My Accidental Experiment – Comparing Indoor and Outdoor Zinnia Growth, Week 1

I feel a bit like I’m back in high school, doing a project for biology class.

Initially, I had intended to do some succession planting, so I planted some seeds outside on January 16 and saved some to plant two weeks later. Well, Mother Nature heard that and laughed. The only seeds, as far as I can tell, that survived the direct sow are the zinnias.

A week later, Andrew and I decided to start the plants inside– which had already been recommended by the seed packets and friends alike. Sometimes, I just insist on learn things the hard way.

In this post, I will be comparing the progress of the zinnias based on their adjusted time since sowing. For the outdoor zinnias, their Day 0 occurred on January 16, while the indoor zinnias have a Day 0 of January 23.

Hypothesis

I guess if I’m going to call this a science experiment, I’m going to need a hypothesis.

If the zinnia seeds are planted indoors and are treated with grow lights in a controlled environment, then they will grow faster and stronger than zinnia that are planted outdoors and exposed to the elements.

Elizabeth Budenholzer Benson, not a scientist, Benson’s Best Buds.

Day 0, Planting Day

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Day 4, Pop-Up Day

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The seeds were very consistent in their germination timelines for indoors vs. outdoors. Both sets of zinnias broke through the soil on Day 4. I suspect that the rate of germination, in terms of quantity of successfully grown seeds, is different though– but I did not count how many seeds I sowed outdoors.

Adding Compost Tea

On February 1, I prepared compost tea, and on February 2 (Day 17 for the outdoor and Day 10 for the indoor), I sprayed our seedlings and the whole yard with them.

Spraying plants with compost tea is a method of delivering important nutrients and microbes to your garden, which comes highly recommended by Floret Flower.

I intend to do this every other week and have the recipe linked here. Due to all the dilution that is required, this recipe created significantly more “tea” than I needed, and I found a smaller recipe in the comments section here, which I intend to use for future occasions. I’ll post more about the compost tea soon.

I don’t think that the earlier application of the compost tea will have much of an impact on the indoor zinnias in its “competition” with the outdoor. Nonetheless, it is a difference in process that I thought was worth pointing out.

So concludes the first installment of my “experiment” and the related observations. The next segment will be in a few weeks, hopefully with some interesting updates and coverage of topics like pinching, grow lights, and more.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations– I’m proud of you and I appreciate you!!

-bbb