After writing last night’s post, it bugged me in the night that I hadn’t yet done everything I could, so the first thing I did in the morning was to get my last Costco pot out and one of the new bags of lobster soil. I transplanted in another dormant apricot seedling. While it still was.

What surprised me is that the locally produced topsoil it had been in was hardpacked so tight that the water I’d given it yesterday had never made it through to the roots; apparently it was just absorbed by the fabric bag I’d wanted that tree-let out of. No wonder that other one over there looks so blackened. Yow.

One of the selling points on the lobster compost is that it retains moisture but not so much as to rot the roots. I’d read that and thought, well, that’s spin that’s trying to claim it both ways.

But in actual use this past year that’s turned out to be a pretty fair description after all of how it treated my plants. Either way, today’s seedling now has good soil and a good watering and we’ll see how it does.

Then I ordered another threesome of pots–which is a bit ambitiously wishful, since I have two more seedlings but only one looking alive. But there are three new seeds gestating, and while only one looks promising, it does and I’m holding it to it. The pots are not huge, but they’re big enough to grow an apricot to a giftable size while staying a light enough weight that I can manage lifting them. Including over next to or even in the air-conditioned house if it hits 118 again this summer. I want them to get to grow this year.

So: two yearlings (hopefully) and one new-to-come: I’m ready for them.

Or I will be after the next Costco delivery.