Indoor growing...a health check

It's been more than three weeks since I planted different vegetable seeds and I am excited to share their progress so far. There have been a couple of failures in the way but for most part, the seedlings are growing well (as you can see in the pictures below). I think that the seeds are growing slower than usual at this time of the year (or maybe my patience is running out).

The little lemon

 Lemon, well, of course, takes years to grow. Still, I am growing lemon just for the love of it. I am growing my lemon in Miracle Grow Nature’s Care Organic potting mix from Walmart.  The potting mix is good though it does not contain anything that will add porosity to the soil. Hence, while using this potting mix for my plants, I had to add Perlite as a growth media to promote adequate water drainage in the soil (I didn't use Perlite in lemon though). 

I read somewhere that Mayer lemon is the most preferred variety to grow indoors. I didn't use Meyer lemon for my experiment since I wanted to take the challenge to grow a store brought variety from seed (not sure of it's name). If it succeeds to grow a bit this summer, I may gift it to a friend who lives in tropical side of the country to take care of it next season. If it doesn't, well, lesson learnt.

I am also growing basil for my garden. Basil is a warm weather Mediterranean, sun loving plant and it's still cold and stormy here in New Jersey every other week (far from a Mediterranean weather).The little seedlings of Genovese basil have sprouted well in this weather and will continue to grow as the weather gets warm.

Basil

The little basil

            

Fenugreek and cilantro turned out to be a disaster last month. Fenugreek died one day without any warning and cilantro grew spindly. However, the second plantings of both is growing well. I was careful in not exposing cilantro to hot sun and keeping the soil moist (not wet). Cilantro was trickier than I expected. One set of seedlings has long stems and few leaves. The other set of Cilantro is short, firm and with a good set of leaves. I can't say for sure why the difference in growth patterns of the two sets.

Cilantro..growing well

Beloved fenugreek

      
 I will learn the rules of the game sooner than later. When you are dealing with living plants, soil, weather and the entire growing ecosystem, you are dealing with a living system. Living and growing systems are hard to manage. I can only provide the right conditions for a plant but I will have to leave the rest to the nature. Lessons in gardening come from trial and error, hits and misses. I will give these seedlings a little boost of plant food in next couple of weeks to replenish the nutrients. More updates on what I use as plant food for seedlings later.

Ground Cress..first set of true leaves beginning to sprout

Cabbage..just a week old