Growing Cotton

I wanted to hold off on this post until I knew my plants would take. If you don't know that I am in a climate that normally cotton doesn't grow in therefore I've been trying to grow it and I didn't want to show this post because if it dies and then I would have no posts. But since it is now being written I can safely say that cotton grows indoors in the UK.

So what do you need?
container for the seeds
seeds
soil
hot water
time
sun

I used those bead containers with lids for my mini green houses. You need to plant the seeds 1in down and these are 1.5 in so perfect. I labelled them so I knew which ones were which, I have green, pima, and regular cotton. I put soil in the containers, dry planted the seeds and then pour hot water on them, why? Because you need the soil a certain temperature for them to germinate. Most seeds are resistant to slightly hot temperatures so putting hot water over them isn't going to harm them one bit. The potting soil is normal MiracleGro for indoor plants. I am not getting paid to say this but I swear by this brand and this product. So here are the first few days of cotton growing:

Seeds arrive from MRC seeds here in the UK. 

I got the pima, green and regular white cotton seeds.

Since Pima seeds are a bit pricey I used my green and normal white ones first.

These started life on the window sill because o our incredibly warm weather, but as it cooled they moved more inwards in my room. I should state I have a Daylight bulb because of Vitamin D issues here, so they were getting the min 6 hours of daylight.

Day 1: 10-Aug-2012 Expected germination: 24-31 Aug 2012

 Day 4: Germination... wait what? 4 days later not 7-14 days?? 14-Aug-2012

Proof is in the picture, those are the original seedlings in the pot and then the new set ready to go for growing.

Day 5: 15-Aug-2012 I didn't know plants grew overnight... New meaning to watching grass grow...

Yeah this is literally about 12 hours later.

Now you see why I stand by MiracleGro...