Germination

Roots first emerged from the seed in the baggie after only around three days, even in this crazy Indiana climate and cold, air conditioned room! They are truly amazing. Now, actual roots have been confirmed to have grown from all three seeds!  I am so excited!  Things are going well and I hope the mangoes live and do well. It has been just over a week since planting time, and real roots have emerged and have gotten a tiny grip on the soil. I can hardly wait for a little, green plant to shoot up. I think I will die of happiness in that moment.

Growing plants is like having a miniature baby. A pre-baby. Some kind of little baby that gets you ready for having an actual baby. Gee, I might explode when I have an actual baby. Plants are really fun, but, even if my children get my social incapacities, they will still make more noises than mangoes. I still love mangoes. Mangoes are great. I will feed mangoes to my children. Not while they are too young, or they might explode. More like their diapers will explode. I like babies and mangoes. Mangoes might not cry in the night, but babies are nice in some ways, too. For instance, you will never have to throw dirt and water on a baby, build a greenhouse around a baby, constantly shine bright light on a baby, or surround the baby with toxic CO2, potassium nitrate and phosphorus.

I like my mangoes. They are growing well. Pictures will come, eventually!

Birth: April 28th, 2011

The first mango tree was planted on the night of Thursday, April 28th, 2011, in a 6" plastic pot filled with Miracle Gro potting soil, from a mango eaten around 1:00am, Wednesday morning. The seed was carefully cut with a plastic knife and the hands from its husk. The large bean of a seed was placed 3/4 of the way under moist--but not wet--soil, with the hump of the seed pointing up and slightly above the soil.

Over the next day or two, two more seeds would be planted in a similar manner! One would be planted in the pot with the first seed, while another would be placed in a small plastic baggie, mostly wrapped with a moist paper towel. Baggies were placed over the mangoes in the pot, as well, to help keep in the moisture with a sort of terrarium effect, replicating the humidity and heat mangoes love.

A lot of math was done, Friday night, in trying to find the ideal setup for the mangoes to live in, temperature-wise. The room often falls to nearly 15ºC, which is extremely cold for mangoes. They prefer to grow around 25ºC, from what I hear. Ultimately, they have been kept since then under a fairly warm fluorescent light on my desk, in a rectangular enclosure insulated with a towel. My roommate donated his warm incandescent light, which greatly helped to warm the mangoes, while also providing a better electromagnetic spectrum for them to absorb, influencing the eventual color of the leaves. At least it would, if they had any leaves. He had to take it back, last night, but it was a successful week with the warm light.