On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
So my chard plants started out pretty well (germination rate was very high) but I thinned down to only 3 plants (also lost many due to damping off). Currently, I would say I only have two plants with one of them going strong and the other, well, let's say I hope the other one will catch up soon. The third Swiss chard plant suffered from an unknown cause of near-damping off signs so I try not to have too much hope for it.This third plant, I nicknamed it "little red" (for red chard) has suffered from stunted growth, stalk occasionally fell over, and I actually gave up on it by about the third week in March. Each time the stalk fell over, I added more soil because it always seemed like there wasn't enough to hold it. I think it was by the third time it fell over, I decided that was it. I dug it up and noticed one part of the stalk under soil was soft and actually was bent over. No signs of pest or disease. I'm not sure why and how this happened but I'm sure that's why it kept falling off. I declared death on this plant because soft plus bent over stalk on a seedling didn't seem like a great combo. Not sure what the survival rate is but I believe it's low.
I repotted the other two chard plants and put them together in a bigger pot that I got from Wal-Mart (self-watering/bottom watering kind, around $5). "Little red" was left in its' own small pot. I put it back to its' original little pot and added a bit more soil to cover & gave it a firm pat on the "bent over" stalk, without anymore care and water, I decided to let it decide its' fate. I thought maybe weeks later I'll just dump the soil and the dead chard somewhere in the corner of the yard. I did take out the remaining leaves, except those cotyledon leaves, from "little red" for cooking (like microgreens) and placed "little red" by a sunny window for an experiment - to see if sunshine instead of grow light can help. Honestly I didn't think it would make it. About a week after I repotted the two "better" chards, I went to check on the cat grass also happened to be placed by "little red" (I wasn't even thinking about this "little red"). I noticed "little red" was still standing, not fallen over.
Surprise!! It didn't die off! I even gave the pot a bit of shake, oh yeah, "little red" was still standing. Those cotyledon leaves were still green and no signs of softness/discoloring. I bottom watered "little red" and checked on it next day. It was still standing and no signs of tipping over. I think having dug it up & more soil & letting it dry out a week somehow did the trick?? I'm not sure what and why and how but this "little red" is still alive as of today! There is something green growing next to where I cut off the leaves before. I gave it more water this morning. Let's hope it recovers and spread more leaves soon!
Here are some pictures taken in March and up to today, in descending order by time of when the photo was taken. The seeds were planted in Jiffy pots on Feb 22. I wrote an earlier post about these seedlings.
March 2, more new sprouts came up over night!
March 3, more new sprouts! Great germination rate.
March 5, the Jiffy dome could no longer be closed without touching some of the seedlings. So, I made a "fake dome" using plastic food wrapper and some wood sticks (for meat skewing, got these from a Daiso Store).
March 7, more new sprouts. Some Jiffy pots had as many as 4 seedlings. The "fake dome" did contain humidity and provided a small greenhouse vibe to the tray.
March 8, growing taller and taller (the down side of insufficient lighting source). My order of the grow light was shipped but hasn't arrived yet.
March 9, last day in the "fake dome" (made with plastic food wrapper)
March 10, thinned down Swiss chard seedlings. It was bittersweet to let go some seedlings but I know it was better to focus on the strongest seedlings.
"Pile of let go"
March 11, same three chard plants, different point of focus.
March 13, first night with the grow light (left the light on from about 8pm to 8pm the next day).
March 14, I noticed those cotyledons close at night after light was turned off. Turned the light on to snap a shot of this lol!
March 15, start seeing tiny second set of true leaves. Started leaving the grow light on for 12 hours daily, from around 8:30am to 8:30pm.
March 16, under the grow light
March 17, Swiss chard seedlings were still quite thin and "little red" fell over.
March 18, I popped open the dome for tomatoes/peppers.
March 21, bottom watering my three Swiss chard plants.
March 22, last "group pic" of the 3 Swiss chard plants each in their individual pot
March 26, "little red" tipped over again. I dug it up, finally saw the chalk was "bent over" so "little red" was "taken out."
March 29, the red chard was showing signs of "brown spots" so I took the initiative to take down any leaf with such signs. Here are two of those small leaves. Kind of hard to see but there were brown/darkened spots. I wasn't sure if fungal disease caused it.
March 31, Day 1 in new pot, also Day 3 since the red chard got trimmed down. I ended up taking down the largest leaf from the red chard later this night. I didn't want to due to its' size, but I took it down for the sake of stopping the spread of whatever it was. I let the two stay by a sunny window for some afternoon sunshine then moved it back to the nursery (aka, grow light in the spare room).
April 1, stayed under the light all day.
The two chard plants have been staying under the grow light since March 31. I paid close attention to each leaf for sign of new brown spots. No signs.
Today, April 5
As of today, all 3 chard plants have survived. The red chard has not shown signs of new brown spots. It has grown 2 new leaves since I took out the last leaf with brown spots. The taller new leaf looks a bit browned/deformed on the edge but I've been watching it closely every day. No spreading of that "brown edge." The second new leaf looks perfectly fine.
Also very happy "little red" is growing a new leaf!
💗 CM
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