CAS project
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Title: Complementing Grandma's Garden
Phase 1 - Planning
I like plants... the old me wouldn't say that. Few years ago, I was incapable of taking care of even a cacti which only require a bit of water in a week. Over the last year or two, I started developing an interest in these fascinating organism after using them intensively as my photographic subject. It was also thanks to the book Wabi-sabi by Beth Kempton for telling me that next time I went to a park or country side, just try walking slower than usual and appreciate the simple beauty of the nature around me. At the time of writing this (already few months into my last year), I think that pursuing a career on plants biology research actually sounds really nice. Anyway, its too late for me who've never taken any biology class since I entered high school.
That left me with just the option of just growing them as a hobby. In actuality, my grandma already have a massive garden in our house and it was already filled to the brim. However, the plants are mostly vegetable which can be use for cooking so I think that adding some pretty flowers into the collection would be a great complement to this already serene garden.
My grandma's garden
Phase 2: Investigation / starting
While I understand that plants has been thriving for hundred of million of years before us, I am extremely not confident in the quality of my soil. Its just a left over of my grandma's oil soil that is fertile enough to sustain plants' life. That's why I've decided to do the wet paper seedling method instead. By doing it this way, I could easily retain the moisture and see which seedlings grew up and is strong.
By the way, the plant that I started with was white sunflower, dwarf sunflower and Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena).
One on top is the white sunflower and on the bottom is the dwarf sunflower.
Dec 1st, 2023
log 12/4/2023: My sunflowers seedling has already enter the seeding all around the container so I move it out to a pot
log 12/7/2023: My Nigella Damascena for some reason does not seems to grow at all and I don't know why
log 12/12/2023: Nigella Damascena was droped and I am left with 1 strong white sunflower and 2 strong dwarf sunflower.
Challenge 1
This early process is pretty much the most difficult stage in growing plant. My Nigella Damascena's seed does not change its appearnace at all for over a week. I also tried daisy but it didn't work out too. In the first attempt, the seedlings was damaged by a water hose and in the second attempt I forgot to tell someone to water it while I was in the military camp.
Phase 3: Main
The first thing that I wanted to mention is the application calls "PictureThis" which use a (relatively) powerful machine learning algorithm to identify and help in the matter of gardening. This thing was a big help in analyzing the well being of my plants.
Another big help went to my grandma who gave me many advices throughout the span of this project.
Generally, both sunflowers grew really quickly in the first few weeks and seems to be quite healthy. The white sunflower became a bit too big than I initially thought though, so I move it to a larger pot than the previous one. I also switch the soil to a more nutritious soil to boost its growth. There wouldn't be a lot of problem for the month to go.
Log 02/03/2024: Challenge 2
Lately, my white sunflower seems to be very sick with many leafs turning gray and dying. I use PictureThis to identify the cause and the application suggested that the plant is facing a fungi infection. To fix this, I tried decrease the amount of water than the sunflower recieve to reduce the moisture which should slow down fungi spread. I also cut all of the heavily infected leafs to minimize further infection. My grandma also recommended that I mix together: soap water, dishwashing soap, shrimp paste, and vinegar and spray it on the infected zone. After a few days, my sunflower is fortunately back to normal.
New soil
Caption:
Cause of sickness
Lack of sunlight Overwatering
Fungi infection
After the treatment
Log 2/12/2024: My dwarf sunflower is the first to bloom and its very pretty. Strangely, what I thought to be the second dwarf sunflower turns to be Acalypha Indica. How it came to be in my pot is unknown but it too is a beautiful plant so I will look forward to how it grow.
Acalypha on the left and dwarf sunflower on the right side.
Log 2/27/2024: The white sunflower has finally bloom and turn out, its not really white at all. Maybe the shop make some mistake with the seeds but I don't really mind as long as it grow up well.
2/27/2024
2/29/2024
Challenge 3 (on going)
At this point, bugs are starting harm my sunflowers. I am not really sure how harmful these flies and worms are to my sunflowers but it would be better to get rid of them. As of farm my neighbor who knows how to handle plants told me and my grandma to use a some mixture of some very long list in which I cannot remember (it was similar to the anti fungicide spray that my grandma made but have more ingredients).
Expansions
In the span of this project, I also did my mathematics Internal Assessment on studying plants' growth. The subject that I use was Phaseolus (wild beans) which I grew with some green beans in my kitchen. After the data collection, I decided to move few of the subjects to a better pot for further growth. The growth however, is relatively slow and it might be a long time until it'll produce any pods.
Then there is also the random Portulaca Grandiflora or something that look very similar which shows up in my old white sunflower's pot. After the sunflower was moved out, I move this Grandiflora to the center of the pot and water it regularly. As of now, it is growing quite well.
Reflection
I've read from some book that the most effective way to hone a person's responsibility is to find some thing to take care of for example, a pet or a plants. That was one of the goal of this project, to make me become more responsible and mature. Initially, I doupt that idea, especially for plants, because its just a plant and will only require some 2 minutes per day to take care of. However, I was surprised by how challenging caring for plants actually is. In the first few days after moving the seedlings into the pot, I forgot to water it in many occasions. Additionally, there are a lot of issues that could harm the plant such as too much/less sunlight, over/underwatering and fungicide infections. After going through all that was mentioned above, I felt much more confident in my skill of handling plant life. Skills like this could be further develop into a skill to take care of an actual pets or even handling children which will be important in the future. Although for now, I'll have to try and sustain my plants for as long as possible and prepare for the next batch after the current generation reaches the end of its life.
CAS Learning outcomes
Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively
Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
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