Growing Things -- Eighty Third Post

I've been absent for a while. I could blame this on school, and up until the middle of December, that would be true.
I haven't been really busy with school for the past month and a half, man. I've just been lazy as all get out. I mean, I've done some stuff, but I get really tired when I do just one thing (research) all day and then have to go home and work on applying to graduate schools. Bleh. I slept all the time during Jan Term. All. The. Time.

This happened, too. I love making snowmen, because my hometown has crappy snow.

The times when I wasn't sleeping, I was at a friend's house where we are crawling through Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, a fantastic anime series based on a manga that I would love to find and read. Having seen both dubbed and subbed, I can say that the dub is pretty good. You should watch it.
When I wasn't watching TV at my friend's, I was doting over my plants. I love growing things. Over my abnormally long Christmas Break, I was overcome with a need to plant all the seeds. I stayed up late researching how to grow mangoes (got one for Christmas), pomegranates (got one to eat on Christmas), grapefruits, and oranges and it turned out to be supposedly simple.
Since pomegranates have ten million seeds, it wasn't hard to make them plantable. It's a bit harder to keep them alive once they've sprouted, but I've got one out of the five (out of about 24) that sprouted still kicking. Not the best ratio, but I just want one to mature. I don't need 24 pomegranate trees.
Mangoes are harder because of that slippery flesh and the woody seedcoat. I probably maimed it because my information was bad (do not pry the seed coat open at the fat end, that's where the embryonic root joins the seed), but it appears to be not dead yet. Like avocados, mangoes are supposedly able to sprout in water before being planted in dirt. Unlike avocados, however, you have to clean out the water and mine doesn't appreciate being stabbed by toothpicks even though someone on youtube did it no problem and they have to be fully submerged and... It's just generally a different process. However, mine is developing a little shoot, which is encouraging. I have to remind myself that my avocado took months to sprout, and that big seeds are just going to take longer because, frankly, they can afford to. Little seeds have to get those chlorophyll loaded cells up into the sunlight as fast as plantly possible once they get wet, but big seeds have huge stores of energy.

Fat mango seed with all its energy stores.

 Speaking of avocados, mine is about five months old (as of sprouting; closer to eight or nine as of planting, yet another illustration of big seeds taking their own sweet time) and I'm super proud of it. It's got a million leaves (11) and is super tall (1.5 feet at most) and just got repotted with apparent success. I'm pretty happy. I named it Avogadro (long time ago) because that's a chemistry joke that I would deserve to be shot if I didn't make. Almedeo Avogadro, man, what a guy. Discovered one of the most fundamental concepts of chemistry, was a revolutionary, had six kids, and no one ever remembers his first name.

A humble homage to the great man.

 My grapefruit seeds and orange seed (clementine-type) are kind of under the radar right now, but the grapefruits definitely sprouted in a baggy before I planted them and have hopefully not rotted in the soil, while I just stuck the orange seed in some dirt.

Citrus seeds not doing anything interesting.

And, because I'm obsessed, a bunch of Chinese Lantern seeds went into a pot. They've sprouted and turn towards the light like pros. 

Follow the lights!

After weeks/months of seeing "grow your own garlic!" pins on Pintrest, I finally decided to plant one of the garlic cloves laying around my kitchen (in a Häagen-Dazs^® Mango Sorbet pint container because it's deep enough), and that's already sprouted, yay! I also planted four spinach seeds (Nobel Spinach from Winco) in the same container.

Gettin' in on this instant gratification/grow your own food thing.

 Also, I have a hyacinth bulb that my grandmother gave me. It was already started, but it's starting to turn purple.

I love those vases, too.

So, to recap: I can't do things and also do other things at the same time and I love plants.