[condor]

It's all about patience. Having loads of it.

A 4 day old seedling of Sweet Lime (moosambi), now about 1.5 cm tall. The one on the right is 3 days and 1 cm tall. Both sprouted after Seven weeks of being tended to. The seeds were planted after being soaked in water for about 36 hours. I had also tried planting the seeds of another fruit of this lot without the soaking, but those have not come even after 2.5+ months.

The two larger ones in the back ground sprouted in half the time, and the larger one (background, centre of pic) is now 7 cm tall.



And why all this excitement ?
I had got a few of these moosambi fruits, which were very different from the ones we get in the market. They had a tangy kind of taste - both sweet and a bit sour. I am not sure what variety these are. May be a junglee type.

This has been the longest I have had to wait for a plant to grow from a seed. Sapota's are a different case where the seeds need a gestation period of 3 months before being planted. Despite the hard seed, those came up faster than these. In case of these moosambi seeds, after the soaking, the outer cover needs to be cut open a bit to help the sprout come out with less difficulty.

Now starts the long affair with these - they will give fruits after a further 3 years from when they are planted into the soil. I will in sometime move these to individual pots and then will have to wait till things fall in place to plant these.

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