Brown thumb grew...well...something...

Status
Not open for further replies.

ellen

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
107
Location (City and/or State)
Sonoran Desert
So during winter I picked up a pack of Short Stuff seed mix from the Native Seed / SEARCH. It's either unavailable on their site or it's since been replaced with another tortoise mix. I am a genius and I lost the cute little bag insert that listed what all the seed mix contained.

Anyway, during winter I managed to get a few sprouts and they died shortly after because it got so cold and I forgot to cover them. Ho hum.

I tried again in July...and it's been almost two months that this thing's alive and I have no idea what it is. It's bigger than my globemallow (which has been getting nibbled on by grasshoppers) and it's blocking out some of the grass that grew from the mix.

I hope it's safe because it makes great shade.

Here's a picture of the leaves:

plant3.JPG

The stems:

plant.JPG

Upon inspecting the picture I noticed tiny little purple flowers under the leaves.

This cluster turned into more of the little purple flowers.

plant2.JPG

I'm growing more from the seed mix in a controlled pot in my room to see what else grows. It sprouted really quickly. I started it on Sunday and I already have tons of sprouts.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

ellen

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
107
Location (City and/or State)
Sonoran Desert
You know, you may be right. The flowers that had been there before turned into some kind of grain and I know for a fact that Native Seeds sells amaranth grains and seeds.

I'll see if anyone knows for sure, but if it is a type of amaranth then I shouldn't feed it to them excessively because of oxalic acid content, right?
 

Yvonne G

Old Timer
TFO Admin
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
93,390
Location (City and/or State)
Clovis, CA
I was thinking it looked like deadly nightshade.
 

ellen

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
107
Location (City and/or State)
Sonoran Desert
! That's exactly the same color of the little flowers and grain-looking pods! The underside of the leaves are also pale. The leaf shape and texture looks the same. I think that has to be it...but I know for a fact spiderling wasn't even on the list....So I didn't manage to grow anything from that mix except two tiny shoots of grass. I'm still a brown thumb, ho hum.

Thank you so much!
 

EKLC

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2010
Messages
605
ellen said:
! That's exactly the same color of the little flowers and grain-looking pods! The underside of the leaves are also pale. The leaf shape and texture looks the same. I think that has to be it...but I know for a fact spiderling wasn't even on the list....So I didn't manage to grow anything from that mix except two tiny shoots of grass. I'm still a brown thumb, ho hum.

Thank you so much!

no prob, from that old discussion it seems like spiderling shoots up pretty commonly in your area. We have one here in florida, and I let my torts eat it. At least you didn't kill the natural weeds!
 

ellen

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
107
Location (City and/or State)
Sonoran Desert
You know, I've never seen it before? We normally get London Rocket and common mallow in my neighborhood, but now that I know what this looks like I'll be more observant in the future.

The pictures show spiderling as being pretty short, but since I've been watering this regularly I think that accounts for why it shot up so suddenly... I'm glad that it's tortoise safe, too!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top