So I placed these in the compost bin a while ago, and the promptly forgot about them. In some spots the image is mostly latent. Nearly completely gone, the staining came out with very interesting patterns on the print. I am happy with these as well just thought it came out well.
The 10 week mark…Still stagnant, not a whole lot of change in either jar at this point, and if anything the plants are looking slightly weaker again. I made the decision to leave them in the growing jar for another week for two reasons. I am hoping that next week they will appear stronger again and in order to get a good layout on the grid part of the project. I did not like the grid that came out this week.
Again these jars appear to be reflective of life for me. Existing in some sort of strange holding pattern with minor movements forward, but no complete collapse at the same time. No leaps and bounds of change. Maybe the transplant see big change is what they need to move forward. Or maybe it will be the death of them.
I have been monitoring the terrariums daily, watching for changes in the environments. I tried to make some decisions on how i was going to forward with this, how often was i going to photograph them, in order to show change. I decided weekly at the beginning of the project, but as i monitor daily I may adjust the schedule if something exciting happens and choose to photograph at a different time.
So the compost was significantly less volume in one week, and I already have some significant growth of the seeds. I have not needed to water the plants at all the soil is still plenty moist as well as the compost. This is very exciting and seems to be progressing nicely.
I realized in my last post I did not describe what was in the jars.
Compost Jar (from bottom up)- rocks, activated charcoal, organic moss, organic soil, orange peal (fresh and dried), egg shells, tea bags, coffee grounds, yard waste green and dried.
Growth Jar (from bottom up)- rocks, activated charcoal, moss, organic soil, basil seeds, purple basil seeds, chive seeds
The first layer of rocks, activated charcoal, moss, provide for drainage and filtering of the water that is in the environment.
The only thing I have done to these since the beginning is to mix the compost before photographing. After researching compost in order to achieve best results you should turn the pile.
Jerry Slough Photography 