From Water to Soil

February 23, 2025
By Aathreya Kadambi

I recently transplanted two of my basil plants which were growing in water to soil from my compost bin (which admittedly contains too much browns to greens to be considered proper compost). So far, it looks like they’re really enjoying it! Not only that, but it seems a baby plant has also sprouted right near one of my basils! I’m excited to see what it will grow into. I think the soil is giving the basils much more structure, support, and nutrients to grow.

Not only that, I think they weren’t too shocked by the sudden terrain change. I put the water into a jar of water in the hopes that they could draw in as much water as they needed from below. Starting them in water forced great root growth, and now I think that might be really allowing them to flourish in the new soil environment. I’m also really happy because the soil I used was actually revived soil; it started out extremely dry and other plants didn’t really grow in it, but by slowly adding in organic matter I think I was able to somewhat revive it. That being said, given how many tea leaves I put in, I was worried that it would be too acidic, but it seems the basils are doing fine! I read that basil actually likes slightly acidic soil, so maybe the tea leaves actually helped.

Speaking of sudden terrain changes, I’m sort of going through one myself. Unlike my basils, though, I’m probably not doing as well yet… 😭. My goal for this last semester of junior year was to find “intellectual freedom”, this idea I sorta just made up, but essentially that I can learn anything I want to, extremely fast. Because of that, I sort of took an excessive course load, and that means a lot of work.

That being said, I think discipline, organization, and consistency are the main things standing in my way. These have always been issues of mine, but I promised to fix them by this semester, so I have to lock in. I also started reading Atomic Habits due to a recommendation from a friend, which has been somewhat interesting so far. In particular, I do like the emphasis on developing systems rather than goals, and the idea that 1% reductions are just as damaging as 1% gains are amazing. Those aren’t things I’d really thought about before. On top of what Clear mentioned, I also thought it was interesting that the downward trajectory is much more steep than the upward one, due to the convex shape independent of trajectory.

So for my first atomic habit, I’ll aim to read and write a review for one chapter of a book each day, and one paper every three days. The chapter reviews will be posted on my other blog’s thoughts page: Teleport!