I started another batch with soiless mix filled to the top. All of them (collards, bok choi, endive, escarole...etc) just started to develop the first true leaf, but one of the mustard green's cotyledon is still yellowish and dying. Its always the mustard greens looking very bad...? I was going to plant fewer pots at first, but every one of the seeds germinated so I decided to plant them all but didn't made enough mix. So all the pots were half filled (2 inches deep)...I thought they would do OK until transplant.

I live in El Paso, Texas. It's supposed to be "rainy season", but taking in mind that El Paso is in the middle of a desert, we don't have much humidity nor precipitation, so the sun is harsh and the environment utterly dry. Also my backyard is full of critters and this day I experimented with the healthiest seedling I had, but after a while outside I noticed these tiny spiders running up and down the stem and the leaves, so that leaves my with two questions: - Don't mango trees need a wet environment to thrive, or at least grow in a far more humid place? - Managing and dealing with the critters (mainly bad or pests) wouldn't mean an extra effort and extra money wasted?

I'm not really gonna have any answers for you, Danny, I don't think, but my first comment would be watering 4-5 times a week for a potted plant sounds like a LOT!!!!!!!! You sure their roots didn't get too wet and rot a bit? If you're not sure, get a water meter and stick it in a couple inches and it will tell you how dry or wet it is. That would be the first thing I'd be concerned with before top-working anything on to it. You've got to get those plants healthy again before you do anything with them, as whatever you graft will run into the same problems. mangodog

I'd live with the curling just fine, the burning of leaves is my problem, because they fell afterwards. You can see the top 2 pics and how the green color is turning to black. I'm almost pretty sure now it's spiders. We have plenty of them here, and I've crashed at least 5 tiny ones today, I've found them hanging from the leaves with their strings or whatever that thing is called. I've used all sorts of soil. Sandy one and I mean just sand taken from clean sand-dunes, sand plus potting soil, pure Ukrainian potting soil alone, and sand plus clay plus potting soil...etc I've started to give them an organic fertilizer and spray them with a pack of minerals. At the beginning I made their pots drench with water just to fill in any air in the soil, as I used to do with the citrus seedlings, but it seemed that it was a huge mistake. So far everything is in pots and not in the ground, because I live in an apartment, and the piece of land to be a little farm for my experiments is still a barren land and has no wind cover, which will be deadly during the summer and the coming autumn. The temp hits 45-48ðC in the summer, and 12-18ðC in winter. At night in winter it drops to 0ðC sometimes but not for long, and if it's a barren land than a -2ðC has been recorded. Also, winter is really dry here, and even the summer of the last couple of years had been dry as well. The pots right now are in the shaded balcony, and the temp there is around 27ðC, and I don't think they're hardened enough to be fully exposed to our harsh weather. Looking forward to hear from you and your experience.