Learning to Garden: Lavender from Seed

I have taken a recent interest in gardening.  Actually, I don't know if it's an interest as much as a full-blown obsession.  It probably doesn't help that it's spring (At least that's what the calendar says) and just about every store is carrying something like these adorable little grow kits.

So in my excitement, I went to CVS and picked up this lavender grow kit by Buzzy Seeds.  The second I brought it home, I wasted no time to set it up and get growing.

When I unpacked the kit, it came with a seed packet, a couple little dirt nuggets, and the pail.  Following the instructions in the kit, I put the dirt nuggets in a separate container and filled it with 1/2 cup of water and mixed it up until the nuggets expanded and became moist fluffy soil.  I then put the soil in my planting vessel and planted my seeds.

Lavender seeds right after planting on March 15

Originally, the lavender seeds were meant to be planted directly into the pail that the kit came in, but in my cramped dorm, the only window I have to work with has the most indirect sunlight EVER (Except at exactly 5pm and only 5pm).  In an attempt to remedy this at least a little bit, I put the soil in a Solo cup, which was thinner and allowed the soil to have more lift to let the sun reach my little babies so they could grow.  What's not shown in this image is that I also cut the rim of the cup to have even more sunlight coverage.

The next two weeks of waiting felt like a million years.

I never thought that my seeds would sprout.  Easter weekend came, I left to go home for the weekend.  Then I came back to an amazing surprise!

First Lavender sprout on April 2nd 

To this day, the sprout has one half green leaf and one yellow leaf, and I'm gonna blame the lack of sunlight.  I've been rotating it to see which spot has the best sun exposure, but it's not gonna be good until I go home for the summer and put it outside.  

Not pictured above is another sprout that hasn't fully emerged from the soil yet, but it's easy to see the bright green poking out of the brown when you look very closely in the middle.  

For now, I'll keep waiting until I see some true leaves come out and then I'll let myself get excited about being an official gardener.


EDIT 4/22

So.  I've killed my poor little seedling.  A few days after posting this, I decided that leaving the sprout in the big pot would cause it to become overwatered and die, so I transplanted it into a little toothpaste box because it seemed like a better size for the plant.  I mean, I was probably right, but transplanting it was the wrong thing to do because the poor little guy was too young to be exposed to that kind of stress.  A few hours after transplanting, it flopped over and looked wilted.  I did some research and suspected the problem to be transplant shock, so I watered it and left it alone for a week or two.  Now it's just dead.

R.I.P. baby lavender plant