.













Here are some Asian pear seedlings from fresh fruit which only took 2 days to start germinating. These guys grow pretty quickly.

[stevelau1911]

Here are the larger a titanum seedlings. Some of them are pretty big with the 1st shoot from the seed I guess with lots of energy from the seed alone.

[stevelau1911]

It has been over 3 months since I planted these a titanum seeds, and almost all of them are fully leafed out. It seems like the miracle gro that I've given them is really starting to darken them up, but the question now is how long will it take for these guys to decide to grow their 2nd shoot?

When I have 2-4 plants per pot, it means that they would all tip over if they each produced a secondary shoot 2-3 times the height of the original, and it would make it really root bound. It looks like even 3 plants looks like a lot for a 1 gallon pot as shown in this picture.

[Tarzanus]

I'm working on Drosera capensis carnivore plant seeds this winter. The seeds themselves were exceptionally small and the seedlings at the moment just as well, but the plants are very interesting. There were some kind of insects inside the pot and now I'm watching what they managed to catch.

http://cold-hardy.com/drosera-capensis/



Anyone knows what these bugs might be?

[Rufledt]

Here's the tallest arum I have:



It's about a foot tall, no additional shoots.

Here's another one with a more spotted stem:



I'm also starting peppers, lettuce, collards, and some other stuff:



Tomatoes:



Some herbs, I think this one is basil:



And you may spot a luffa leaf back there. I think I started the luffa way too early.

Once I get the bamboo out of here I will have WAY more space:



These can handle frost, but I still don't feel comfortable moving them outside when the pots can freeze. Plus this and the japonica don't seem to stop shooting and I don't want to kill the new growth.

[stevelau1911]

It looks like you are aiming to get tomatoes and pepper harvests by June eh. I'll have to get started on the veggies soon too, but I'm not in a rush at the moment.

Those titanums look like they are thriving, and when they are close to putting up a shoot, they should start having dark specks concentrated close to the base. My biggest shoot is about 3 inches tall at about 1/2 inch in diameter, but I expect them to keep expanding in thickness until the point they reach their full height and lose their sheaths.


Another interesting one to grow is the konjac. It is apparently very easy to grow since it can handle temperatures closer to freezing, and is more tolerant to full sun. Mine just about doubled in size from last season so I hope I can get it to double up in size again be getting it to put out its leaf as soon as May, allowing it as many months as possible to take in sun. Once it gets bigger, I may need to bump this guy up to the 10 gallon pot size to keep it happy.

[Rufledt]

When do you usually start luffas? I'm pretty bad at timing seed starting so far since I'm new at vegetables. I was kindof hoping the giant light would help, but the plants are still taking over all the space. The tomatoes especially.

Part of the problem is I planted a few seeds of this, and a few of that, and they almost all germinated. Thankfully, many other kinds of plants didn't germinate, like the coffee robusta seeds. The last thing I needed was a couple of trees under there. Well, a couple more trees under there.

I saw a video about planting tomatoes with something called the praxxus method that I think i'll try.

The peppers I grew last year weren't very successful. I didn't do any pruning, and they weren't tasty or hot. This year I actually did research, so hopefully that will help a bit.