Last time I wrote about the propagation experiments I experienced a few hiccups which started when I bunked the mint up with the carrots.

(Recap. Picture March 25 2018)

Then next thing you know I planted everything and the possum ate half of them.

(Recap. Picture April 5 2018)

Let me just back track and take you guys back to what happened since the last update ~ March 26 2018.

March 28 2018

After it's time in direct sunlight I noticed some of the mint root ends are darker, like they were burned. I'm not 100% sure if the sun did damage to the roots but something definitely happened to them during that time.

Poor mint. It took them ages to bounce back after being in with the carrots and now this. It took a couple of days for the mint to come back after being in direct sunlight. Like me, it needed lots of changes of water for it to come back.

I wish I could say the same for the carrots.

Some time during it's progress I got lazy and poured water over the top of the carrots instead of taking them out, putting them on paper towels to wash and change the container water. From that moment I started seeing a dark patch start to form around the outside of my carrots.

I didn't think much of it at first, shrugging it off as it was just on the outside until I changed the water and took it all out to find a hole on the side of one of them. 😷

And it felt soft and gooey 😷

The other carrot, my main one that grew the head, seemed fine though and it looked like the roots were starting to come out from the bottom of the carrot.

I saw this happen on someone else's carrot propagation and had been looking out for it to happen on mine.

April 1 2018

Over Easter the gooey carrot didn't make it. It was making the water gross and orange, and it just had to go along with a few others that started going gooey as well.

What remained was big momma and so I decided to try and propagate the baby carrots I was going to throw out. Who knows how long they've been in there, I was thinking the whole time "When did I buy baby carrots?!", but I gave them a go anyway.

Thank God the mint is back to normal although you can still see the dark root ends. The basil also has a ton more roots.

April 2 2018

Can you see how the water is more orange? This all happened in a day. I think it was at this point that I decided to plant them in the ground, ready or not it's going in because I can't have this grossness in the kitchen.

Here's the mint and basil. They look pretty ready to me. Or they look ready because I'm keen to get my kitchen back.

That afternoon they finally went in the ground some in the garden and some in the barrel. You all know what happened to the lot in the barrel, here it is, before and after the possum attack.

Before	After

April 6 2018

4 days after planting and I'm happy to say two mints are looking great and I have a basil I am hoping will survive.

For ages I've been worried about temperamental mint was but it seems that's become my best performer out of all my propagation experiments.

April 10 2018

Today.

The carrots are a no go. The momma I thought would work is now just a hole in the ground. Either something got to it or maybe Hubby pulled it out on account that it was turning gross, because it was going off in the end.

And I mean the bad "going off" not the good "going off"

No pictures of that depressing site. I was going to take a photo for the show and tell but decided not to, it's just too sad.

In total I had 4 mints, 4 basils, 6 carrots + 4 more and 1 rosemary. Here's where they all went and what happened to them.

2 Mints in tub ~ Dead ☠	2 Mints in the garden ~ Alive 💪
2 Basils in the tub ~ Dead ☠	2 Basils in the garden ~ 1 ☠ 1 💪
10 Carrots ~ All Dead ☠	-

The rosemary has taken the longest to grow it's roots and is still inside the house. It'll be inside for a while.

After the huge fails with the others I want to wait longer until I have a better root system before I plant it in the ground.

Would I do it all again even though the experiment was a fail?

Yes I would. There's a few things I should have been mindful of and then there were the things I didn't know not to do. I figured this a big learning curve and one that's worth exploring. We are talking about food after all.

Moving Forward

There's a few plants I wish we made the effort to keep when we were doing the clearing for the veggie garden like the lavender bush, the roses and the rosemary gone wild bush.

I shrugged them aside and cast them from the garden because I forgot my witchy side. If I remembered I would have at least collected as much leaves and flowers from them all for my smudging sticks.

Now that the food and practical side is sorted I'll be focusing on my Witch's garden and planting more herbs, ones I can use for smudging or making home remedies.

All this of course will require more soil, meaning we need to finish the lasagna and by the looks of the grass growing through the cardboard gaps, the sooner the better.

I am off to make something! I've been slowly building up energy reserves for this project and I reckon with a top of 22 degrees, despite the 5 hours sleep, I gots this.

Pics and details hopefully tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday Steemit!

🌻 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) | 25 Days Later | [Propagation Results ☠]