u/dex_doodles89

I've had a windowsill full of African violets for about three years now and last year nearly every one of them just stopped flowering. Tons of healthy leaves, nice tight rosettes, but barely a bloom stalk in sight for almost ten months. I tried everything people suggest: switched fertilizers twice, moved them to a brighter spot, even tried the whole "stress them a little" theory by letting the soil dry out more between waterings.

Turns out the actual problem was that I'd been repotting them every time I did a leaf cleanup, which was way too often. I like things tidy, so every few months I'd knock off the yellow bottom leaves and just go ahead and refresh the soil while I was at it. African violets apparently hate being disturbed that much. They want to feel slightly pot-bound before they'll commit to blooming again.

Once I left them alone and only repotted when a plant was clearly rootbound and pushing out of the pot, three of them threw bloom stalks within about six weeks. It felt like such an obvious thing in hindsight but I'd convinced myself more attention equals healthier plant, when really I just needed to leave them be.

Anyone else have a habit that turned out to be the thing sabotaging blooms the whole time? I'm curious if the overwatering trap or the overpotting trap is more common in this sub.

Spent most of Saturday going through every envelope, jar, and random baggie of seeds I've collected over the past four years. I knew it was a lot but seeing it all spread out on the kitchen table was kind of embarrassing. Three different years of the same dent corn variety, way too many brassica seeds from plants that probably crossed with my neighbor's broccoli, and at least six packets of marigolds I don't even remember saving.

The binder system I landed on uses baseball card sleeves with the seed packets slid inside, organized by plant family instead of alphabetically. Makes it so much easier to see at a glance what I've got too much of versus what's actually running low. Turns out I have zero winter squash saved despite swearing I'd save seed from that butternut everyone loved last year. Completely forgot until I was staring at an empty sleeve.

Also found a stash of lettuce seed from a variety I can't even identify anymore because the label rubbed off in storage. Going to grow those out next spring just to see what happens, treat it like a mystery packet. If it turns into something decent I'll actually label it properly this time and maybe offer some at the spring swap.

Anyone else do a full seed audit this time of year? I'm thinking I need to start dating everything with more than just the year, because "2023" doesn't tell me if that was spring or fall harvest and apparently that matters more than I realized for germination rates on some of these.

Took me three failed attempts to figure out my problem was misting instead of soaking. I kept spritzing the moss every day thinking that counted as watering, and the ball itself was bone dry in the center the whole time while the surface moss looked fine for a week or two before browning out.

Switched to dunking the whole thing in a bowl of water for about ten minutes once the ball feels noticeably light, then letting it drain over the sink before it goes back on its dish. The moss finally has that deep green color I kept seeing in photos and not just for a few days after I make it, it's been holding for almost two months now.

The fern I used is a small button fern, and honestly I think part of my early trouble was picking something that wanted more consistent moisture than I was giving it with the misting method. Thinking about trying a peperomia next since I've read they're more forgiving with the dry stretches between soakings.

If anyone has tips on keeping the twine from rotting out over time I'd take them. Mine's held up fine so far but I used a cheap cotton string on the first one and I'm not fully trusting it long term.

I picked up a coffee can full of patches at an estate sale back in the spring of 2024, paid maybe eight bucks for the whole thing because the guy running the sale just wanted it gone. It sat in my closet until this weekend when I finally dumped it all out on the kitchen table and actually looked through everything.

Turns out it was mostly volunteer fire department patches from three different states, a handful of Boy Scout council patches that look like they're from the 60s based on the fabric and stitching style, and a couple of really oddball ones I still can't place. One looks like it might be from a bowling league, embroidered thread on a twill backing, red and gold, with a pin and the number 47 stitched into it. No city name, no year, nothing.

Spent longer than I want to admit trying to reverse image search the fire department ones. A couple matched up to departments that don't even exist anymore, which was kind of a bummer honestly, like finding out the group that made the patch just got absorbed into a bigger district at some point and the identity is basically gone except for this scrap of fabric.

The scout patches were the easiest to place since council patches tend to be documented pretty well online, lots of collector forums with people who've cataloged this stuff for decades. Found out two of them are apparently somewhat sought after because the council merged with another one in the late 70s and stopped producing that specific design.

Anyway I've got them sorted into little ziplock bags now by category, still no idea what to do with the mystery bowling one. If anyone has run into similar unmarked league patches before I'd be curious how you went about tracking down the source, feels like a dead end right now but I'm not ready to give up on it.