Previous attempts

Aside from the lemons, my other past attempt at pip growing that actually worked was goji berries. Sadly, these aren't featured in Keith Mossman's book - I guess they are a recent craze - so there's no advice on looking after them and I could do with some on pruning, because my goji berry plantlets are a messy looking bunch.

This was taken today, so it's cold out and they've all shed all of their leaves. These are about two years old now, and they were all grown from the little seeds taken from one dried goji berry. This year I actually got some berries off them - there's a few on here that I missed.

Mick might be cracking up

He seems to be a late developer, but Mick may be starting to crack up...

The skin on the tops of both Mick and Keith has completely dried out and cracked. It's funny, but they seem to be different shades, Mick is a pinky colour, whereas Keith seems to be a bit more beige....

Keith is cracking up

I went to top up Keith and Mick's jam jars this morning - as they are living on top of the radiator, a bit does evaporate off. Their tops, which have dried off, have cracked a bit, so they don't have such smooth complexions as they once did. But horrors, I realised there was a massive crack running up around Keith's bottom.... crack, bottom... yes, anyway. Is this the end of Keith or is this the beginning of a root system?!?

Little Lemons

This morning I have planted four lemon pips in a pot, pretty much the same as the clementines yesterday. I was using a lemon and some limes yesterday evening. Really disappointed that there wasn't a pip to be found in the two limes!

I do have a history with lemons, it's work in progress. Maybe four or five years ago, I planted lemon pips and got about five to germinate. I had the plants for about two years before one after another, they all died (in retrospect, I think it was due to overwatering). Since then, I bought a lemon tree - not a well established, fruiting tree of incredible cost, but a young tree for about 10 pounds, which I've had two or three years now. It is still alive, but whereas it might have been about my height by now, it doesn't even reach my knees. From experience and also from a little reading, I've found out that lemons are not the easiest trees to keep alive. In some ways they seem to be determined to throw themselves out of the proverbial window. They are evergreens, but they will drop leaves if displeased. They don't always seem to be keen on regrowing leaves to replace the dropped leaves, and I've had some branches, where all the leaves dropped off, then go brown. Leaves will be dropped when the tree is in a huff - it's had too much water; it's had too little water; it's too hot; the air is to dry; it's too cold; a frost got on it's leaves; too much food; too little food; you let a catepillar wander on my leaves and nibble... It really feels like a battle of wills between me and my lemon tree. As winter approaches, it lives in the kitchen - there were two leaves on the floor this morning so I guess I'm in the bad books again....

The Piplets

Spurred on by exciting possibilties - none of which have sprouted as of yet - I have started off my next project. The Piplets. The piplets were four pips out of a clementine orange I was eating at work yesterday. I've not tried oranges of any description before so I thought hey, why not.

Thankfully there is no recommendation to suspend them above water to get them to root - no idea how I would have done that considering how tiny they are. So I've gone for the more traditional method of a little pot of compost with a plastic bag over the top. For now I'm keeping them on top of the radiator to keep them warm, but when (I'm being positive, when, not if) they germinate, I'll move them to a windowsill so they get more light.

For some reason this website insists on uploading this photo on its side and I can't figure out how to rotate it.

Anyway, interesting fact about pips extra from Keith Mossman. When growing plants from pips of things you have eaten, you are often not going to get a plant of the same species as the fruit you ate. This has a lot to do with the cultivation of fruit trees. I know a little as I do have some wee apple trees in the back garden - they're all grown on one type of root stock, but then the apple varieties are grafted on to the trunk. Also, a lot of the pips turn out to be duds in the sense that they will never become fruiting plants themselves. And now a particularly interesting fact about citrus pips... whereas with other pips, it's one seedling per pip, with citrus, you can sometimes get two or three seedlings a pip. One of these may become a great fruiting tree, the other two might be duds. But you'll never know until a few years in, so you've got to try and grown on them all to edge your bets. In the case of the clementines, there are only four pips in there. So it will be interesting to see what I get.

False hopes

It says in the book that germination can take anything from 10 days to 4 to 5 weeks. Why was I hoping for miracle germination? Well, it is ten days now, but nothing is doing.

Looking at Keith's bottom, you might be fooled into thinking that he's starting rooting, but he came out of the avocado with these tufts...

Water Suspension

Mick's now been suspended for 5 days, Keith for 4. Apparently water suspension is the best way to get the avocado to start rooting (anywhere from 10 days to 3 months before this happens!). So I've attached hair pins to them so they don't sink, and have they over the radiator in jam jars. The paper wrapping is to that little light gets to the roots... which seems a bit pointless as of yet as there are no roots.

The hair pins look a little vicious, but they were the only thing I could get it - the matchstick just didn't want to spear the stones.

I hope there won't be any jealously, but Keith does have a larger jam pot.

Mick gets some company

Ate the second avocado for dinner, so Keith has been freed. He's now chilling in his own warm bath on the radiator.

Keith and Mick...

The beginning - Mick is taking a bath

To start off my new adventures in horticulture, I am returning to the avocado, which I have never successfully managed to cultivate.

Meet Mick...

Mick is an avocado stone. According to the book, I first need to soak Mick for 48 hours, hence the bath. He's about 12 hours into the bath at this stage. It's warm water, kept warm on the radiator. Apparently this helps with germination as he is a stone from the tropics.

I am hoping he will soon be joined by Keith, who will also be taking his bath, just as soon as I've eaten the avocado he's trapped in.