Other/Fun Stuff
In a generous spirit of give and take, the gerbils donated some of their food to the experiment - many of the items in this mix are seeds - so let's see what we can grow...
Planting - 25 April 2010
The gerbil food contains a mixture of meal biscuits plus seeds - specifically pumpkin (green peel-less type), sunflower, peanut, maize and wheat or barley.
So I've planted three cardboard pots each of sunflower, pumpkin and peanut.
I'd like to try growing wheat and barley sometime, but not this year.
I planted some of the maize kernels in part of the uncommitted space outdoors.
I know this isn't sweetcorn, but if it grows, it will still be interesting - I can either harvest it as baby corn, or maybe I can grow it to maturity and use it to make cornmeal or something.
29 April 2010 - one of the sunflowers is up already - the seed leaves will soon emerge from inside the husk.
03 May 2010 - All three of the sunflowers are up and growing fast - one of the pumpkins is also doing well and I can see that the peanuts are doing something too, just below the surface.
I didn't plant those!
05 May 2010 - This is one of the potential issues with peat-free potting compost - this stuff is made from composted bark, making it an ideal growing medium for forest-floor type fungi.
In this case, I have succeeded in cultivating Coprinus congregatus (edibility unknown).
08 May 2010 - The peanut seedlings are starting to show their first true leaves (and more mushrooms are growing alongside in the pots, but don't seem to be doing any harm.)
19 June 2010 - The peanut plants are doing well - one of them has produced a little yellow flower - not sure if these are capable of self-pollinating, so this one might not produce any peanuts.
The anise seedlings are up, but they're developing quite slowly - not looking like they'll do anything remarkable, but they're not in the way, so I'll leave them and see where they go.
The corn never made any showing - so I planted some more French beans in their place.
28 June 2010 - the peel-less pumpkinn plant is flowering - only male flowers at the moment (female flowers would have a small, but noticeable swelling - the embryo fruit - behind the flower).
These flowers can be picked and eaten - they're quite nice dipped in batter and fried (best to check inside for beetles first).
Late July 2010 -The sunflowers are blooming.
They've not grown particularly tall - about three or four feet, but that's probably normal - the seeds came from pet food and are most likely from a variety selected for uniform height to make mechanical harvesting easier.
I don't have any plans for the sunflower seeds at the moment - but I'm sure the gerbils will appreciate the harvest, if I can't think of a use for it.
