Cotton, cotton, cotton.

My current delusion:  that I can create a useful object from seed to finished product.  Why, when I can go to the store and for a few dollars buy a shirt/sweater/shawl/whatever that looks perfect, wears forever, can be tossed in the washer, and hung to dry without ironing, do I NEED to invest money and energy in this project?  Mainly to prove to myself that I CAN!

It must be some ancestral memory deep in my genetic code that drives me to pretend that I can be self-sufficient, live off the land (with a little help from Pizza Hut and the corner grocery store) and provide clothing for me and mine.

So my current obsession is growing cotton.   I would much rather spin wool with my limited spinning experience, but a few little things keep me from having sheep, llamas, or other cuddly critters.  One is that I doubt my zoning laws would allow me to keep wool-bearing animals on my city lot.  Another is that animals have a bad habit of eventually dying.  I'm still mourning my pet lamb of my long-ago childhood.  That's a story for another time.  But the point is that people who get too emotionally attached to their animals probably shouldn't be keeping herds of livestock.  Not to mention that they have to be cleaned up after.  A lot.

With my vast experience at killing just about every plant I've ever tended, I don't get too sentimental about them.  Except for maybe my grandmother's rose garden and my grandfather's orange trees. Oh, and Dad's avocado tree. And Mom's magnolia and crape myrtle trees.  Uh-oh.  Beginning to see a pattern of excessive bonding here.  But I've promised myself I won't shed tears over any new plants. 

So Renaissance Woman has planted herself some cotton seeds in those cute little jiffy pellets.  Started 1/30/12 with ten seeds from my friends Kathy and Sydney.  Just soaked the dried disks until they expanded, plopped a seed in each, and left them in a casserole dish on the kitchen counter to get a little sunlight.

After a few days, nothing appeared to be happening, so I ordered one of those germination stations (a flimsy but large plastic box with a heating pad.  In hindsight, I could have poked a couple of holes in a box I got at the salad bar yesterday and set it on a heating pad I already had, but those don't have neat gardening stuff printed on them or pre-cut vents that actually open and close.

Wanted to grow colored cotton too, so I ordered several packets (5-6 seeds each!) of different varieties of green and brown cotton.  Then at Saturday's guild meeting, a generous and talented lady named Judy had brought a big bag of seeds from her brown cotton plants and gave me a big handful of them, which I promptly stuck in one of the pockets of my spinning wheel bag.

Wouldn't you know it, on the morning of 2/6/12, I checked the dish and there were sprouts!  That afternoon, the "station" was delivered.  Don't you just love amazon.com?  That night I started some of the precious store-bought seeds -- one each of Reimer Seeds' Arkansas Green Tint and Erlene's Green, and MRC Seeds' MSB Green and MSB Brown.  That's right - just one each.  I'm going to see how these do before I start any more.  I know, I know - directions say to plant two or three seeds per pellet and cull (kill!) all but the strongest seedlings.  I could no more kill a seedling on purpose than I could drown unwanted kittens.  Seriously!  Could not for the life of me find Judy's seeds.  I obviously had put them away someplace safe.

 The "station" on the morning of 2/7/12

 And the first sprout to emerge!

 

  Next morning, eight of the ten original Jiffy pellets had visible sprouts.  I'm so proud!

Evening of 2/7/12, I found Judy's seeds at spinning class while searching the pockets of my bag for scissors (which were not there).  Ran home and planted a seed.  Now I have fourteen potential cotton bushes being kept warm in the corner of my dining room.  This morning several of the seedlings are touching the top of the container.   What do I do now?

Note to self:  next time you plant seeds, have some kind of markers ready IN ADVANCE if you want to keep track of which seeds are which.  I used several different colors/textures of yarn to mark the Jiffy pellets and made a legend in my spinning sample book.  Pretty sure I can still tell them apart but they're getting pretty yucky.  Was forced to order those neat aluminum markers that you emboss with a heavy pen or stylus.