Wednesday, June 24, 2009

New cactus, new setup, new things

Well, now that a few of the seeds have germinated I knew I had to make sure the growing conditions were optimal. The window that I had didn't get nearly enough light, only about an hour a day, plus we have had a lot of cloudy days so nothing was constant. I bought a compact fluorescent light made to simulate daylight, so I assume it has all ends of the spectrum. If that's not true, and it's missing red light, a little bit of true sunlight can go a long way, so the setup next to the window should keep that clear. I got a chain and attached it to the ceiling, and hung the light about a foot or so from the seed tray.

I'm only using distilled water now, since it's only 70 cents or so a gallon anyhow and I need it for my flytrap. I have a little plastic container I use to cover the seedlings which have germinated, which by the way still just look like sticks. No leaves yet. I open it up and spritz with distilled water maybe 5-6 times a day. I've changed the bottom of the aluminum container to moist paper towel to add to the humidity. the main things I'm worried about are the seedlings themselves, one looks dead, it fell over, another looks dry, and the other three haven't opened leaf yet, and I'm worried about the soil acidity, It's PH is 7 while it should be 5 or so. I need to counteract this.

Also, I went to home depot and saw a bigger cactus that was flowering green, and I got it. I replanted it into a larger pot with a pixture of peat moss, small amounts of garden soil, and perlite. I also put it under the grow light, and I'm afraid I'll need to get a second bulb! I'm running out of room if I want to keep them healthy. I took a good picture of the cactus flower though. Pictures here are of the cactus, next post is of MF and setup.




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