Sprouts!

On Saturday and then on Sunday and then on Monday, I was going to write a post admitting a terrible failure. Some of you may recall that back on March 5th, I planted twenty pawpaw seeds. I set them near the windowsill since I had read that the temperature should be in the 70s for germination, and March was too cold for that. At some point in early or mid-May I began keeping them outside on the front porch. 

We had read that pawpaw seeds germinate in about two months. But we just waited and waited. Two months passed. And then three months passed on June 5th. But nothing....

And so you can see why I was about to write a post admitting a terrible failure. For all my enthusiasm for the pawpaw, I had consigned twenty seeds not to potting soil but to tiny graves. On Saturday and then on Sunday and then on Monday, I had wanted to find a few minutes to dig up the various seeds and document their various states of arrested development. At what stage were they in the process when, rather than emerging from the dirt, they had gone gently into that good night? These are the dangers of blogging about germination....

So today after work I was outside doing some watering, and I thought that since I didn't have time to be digging up the seeds and taking pictures, I might as well water the pawpaw seeds also. 

Here they are, out next to the yuccas, whose staffs are stretched toward the sky. The pawpaws looked so inert in comparison.

But then while I was watering, I looked closely at D4 and saw--what was it? A seedling? Not yet. A sprout? Yes. Delayed by a month, it was a sign of germination!

And then I looked at B1 and saw another sprout.

And B2 also had something going on.

See look.

I looked over the rest and didn't see anything. But then I looked again at C3 and thought I saw a sprout bump. So I looked from another angle and...

...now I could see this one also.

So that's the big news: four sprouting pawpaw seeds after three months and two days. And probably more on the way in the coming days.

While I was out taking pictures, I decided to take some of the persimmons.

First I went to the Prairie Star persimmon cultivar.

This pic makes it just look like a stick in the ground.

But a closer look shows it's coming to life.

Then I went over to the Prairie Sun persimmon cultivar.

This pic makes it look like just a stick in the ground, and so far that's all it is. I'm hoping that if it doesn't leaf out, One Green World will have a convenient refund policy.