I've been taking pics of seedlings in our mutual aid garden and labeling them in our signal chat so that folks know what we might want to keep versus what's okay to weed out. Thought it might also make a short but useful thread.
First up, marigolds. I can never tell whether a marigold seedling is one of the ginormous ones or petite, but it's always identifiable as some kind of marigold once it's got its first true leaves (as opposed to cotyledon leaves).
Last seedling of the day is a favorite flower of mine: cleome. This flower smells super weird! It blooms like an alien spider and can grow quite tall, which means when it starts out in a 3' bed, the alien spider looms above me. I love it. It also deters rabbits and rats. The internet suggests it has medicinal uses, but I didn't know that before looking it up just now! So I've never done that, and suggest anyone considering it do research. 😅
Actually, I do have a couple more seedlings to demo today -- I realized there were some important ones to make sure we didn't weed out! 😅
Tomato seedlings. Some must be (and have been) weeded out so that others can thrive, but definitely don't weed them all out. Tomato seedlings might look similar to marigolds at first, but tomatoes have fuzzy stems. The leaf shape can vary a bit, depending on the specific variety of tomato. #garden #gardening
Cucurbits (squashes, cucumbers, gourds) have this funny thick set of initial leaves, rounded and spoon-like. The rest of the plant's leaves are thinner, hairy or even prickly, and symmetrical along the main vein with jagged edges. The veins on the non-cotyledon leaves of cucurbits remind me of a spider shape.
Note: Cucurbits can vary a lot in size and growth habit (whether they are bushy or climb up a trellis with a vine). Placement is kinda dependent on type. #gardening #garden
Beans come in 3 types of growth habit: bush, pole, and runner. It can be hard to tell which is which by the seedling. These are bush beans, which I know partly based on having labeled them while planting. 😅 Bush beans also tend to hold onto their initial (very-seed-shaped) leaves a bit longer than other beans, I think?
Beans in general have a wide range of colors for foliage and for fruits -- I've had beans with green leaves and beans with almost purple leaves. #gardening #garden
Crystal Huff (they/them)