Date Palm

Monday, 25 April 2011

While trying to grow the palm seeds i got out west, i read that you can also grow a palm tree from date seeds.

First off, they don't taste as bad as they look, but they are still really bad. Kind of like a giant raisin, but worse. At the center is the date seed.


The date and the seed inside

Like the rest of the seeds i've tried to grow, i soaked them for 1 day then put them in a zip-lock bag with a wet paper towel.

After 1 week, 2 of them sprouted. The rest of the seeds gradually started sprouting 3-6 weeks later. Surprisingly their root comes out of the middle of the seed.

I noticed that they sprouted best when there was just a little water added, when i sort of soaked the paper towel then squeezed all the water out.

Then i planted them in a bowl with potting soil and pearlite.

One main root extends deep down into the soil.


After a month or so the first green leaf appeared. It kind of looks like a blade of grass but it's really tough, almost like wood.

I plan on planting some of the seeds in the garden this year, we'll see how they do.

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Peanuts

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

While reading about palm trees i learned about growing date palms. And while reading about date palms i learned about growing peanuts. It looked like a cool idea so i bought a bag of RAW peanuts from Walmart.

For peanuts the soil temperature has to be hot for 100-120 days, depending on the type of peanut. Valencia and Spanish peanuts would have been the best here in Michigan because they only need 100 days. But i couldn't find those.

The only raw peanuts they had still in the shell were Virginia peanuts.
So i soaked them for a day and they really swelled up, probably double their original size. I've heard mixed theories about planting them in the shell or without the shell so i did both.

As usual i put them in zip-lock bags. After 3 days the first ones to sprout were two of the seeds that were in their shell.
Here's the original peanut, without the shell and after soaking in water for a day

And 2 days later
After 10 days....It grows really fast.
And since i'm using a clear bowl i should be able to see the peanuts under the ground.

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Winter Seeds

During the same time that i was trying to get the lotus seeds to sprout i also tried growing some other plants. First i ordered a banana tree online for $4. It showed up in the middle of winter and looked pretty hopeless.

But since then it seems to have recovered. It shoots up with 2 new leaves every 2 weeks.

Also i tried planting garlic and an onion. They are both growing great so far in a small pot by the window.
I also brought home palm tree seeds from when i was in Las Vegas and Phoenix. I'm not sure what type of palm it is, but here's what it looked like. You can see the seeds near the bottom and on the ground.

I couldn't get the seeds from the really big California Palm trees, they were too high up and most of them weren't ripe yet.

But i took the smaller palm seeds home with me, then removed the outer "fruit" part.
I soaked the seed for a day in water then put it in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. Out of probably 15 seeds that i did this with only 4 sprouted. The rest showed no signs of doing anything. But it turned out that they just took longer, around a month and a half they began to sprout.

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Sprouting Lotus Seeds

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

To start with, i recently read this article about the American Lotus spreading near Detroit.Lotus in Detroit
"The American lotus is threatened in Michigan, and there is a fine as high as $500 for picking it, according to the state Department of Natural Resources."

Just so everyone including the DNR is clear, i didn't pick any plants. I merely "gathered" some seeds from the floating seed pods. Plus that law is ridiculous.

How can a plant be "threatened" in Michigan but in other states be a nuisance species. That's like saying penguin's are endangered here in the US. Or that cow's are threatened in Siberia. It's not like this is the last pocket of the species on Earth being killed off by people. Down south the lotus is taking over entire rivers.

It's threatened in Michigan because it's cold here. The water needs to be clean and warm for them to grow, 99% of the time Lake Erie is neither of those two things. Like i said earlier i found it near the Consumers Energy power plant water discharge pipes. If the plant wasn't discharging warm water constantly the lotus plants would probably die.

With that said, here's how the Lotus seeds are looking so far.

The ones on the left are some original dry seeds (that i "gathered") and the ones on the right are the seeds that i sanded the shell and have been soaking in warm water for 5 days. I put the cup of water sitting on a heat vent to make sure it stayed warm. Notice how much they have swelled up with water from their original size.
Three days ago i removed the shell from two more seeds. One seed i removed the outer shell only. The other seed i cracked completely in half.
It turns out that completely removing the shell is the way to go. That seed sprouted after only 3 days. It took the seeds with the partially sanded shells 6 days for the first one to sprout. So removing more of the shell means faster sprouting. It must be because removing the entire shell allows for more water to be absorbed faster.

Here's what the seed looked like after 3 days, compared to 5 days for the other seeds.
I sprouted these seeds in a wet paper towel in a zip-lock bag rather then in a cup of water.
Not surprisingly the lotus grows best in swampy, organic, muddy clay soil. I was going to use kitty litter because it is primarily clay. But i ended up using soil from my back yard, which is mostly clay with a little bit of top soil.

I bought 4 pots from Home Depot the other day. They were in the back corner of the store and due to a clearance pricing mistake, 2 of them cost only 1 cent each. Totally legit.
Here's pictures of the lotus planted 1 inch deep in mud in about 3 inches of water.
Here they are after day 10 or so. They are still growing as long as i don't let them dry out. After reaching the surface they started to dry out so i covered the pot with saran wrap. I'll definitely "juice 'um" with some fertilizer to get them growing big.

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