As you recall, on 21 January I set up a ten-cell "hot house" sprouting kit with four baobab seeds and some miscellaneous other stuff, and I put it on my nightstand, under the lamp, being the warmest and lightest part of the house. That's also where I keep Za 7 by day, but by night I move it to the "winter garden" section of the house (you may remember that "the house" is a 480 sq.ft. bachelor suite) so it can get more darkness, lower temperatures, and most importantly, so I don't accidentally bump it in my sleep.
Naturally, the clear plastic dome fogged over with condensation within a day or so, as it's supposed to. And as none of the seeds are fast sprouters, I wasn't planning on looking at it again for about a month. But as I was tidying up in preparation for going to bed (which my dad always tried to make me do as a kid and I didn't, and now I never go to bed without first tidying up at least a little), I thought I caught a glimpse of something green through the fogged-up dome.
Hmmmm...
I opened it up and saw:
A HUGE BAOBAB SPROUT! TRAPPED UNDER THE GREENHOUSE DOME! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Yes, I'm yelling. Because that's pretty much the sense of emergency that I got. So I rushed the whole tray to the kitchen, grabbed one of the 4" green nursery planters that I had filled with pasteurized soil back in November, and started digging a hole. Luckily it was vacant, as the seeds I had previously put in it had gotten eaten by mold or otherwise died. I was pleased to find, however, that there was no mold in the soil, nor was it dry, because I have kept on watering it at the same rate as the other four. Therefore, it was ready to receive any stray baobab that might happen to need an emergency transplant.
Just to be sure, when I lifted up the peat-free sprouting pellet, I checked the bottom, and sure enough:
The root is through the bottom already. In fact, by comparison with archive photos, I would say that this baobab sprouted yesterday, but of course the roots come out first, so this root is several days old. Whatever the case, the root is healthy and white, so it's not too late. And by the way, they're not lying about the "hot house" aspect: the pellet was very warm. Much warmer than ambient temperature, even under the lamp.
I put the pellet back down and dug frantically to make a bigger hole in the planter. I ended up scooping lots of dirt randomly onto my kitchen counter. Who cares about kitchen counters? I have a baobab emergency!!!!! Besides, it's pasteurized soil.
The baobab was re-homed within minutes of my discovery. Phew! That's one great thing about being me: I'm always good in an emergency.
Once the new baobab was safe in a planter, I turned my attention to the other sprouting pellets, most of which had mold. Mold is my arch-nemesis, but one thing I learned from Za 7 is that if the mold is only on the outside of the seed, you can wash it off and the seed is none the worse for it. So I got all the big seeds out and washed them one by one. Dodecatheon doesn't seem to have any mold, and the seeds are too small to handle anyway, so I left it to its fate. Arysaema and Piper are swallowed up in mold and done for. All the others looked fine after a rinse, though none of them are sprouting yet. Which is as it should be eight days after planting.
So there you have it. Somehow, I magically sprouted a baobab in one week flat. Mashallah!
After the fact, when all was quiet again, I checked my records to be sure, and established that this new addition to our little family is A. madagascariensis, which according to tradition, will henceforth be known as Madagascariensis 1.
Bansai!!!
(And yes, I did just stay up until nearly ten on a week night transplanting baobabs and writing long blog posts about it. I can't imagine why I don't have more friends, when I'm so fun-loving.)
Naturally, the clear plastic dome fogged over with condensation within a day or so, as it's supposed to. And as none of the seeds are fast sprouters, I wasn't planning on looking at it again for about a month. But as I was tidying up in preparation for going to bed (which my dad always tried to make me do as a kid and I didn't, and now I never go to bed without first tidying up at least a little), I thought I caught a glimpse of something green through the fogged-up dome.
Hmmmm...
I opened it up and saw:
A HUGE BAOBAB SPROUT! TRAPPED UNDER THE GREENHOUSE DOME! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Yes, I'm yelling. Because that's pretty much the sense of emergency that I got. So I rushed the whole tray to the kitchen, grabbed one of the 4" green nursery planters that I had filled with pasteurized soil back in November, and started digging a hole. Luckily it was vacant, as the seeds I had previously put in it had gotten eaten by mold or otherwise died. I was pleased to find, however, that there was no mold in the soil, nor was it dry, because I have kept on watering it at the same rate as the other four. Therefore, it was ready to receive any stray baobab that might happen to need an emergency transplant.
Just to be sure, when I lifted up the peat-free sprouting pellet, I checked the bottom, and sure enough:
The root is through the bottom already. In fact, by comparison with archive photos, I would say that this baobab sprouted yesterday, but of course the roots come out first, so this root is several days old. Whatever the case, the root is healthy and white, so it's not too late. And by the way, they're not lying about the "hot house" aspect: the pellet was very warm. Much warmer than ambient temperature, even under the lamp.
I put the pellet back down and dug frantically to make a bigger hole in the planter. I ended up scooping lots of dirt randomly onto my kitchen counter. Who cares about kitchen counters? I have a baobab emergency!!!!! Besides, it's pasteurized soil.
The baobab was re-homed within minutes of my discovery. Phew! That's one great thing about being me: I'm always good in an emergency.
Once the new baobab was safe in a planter, I turned my attention to the other sprouting pellets, most of which had mold. Mold is my arch-nemesis, but one thing I learned from Za 7 is that if the mold is only on the outside of the seed, you can wash it off and the seed is none the worse for it. So I got all the big seeds out and washed them one by one. Dodecatheon doesn't seem to have any mold, and the seeds are too small to handle anyway, so I left it to its fate. Arysaema and Piper are swallowed up in mold and done for. All the others looked fine after a rinse, though none of them are sprouting yet. Which is as it should be eight days after planting.
So there you have it. Somehow, I magically sprouted a baobab in one week flat. Mashallah!
After the fact, when all was quiet again, I checked my records to be sure, and established that this new addition to our little family is A. madagascariensis, which according to tradition, will henceforth be known as Madagascariensis 1.
Bansai!!!
(And yes, I did just stay up until nearly ten on a week night transplanting baobabs and writing long blog posts about it. I can't imagine why I don't have more friends, when I'm so fun-loving.)
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