March 13:
Cotton seeds planted: Mississippi Brown, Erlene’s Green and Sea Island (white).
After a few days of inactivity, I added a heat mat under half of the pots, and by March 22- 23 there were 3 plants in the heated pots.
The others are starting to sprout too, so it may be chance, but I’ll use the heat mat from the start next time.
April 13:
A month later, and the second leaves are developing on the first cotton seedlings. I’m careful to water them from the bottom now, and once they are a little bigger, I’ll find them some bigger pots in which to spend the summer.
Also coming along are Japanese Indigo and more Madder seedlings, as well as various tomatoes from seed saved from last year’s crop. Last thing planted was Calendula, which haven’t appeared yet.
May 24:
Flax are now planted in the allotment garden – I used about 1 1/4 pounds on an area 30 x 15 feet. It doesn’t look that thickly sown.
June 4:
Flax is doing well in the cold, wet weather we’ve had lately. Cotton is still small and could use more sun and warmth. I’ve just moved the pots into the screen porch where the sun exposure is better. Woad is now sown in the allotment plot and Madder transplanted into the ground. Calendula and j. Indigo are next to go outside.
I’m in Texas and planted red-foliated white cotton straight into the ground back in February. I got 4 seedlings out of 12 seeds, and it is finally about 6 inches tall, with about 6 leaves. So if it is just now getting warm enough here to make the cotton happy, I guess you will have to baby yours quite a bit! Just thought you would like to hear that your plants are doing as well as those in the Deep South!
Hi, That’s good to know, as I was getting a little concerned that they are so slow. Last year was a bust for my cotton plants – just a couple of bolls that never got big enough to open. The year before was much better, so I hope this year they start to grow like they should. I’m bottom-feeding them fish emulsion just to see if that helps. Hope you get a wonderful cotton crop!