I have well and truly caught the propagation bug. I was in the #TeamAustralia channel on PAL the other day, enjoying ladies hour when one of the girls (either @ryivhnn or @choogirl) mentioned Pineapple and I'm all, you know you can regrow that right and followed it up with this video.

I was also speaking to @dandalion the other day about the upcoming Homesteading Brigade in Davao, Philippines about plants and seeds, and I raised the idea of regrowing veggies.

I think that was pretty much the tipping point from being mildly curious to intense need to try. If there is a way we can pass this information on to these children and encourage them to grow and regrow their own food, then we should. In so many ways I feel like we all need to know how to grow our own food.

Growing your own food makes you very aware of how amazing nature is and how everything is connected. The bees and butterflies pollinate my plants, the companions and birds control the pests. I saw a picture of nuclear looking caterpillars that decimated someone's garden today and was instantly glad the local magpies have us on their daily hunt stop.

They come around the same time every afternoon, about 3 or 4 of them doing a methodical sweep of the back yard.

Growing your own food is also a great skill to have. The quality of our food now is no where near the same as what our ancestors had. Between genetically modified seeds to poisonous insecticide - these days we are better off growing it ourselves just so we know what we're eating hasn't been sprayed with nasty chemicals.

And you know what? If I can do it, you can do it. It's also really cool to watch it all develop.

Here's where we left off..

March 22 2018

One of the carrots have sprouted it's top, the basil roots have grown on two of the cuttings and so far 1 carrot still hasn't moved. Only nodes on the rosemary but nothing on the mint. Full post here.

A couple of days passed and although I noticed great developments especially with the carrots I neglected to take photos. I need to work on that and make sure I document as much as I can.

March 25 2018

I made stir fry again over the weeked which meant carrots, which meant I now have 3 more carrots to experiment with, which brings us back to this photo.

There's a few things to note in this photo.

One of the carrot tops have been sliced clean off.

This is because one of the videos I watched, someone suggested to do the same thing. Even though my experiment so far has been successful, I still wanted to see if there was added benefit to cutting the top off. Who knows maybe it will regrow quicker.

The mint is bunking with the carrots.

This was due to a space problem. I'm running out of suitable containers for my experiments and I thought it wouldn't hurt you know?

I was wrong. Within 30 minutes of the mint being in the same water as the carrots, the mint began wilting.

Can putting different plant cuttings in the same water be a way to test plant compatibility?

Another carrot from the original batch has begun sprouting.

My second carrot success took much longer considering how fast the first head came up.

From observation, I believe the state of the top itself will determine how soon you'll begin to see regrowth. The first carrot, although looking dry, still had a significant amount of it's top attached which is where the regrowth began.

New roots on one of the mints.

It took about 4 days for the nodes to pop off and the roots to emerge.

It was weird because I kept seeing bits in the mint water thinking wth are those and changed the water every time I saw one. A day later I realised what they were.

The Rosemary, however...

March 22 2018	March 25 2018

Ehhh... Not really not much movement aside from the nodes... I keep calling them nodes, but I'm not sure if they are called that, so please excuse me if I'm making new words up lol.

The Basil

The last cutting I added to this group still hasn't sprouted roots. It has now been 7 days since then.

The first lot of cuttings grew roots within 5 days. I took a basil leaf off today just to see if it will help.

The good news is, my main basil plant is doing great and has begun to regrow the stems I took for the cuttings.

March 26 2018

Monday morning I decided to put all my cuttings in the sun. I figured maybe it'll help them grow quicker.

The carrots and the mint now in their own containers and the Sun was shining, what could go wrong? The mint began dying.

I don't think mint like direct sunlight which could explain why the one next to Bob died and the one under the garden tap is thriving.

I quickly moved them back on the kitchen bench, changed the water 3 times and it came back to it's old self the next day.

I noticed it's very easy to tell if the mint are happy. The leaves are usually tight and springy, when it's not happy it's all droopy and soft.

Hubby mentioned maybe it doesn't matter so much about the quality of the seeds and maybe it's all about how it's grown and loved.

Well, my plants are certainly loved 😊

There's so much going on in the garden right now and a few more developments with plants, especially with my Calamansi (Philippine Lemon) tree, the lillies and everything else that aside from the chill in the air, the garden looks very Springy.

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

🌻 Arly

🍀 All pictures taken on my Samsung Note 8 🍀

Previously in the Black Thumb Chronicles..

Reclaiming our views | Companion and Lasagna Gardening | Hello Lasagna Bag Garden | Permaculture, Food Forests & Tree Guilds | Weekend Gardening Part 1 | Weekend Gardening Part 2 | Weekend Gardening Part 3 | Day 5 | Day 12 | Stage 2 of the lasagna and bursting bag gardens | Perennials vs Annuals | 41 days towards garden glory | Good Bye Bag Garden, Helloooo Veggie Patch! | Rainy Day Photography | Gnome Crazy | Oh, how my garden grows | Propagating Experiments (Basil, Carrots, Rosemary & Mint)