Well, here we are again with the marmite and the paint and the test-tubes and stuff. It's because I want to draw some fenugreek, or methi, or Trigonella foenum-graecum, another beautiful and useful and fragrant plant.
I'm trying to get these fellas (fenugreek seeds) to grow, they sprout a bit and then die after about five days. So while I'm planting them out, I'm wondering if I can encourage them to nodulate with their bacterial pals...
Do you like my Blue Peter Scool of Laboratory Equipment Test Tube Racks? And my fantastically inappropriate test tubes? I was going to make some agar to grow my seed in but the pressure cooker is full of chicken soup, maybe some other day....
So I got some of the soil and nodules and roots from some local sweetclover to see if I could innoculate my seeds' substrates. When it comes to the favourite flavour of bacteria, both plants are partial to a Sinorhizobium meliloti, I hear.
And here is my nonsense on the windowsill. In good company with the Winogradsky columns.
See the little purple one there? That's with the cobalt blue-violet paint, a tasty snack for S. meliloti.
Nonsense, like I say, I'm expecting my seeds to survive for another four or five days and then die.
Although as a backup plan I might have a look at the sweetclover or Melilotis officinalis, which I've taken a real shine to on account of its gorgeous perfume and ability to sieze a shitty habitat.
Here it is doing its phytoremediation work on the ash dump at Musselburgh.
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