Potting on

Following the report at reference 1, towards the end of March, I can now report progress on pots. 

It being a while since I went in for pots for the likes of cucumbers and marrows, I had forgotten that all seedlings are not the same. 

One seedling has been left in the bucket from Sainsbury's, a close relative, as it happens, of the light weight buckets used to serve cutlery in the sort of public houses that we tend to eat in. The rest have been transferred to small pots, seventeen of them, and have taken over the card table in the front room, usually allocated to BH for reading the morning newspaper, on the odd days when we have one.

So going up the left hand column, in position 2 we have an extra seedling, missed at the time of potting on. In position 3 we three extra seedlings, one a mutant in that instead of two false leaves and a proper, central bud, we have four false leaves and no central bud. The seedling at position 4 went through a near death experience, which involved me taking it out of its pot to check, unsuccessfully, for slugs and worms. Back in its pot again the two false leaves are fading away, while the central bud is hanging in there, growing very slowly. In position 5 we have what looks like a mushroom coming up.

In the middle column, the seedlings are rather smaller, but regular, and with just the one extra at position 4.

The right hand column a bit more mixed, with a dead extra at position 1. A hole in one of the false leaves at position 2, the sort of thing some small bug might do. And, lastly, at position 5, one of the proper leaves is damaged.

Maybe when they get a bit bigger and stronger, they will get their act together. In the meantime, I think I will just snip the extra seedlings away. Best not to disturb the regulars again before they are potted on again to their summer homes outside, probably in the middle of May.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/sunflowers.html.