According to everything I have read, I should be able to harvest the radishes on March 22, which is in two days. I should definitely be seeing bulbs poking through the soil, but no physical changes are visible except for vertical growth. I pulled one stem each from the plastic wrap pot and the pebble pot, and this was the result.
In case anyone is confused, these are not radishes. They are radish stems that should be radishes, but they ARE. NOT. RADISHES.
I have only three guesses:
1) The radishes are not getting enough sun. Nothing I can do about that. I might have been destined to fail from the start.
2) Human error. I'm pretty sure I've been watering them the right amount and thinning them correctly, but who knows?
3) My house is too warm. This shouldn't be a problem, but it's the only other issue I can think of.
It's hard to figure out the exact issue. Shockingly enough, nothing useful is yielded from Googling "why dont my stems have any radishes on them." GardenWeb is no help at all. I'm closely monitoring their growth, but I don't know what else I can do without knowing what's wrong.
Ugh. Onto the status of each individual pot.
From left to right are the pebble, plastic wrap, and control pots.
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The pebble pot is growing as usual, except for the whole missing-radish thing. The stems are now so long that it is difficult for them to hold themselves up.
Going against my original plan, I ended up not using fertilizer on the plastic wrap pot. I mentioned that I could not find the correct type; the stems were so weak that the wrong type might just kill them. I've grown more attached to these plants than I expected. If it has a chance at life, I'm not going to ruin it just for an experiment.
Covered in plastic wrap, the control pot grew stems within a few days, just like the original plastic wrap pot. Even if they grow correctly, they won't be anywhere near fully grown by my TED talk, but I'm glad I fixed that mistake.
As a closing note, I'm going away again, for a week this time. Oops. At this point, it doesn't matter much. Either they'll grow or they won't. My hope is that there'll be some progress by the time I return. Really, any kind of change is all I'm looking for. And if they shrivel up and die... well, at least it makes a good story.
I volunteer to plant-sit!
ReplyDeleteWarning: My mom has literally killed every single plant she has ever touched.
It's too bad you're having difficulty with this. It's interesting that your stems don't have any actual radishes. I think the same thing happened once when my family tried to grow baby carrots. It didn't exactly work out too well. Hey, at least the plants are growing. Maybe they're just growing slowly and they will eventually grow radishes? I'm not sure. From the pictures, it looks like the control pot is growing the best. I hope you figure out what the problem is.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I would say it is the first option. The plants are not getting enough light. Plants grow very long and floppy when there is a lack of strong sunshine, and I think radishes are plants that enjoy full sun. If you want to try artificial lighting, I can recommend some stuff you could pick up from Lowe's or Home Depot for <$30.
ReplyDeleteFun fact: in French "brindille de radis" means radish stalk. Yeah, that was in Le Petit Prince, and I thought of you when I read it.
ReplyDeleteJ'espère que tes radis poussent mieux. (I hope your radishes grow better.)
You should try eating the stems. See if they actually taste like radishes. If so, you're halfway there.
ReplyDelete