Slow to Grow

Although some of the gourd seeds are up and putting out their next set of leaves, other seeds show no sign of sprouting at all. A few have sprouted out of their hard seed-casing but are still buried under the soil, slow to grow and to put up their first two leaves.

What these warm-loving plants  need is a change to nice summery weather, without these cold wintry blasts of wind and driving rain. 

I was hoping to plant some of them outside over the next few days, but maybe I will wait until they have a few more leaves and are a bit bigger and stronger.

Seeds responding to warmth

Gourd seedlings with their first two leaves

 

Seed-cases sitting on top of the leaves 

After sitting in pots for about a month, finally all the gourd seeds are starting to sprout. It seems they were waiting for warmer weather before they risked poking their leaves out of the hard seeds. Some of them are still wearing the seed-cases like little hats.

Soon the plants will have more leaves and will be big and strong enough  to go out in the garden. Right now, these plants are in a sheltered spot on a covered terrace. At this point of growth, the young seedlings are very tasty to slugs and snails, so its a good idea to use some anti-snail tricks, whether it’s crushed egg-shells, or commercial slug and snail pellets.

So if your gourd seeds have been slow to sprout, don’t give up on them! Any day now, you will see the first two  leaves appear.