One of my colleagues at work brought some Sweet Tamarind into the office some months ago. If you've never seen Tamarind in its natural form before here is a picture of a Tamarind pod.
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| Tamarind Pods |
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| Tamarind Pod with sweet flesh exposed (it's edible) |
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| Tamarind seeds |
For months I have been trying to get these seeds to germinate and sprout so that I can grow my very own Tamarind tree. I've tried all sorts of things, soaking the seeds, breaking them open, planting them in a sand and seed compost, scraping part of the hard outer coating off, but nothing seemed to work, until about 4 weeks ago when one of the soaked seeds suddenly started to show signs of sprouting.
It's autumn here so the weather hasn't been very warm so my little sprouting seed hasn't really done very much at all. However, this week the heating has been turned on so I moved my seed, in it's little pot, next to the warm air outlet under the window.
When I came into work this morning, this is what I found, this has sprouted to what you see below just overnight. In the few hours that I have been at work it appears to be growing very quickly, I am convinced that it's grown a few millimeters in 4 hours.
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| My little Tamarind plant - 28/10/11 c10:00 |
To log progress on growing rate.
Date: 28/10/11 @ c10:00
Height from desk to tip of leaf: 14cm
OMG it's grown already 5mm in 6 hours.
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| Tamarind plant - 28/10/11 c16:00 |
Date: 28/10/11 @ c16:00
Height from desk to tip of leaf: 14.5cmWeek commencing 31 October 2011
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| Tamarind 31/10/11 @ 10:16 |
Height from desk to tip of leaf: 18cm
Update: 04/11/2011 c 12:00
Height from desk to tip of leaf 19cm
I had to add a bit of support as the tree/sapling was leaning over, I hope it's not dying. I've also taken its plastic greenhouse of to try and acclimatise it to the office environment.
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| Tamarind 04/11/2011 @ 12:00 |
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| Tamarind 04/11/2011 @ 12:00 |
This exotic tree growing has sprouted (excuse the pun) a bit of a tree growing competition in the office, another of my colleagues is attempting to grow an Avocado.
Here is the competition on 04/11/2011, it doesnt look much at the moment but I'm begining to worry, I think Avocados are quick growers.
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| Avocado competition |
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| Tamarind 07/11/2011 @ 11:00 |
Height from desk to tip of leaf 20cm
I have also managed to germinate and grow three more tamarind trees at home, these appear to be much healthier than the one in the office.
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| Home grown Tamarind trees 20/11/2011 |
Here are some updated pictures (01/12/2011) on the home growing Tamarind trees, they appear to be much healthier than the office grown variety, I think that might have something to do with the temperature. It gets quite cold in the office at night and the tree doesn't like it much, after all it is tropical.
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| Like the three wise monkeys |
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| The leaves fold up at night |
And an addition to the quartet, this isn't exactly a new addition, I started this around four months ago but it doesn't seem to be doing very much. However, I don't think its dead, just dormant waiting for spring.
This is a mango seed, its now probably three times its original size but there are no sprouts yet, as I said I don't think its dead otherwise it would have gone moldy.
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