For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile you'll know that I have a few Moringa Oleifera trees growing.

My wife started them from seed back on October 11th and in the first month they grew to about 30 centimeters tall. The seedlings at the house still have nice luscious green leaves and look really healthy but their initial growth spurt has halted.

This plant had such a grand entry that I was expecting a little more from it. Here we are about a month after my last post about them and they haven't grown all that much since then.

Sure, these Moringas have grown some new leaves and such but nothing as spectacular as the first month.

Maybe they're working on a root system. Maybe this is not their growing season. It's getting down to about 14 degrees Celsius some nights here now so that may have put a stop to their growth.

The two Moringas that have been transplanted into the ground are doing a lot worse than the seedlings I have at the house. I wasn't able to water them for about 8 days and they didn't seem to like that so much. They looked pretty droopy and sad for a tree that's supposed to be drought resistant.

The Moringa's that are in the ground also have a good load of straw mulch around their base too that holds the water in for a long time and doesn't allow it to evaporate. Even after 8 days without watering and 20-30 degree Celsius daytime temperatures the earth under the mulch was still moist. I was thinking the mulch would have kept them happier for a longer period of time.

Hopefully this plant-sadness has to do with the cold nights more than anything. We'll see how they pick up after the cold season is over. I just hope that the temps don't reach below zero as this plant is not known to handle freezes very well.

This is the problem with growing something you know nothing about. I have never seen this plant in real life until my wife started these seedlings so when it comes to how they look at different times of the year its hard to know if it's the plant's natural state at that time of year or not.

The experiment continues!