ziploc gardening – In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat

Here’s an update from the January blog post: Figs for All: How to Grow a Fig Tree In Your Garden

After carefully cutting, wrapping, storing and dating (January 31st, 2013) her fig cutting as the NewEnglandGardener instructed, Ms. Jeannie was a little disappointed when she checked the clipping a week ago, only to see that nothing happened.

For three weeks the clipping had been tucked inside it’s plastic Ziploc, stored in a warm spot (on a shelf in the stairwell) and left unbothered to grow, grow, grow. But as of last week, the twig still looked exactly the same as when she started. No sprouts, no new green, no shoots. In the NewEngland Gardeners video, he already had sprouts after three weeks, so Ms. Jeannie worried that, perhaps, she had done something wrong and that she may have led her readers down a rocky garden path.

In speaking with a friend of hers about this matter, Ms. Jeannie learned another way that you could grow a fig clipping.

Method 2: Rooting a fig twig in a container of water.

In water! So Ms. Jeannie went out, cut another twig and placed that one in a jar of water and set it on her sill away from the sun.

This morning, she checked the status of both the Ziploc bag and the jar. This would now now be week 4 for the Ziploc bag and week 2 for the jar.

She was delighted to find this in her bag:

Look closely and you’ll see a sprout at the very base of the twig…

Yey! Ms. Jeannie must have been a little impatient last week. This is a good reminder that you can’t rush Mother Nature. She is ready, when she’s ready!

The grocery circular that Ms. Jeannie wrapped the twig in is still moist, even though she has never added any more water since the start, and it is a little spotted with mold…

The Ziploc bag also contains condensation…

Condensation of bubles — Condensation bubbles

…so essentially, Ms. Jeannie created her own little greenhouse!

Nothing’s happening with the twig in the jar of water yet, but now Ms. Jeannie knows just to give it time!

So what’s next for the sprouted twig? Well, Ms. Jeannie is going to keep it in the Ziploc for one more week to see if any new shoots will form and then transfer it to a shoe-box size plastic container with potting soil as the NorthernGardener suggested. In the meantime, she’ll keep her eye on the water twig to see what happens.

Until next time, dear readers, grow fearless!