One of the larger tororo-aoi plants seems to be dying back and losing all its leaves, though the pods are still on it and some are showing signs of ripening.
The other large plants seem fine, so I don’t know what’s bothering this one.
One of the other large plants has a fully-ripe pod on it:
As the pods ripen, they dry out and split, and, I assume, eventually open up to disperse the seeds. As they ripen I’ll be harvesting them and keeping them in the sunroom to dry them out to avoid mould growth, and at the end of the season I’ll strip out all the seeds.
I will be doing the same for the smaller plants, which have smaller pods and smaller seeds. Although I originally mused about cross-pollination experiments, the flowers shift from bud form, open up, and wilt away all within a day, and careful twice-daily inspections would be needed. Instead I took the lazy route and, once the small plants started flowering, I removed all flowers and buds from the large plants.
I think I forgot to mention it, but the direct-seeded plants are now in full bloom as well as the plants started indoors. The plants pretty much shade all the ground so weed growth is minimized and I’ve been managing to keep this garden clean.
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