Solo The Rate of Success

[Baeye]

Summer 21, 518AV

It had been roughly three weeks since Summer had started, and since Baeye had planted her variety of vegetables for her home garden. She had planted five different plants, five seeds of each, and today was the day she needed to transfer those in a pot to the actual garden. The carrots and turnips she planted directly outside those weeks ago, but the cauliflower, broccoli and kale she started off in pots inside the house. The three latter were just a bit more sensitive than the former two, and so needed to germinate in a more stable environment, aka indoors. They would stay in their pots, watered twice daily, or more if they seemed dry, until they germinated and were ready to live out in the garden.

The carrots and turnips were hardy vegetables, and had a much better chance of surviving on their own in the elements. Or at least, Baeye would think. She wasn’t necessarily new at gardening, but this was her first attempt at her very own personal garden outside of the occasional potted tomato in her bedroom. She had high hopes, as she was a pretty optimistic woman, and to be honest, was a bit disappointed in the apparent results after the three weeks.

She really should have been more realistic. She was no master gardener. She wasn’t technically a beginner, either, but she should have expected some failure. Not this much, she told herself. Keeping with her optimistic side, though, she accepted that she had some success and prided herself on that. She would go with transferring the plants as planned, and try again when she could. And with that final thought, she carefully picked up her pots, one by one, and headed outside.

[Baeye]

Stepping outside she examined her carrots and turnips she planted at the same time as her potted plants. They were directly inserted into the ground but they seemed to have just as equal of a success rate as her potted veggies. The carrots that lay in her first row in her garden, were the most successful of the five. A success of which she appreciated, since carrots were her favorite. Three of the five seeds had made their way through the dark and damp soil, into the sunlight with their little green stems. The plant was small, barely an inch high at this point in its life. It was such a vibrant green, the seedling brightened up the area significantly. Baeye could not wait for her graden to be filled with green like this.

The first two seeds, and then the fourth seed down the row had germinated in their little bed. Baeye was happy at this small achievement, and she would continue to water, prune and tend them to, hopefully, adulthood, where she would then be able to harvest a, again hopefully, delicious three carrots.

Looking over at her turnips, though, set a frown on her face. Only one of the seeds had germinated. The seedling here were a darker green than its neighboring carrots, and were double broad leafed. The seedling almost looked like a weed, and at one point over the past weeks, Baeye had been worried that when she was weeding one day she had accidentally pulled up a turnip or two, and that’s why she only had one now. She tried to push that thought away because, well first of all there was nothing she could do about that now, and secondly, she hoped she was a bit more knowledgeable than that.

[Baeye]

For now, Baeye had to focus on her three potted plants. She had already, previously to taking the pots outside, formed three more little dirst bed mounds for the seedlings to lie. The rows here were shorter than the carrot and turnip rows as they each would not end up holding five total plants since not all seeds had successfully breached the soil. Instead each mound was shaped long enough for the remaining seedlings.

The first off was the broccoli. Only two seeds germinated here, which was honestly better than the majority of her crop. The broccoli seedlings here looked very similar to turnips seedlings, broad, dark green leafs. However broccoli had three, rather than two leafs. Just to avoid unnecessary confusion, though, she planted the broccoli directly underneath the carrot beds so she did not confuse the similar looking seedlings down the line.

Right now Baeye had to form holes for her new seedlings to transfer. They would be much bigger than her simple divots when she planted the seeds three weeks ago. Now they would have to hold more dirt and roots of the new seedling. She used her hands for this, there was no need for a spade, the holes would not be very large. The simply dug with her fingers and fingernails to form a relatively decent hole, in a decent cone-ish shape. She dug two of these, pretty far apart from each other to give the growing plants some room.

As of now, each plant was tiny. But just to be safe, Baeye still used her spade to dig into the soil beneath and around each seedling to form a cut cone of dirt. This would allow most, if not all, of the roots to transfer with the plant. With the last cut into the soil she tilted the spade, and then lifted, bracing the loose dirt with a couple of fingers from her other hand. This would bring the cone of dirt smoothly out of the pot, and she, as she was moving it to its new home, titled the spade nearly completely horizontal, so the dirt and plant would not be affected by gravity and therefore fall apart.

Quickly, she moved to plant to the first hole and placed it in. Once safely transferred she patted the plant down a bit by the soil it came with and then filled the edges with more dirt from the surroundings, patting it a bit as well. She did not want the dirt to be too loose, but too packed and it would not allow enough water through. The repeated this process with the second seedling, and hoped for the best.

[Baeye]

Moving on, she placed the now empty broccoli pot to the side, focusing on her second pot, the kale. She was excited about the kale. Well, she was excited about the kale three weeks ago when she planted five seeds and expected five heads of kale. She was planning these fun salads to make with all her new veggies, and kale being the heart of it. But, now she just hoped her one remaining seedling would last to harvest.

Her one, tiny, little seedling looked happy and healthy in the pot at least. It was the easiest to pick out from the rest of the little plants. This one has a triple reddish purple stems with a bright green leaf growing from each stem. The leafs themselves were broad, but more furrowed than the broccoli and turnip, and the edges of the leafs were the same reddish purple as the stems. She knew as it grew it would become more tough to the touch, fringed and dark green and purple.

For now, though, it would remain its bright green. She dug it from the pot in the same manner in which she approached the broccoli moments before, carefully, and placed it in the one hole she dug from the fresh dirt mound she molded for it. She placed it next to the broccoli, just in between and below the carrots and turnips. She gave it plenty of space, hoping the head would grow wide, bushy, and plentiful.

She really just wanted it to grow enough to make one bowl of salad with it. She enjoyed the taste of kale. Many didn't. It was a very tough and bitter plant. But her mother knew this recipe with oil and lemon that broke down the harder exterior a bit, making it easier to chew, but also refreshing and delicious. It would be amazing for Baeye to learn to make this salad by her mother’s side, using her very own, personally grown, kale as a base.

[Baeye]

And last but not least was the cauliflower seedlings. The cauliflower had fared better than the kale seeds, but worse than the carrots. After three weeks only two cauliflower seeds had germinated nd burst through the soil. Baeye did not know too much about cauliflower. She wasn’t sure if the mature plant would produce one head of the flower, or if one plant could hold multiple heads. Of course, she hoped for the latter, as therefore she would get more out of the two simple seedlings.

Though what Baeye was most excited about learning from watching her cauliflower plant grow, was how this tiny little bright green plant would turn into a huge, dense, hard, and completely white, vegetable. She assumed it had a similar process as apples, where the ‘head’ would emerge from a flower or something like that. However, she didn’t truly know and was impatient to learn.

This little sprout was similar in some ways to the broccoli seedlings. That made sense in Baeyes, mind, the two were extremely similar in maturity too. The seedling was bright green, with three broad leafs coming from their own little stems. Here she depotted and replanted them in the same row as the broccoli and kale, as there was still more room in this row below the carrots and turnips, and she had yet to decide if she was going to use the rest of the garden this season, she wanted to keep room open, just in case. Honestly, though, there was plenty of room, she was just being overly cautious.

Suddenly, as she leaned back on her heels in the fresh dirt, she realized, looking upon the ground. She now had a fully fledged garden. Yes, it may be small. And yes, it may have been a huge failure in some ways. But she had some plants, and that was certainly better than nothing. She was extremely proud, and couldn't wait until she could harvest.

[Baeye]

Summary

Tools Used

Spade
Small Pot (3)

Materials Used

Common Seeds Carrot (2) Lost
Common Seeds Turnip (4) Lost
Common Seeds Broccoli (3) Lost
Common Seeds Kale (4) Lost
Common Seeds Cauliflower (3) Lost

Items Gained

Carrot Seedling (3)
Turnip Seedling (1)
Broccoli Seedling (2)
Kale Seedling (1)
Cauliflower Seedling (2)

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

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Baeye

Skills

• Gardening: 5xp
• Agriculture: 5xp
• Planning: 4xp
• Observation: 4xp
• Botany: 1xp

Lores

• Gardening: carrots and turnips are hearty vegetables
• Gardening: turnip sprouts look like weeds
• Planning: anticipating obstacles
• Gardening: broccoli and turnip seedlings look similar
• Gardening: how to transfer seedlings
• Lore of the family kale salad recipe
• Botany: how does cauliflower grow?

Awards & Retribution
+Item gained
+Trait recieved
-Injury
-Mizas spent

Notes
I love that you're actually creating something in thread. And I love how rightly proud Baeye is of it! I look forward to seeing how this little garden turns out.

As a side note, I see a ton more skills lurking in your threads if only you would grab them! You're wringing the gardening skills dry, but if you want to say that Baeye carried the pots outside and she was struggling with the weight, or that the shoveling was making her arms burn, I could give you some points in more physical skills like body building and endurance. Only if you want them, of course, but the potential is there!