#pumpkin seedlings

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A baby Kakai working on its first true leaf

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And we're off! 🎊 First sprout of the 2026 patch is a Pipsqueak!

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Are you thirsty????

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Winter Luxurys are up! And just one mini (could be a Hooligan, Gooligan, or Bumpkin). My germination rates on the minis haven't been very good so I had to start a backup batch. They should be joining us in a few days, if the seeds are good.

So now we're just waiting on those, a few Pyrolgas, and the corn.

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Another Pyrolga dilemma. These are two whole other guys. Guy on the right seems like an obvious choice to keep, since he's bigger, right?

But, some of the size is due to legginess. This is in no way a fatal amount of legginess, but when you have two seedlings otherwise equal, you generally wanna keep the less leggy one. I would not call these otherwise equal though; the guy on the right is further developed, working on his second leaf already.

However.... that second leaf is deformed. Got almost a double-leaf situation going on here.

I'm gonna monitor them a little longer, but I'm leaning towards keeping the weirdo since it is the more vigorous one.

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I decided to run a germination test ahead of planting season since my saved seeds are pretty thin. We're already at 90% 👍

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Our monsoon season has finally kicked on! Less than 24 hours after flood irrigation, we get nearly an inch of rain, and there's plenty more storm chances in the forecast. It's nice that my plants are little enough right now that I don't really have to worry about them getting damaged.

So far, my Renegades and Kakais seem to be the most vigorous seedlings; the best of those are working on their second and third leaves, meanwhile I'm re-re-restarting seeds in a few other spots. That's a later start than I aimed for, but still not too late for a Halloween harvest from those spots.

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Ah Pyrolga, would it even be you without some kind of deformity? This little guy has 3 seed leaves instead of 2, which is called tricotyledony.

Now, I will need to cull one or the other. The worst Pyrolga deformity I've ever had resulted in the growing tip just vanishing, which meant that vine never made it to maturity. If this one has a tendency towards that, it's a potential waste of this garden space. Google also warns that cotyledonary abnormalities can lead to reduced vigor or difficulty producing true leaves, but most likely, it will grow normally. Small chance of it growing early leaf sets in threes instead of twos, but this trait doesn't really offer any advantage, and would not be passed on in seeds.

Buuuuuut.... I kinda wanna see what happens. I have two other Pyrolga vines in the patch, so it's not like this is my only chance.

I'm going to let these both stay long enough to see if this little freak (affectionate) can put out true leaves. Assuming they both still seem viable:

Who stays?

The normie (do the right thing)

The freak (ooo you wanna see something weird so bad)

Remaining time: 18 hours 47 minutes