MerryAnna's Swazi Adventure

[Amy Gardner]

... celebrate it by dancing around in the garden in my drawers, or something earth mother type thing
.

.. right on! Just the kind of earth witchy thing I always think sounds kinda cool, but never actually do. (I am known to do semi regular Sage burning smudges around the house and property tho .)

I think we should definitely do some happy ritual to mark the solstice, as sister outdoor growers south of the equator. And all this sunshine... drawers only it is! . Hell, SweetSue harvests in her birthday suit as far as I know - which sounds wonderful - so if it weren't for the ticks and the ants and the mosquitoes I'd get all 'forest nymph' for the occasion. ..

 

[Amy Gardner]

It funny isn't it the way you'll type phrases in a forum chat that you never actually say...

"right on..." LMAO

 

[Imhigh85]

Oh Lord I'm glad I wandered in on this conversation something's been bothering me for years I have these weird nightmares that the plants are actually haunting me because I've killed so many of them I become the tree and they harvest me and it's horrible it's terrible I think they want to smoke me but then I wake up and then I have to smoke so if anybody could help me here just let me know

 

[MerryAnna]

It funny isn't it the way you'll type phrases in a forum chat that you never actually say...

"right on..." LMAO

I hear you, sister.
Somehow, it seems the perfect vehicle for cliches... maybe because without tonality & specific inflections, and lacking the big screen emotional showcase that is body language, we fall back onto these neutral phrases to show politeness, or that we're all similar... idk. I love smoking my girls, they make me think interesting things.

 

[MerryAnna]

.. right on! Just the kind of earth witchy thing I always think sounds kinda cool, but never actually do. (I am known to do semi regular Sage burning smudges around the house and property tho .)

I think we should definitely do some happy ritual to mark the solstice, as sister outdoor growers south of the equator. And all this sunshine... drawers only it is! . Hell, SweetSue harvests in her birthday suit as far as I know - which sounds wonderful - so if it weren't for the ticks and the ants and the mosquitoes I'd get all 'forest nymph' for the occasion. ..

AHA!!!
i cleaned out my nest of a bedroom today (it's been driving me nuts for over 2 months now), and besides loads of weed and a fair amount of cash, i found some fire lanterns. For solstice, i shall write blessings upon it, and send it into the aether as wishes to the spirit of mother Gaia.
That seems eldritch enough, don't you think? Also, it might be inappropriate, but i still know the witches' speech from macbeth...
Maybe prospero & ariel are better bets for good chants...

 

[MerryAnna]

Oh Lord I'm glad I wandered in on this conversation something's been bothering me for years I have these weird nightmares that the plants are actually haunting me because I've killed so many of them I become the tree and they harvest me and it's horrible it's terrible I think they want to smoke me but then I wake up and then I have to smoke so if anybody could help me here just let me know

Erm....
Say "I am your father, Lu... Plants". Then they can't kill you, they get upset & you sneak away to the safety of the death star...

 

[Amy Gardner]

AHA!!!
...besides loads of weed and a fair amount of cash, i found some fire lanterns. For solstice, i shall write blessings upon it, and send it into the aether as wishes to the spirit of mother Gaia.
That seems eldritch enough, don't you think?
...
.......

Yes I do! I shall find something equally excellent to do here and report back. .

 

[MerryAnna]

Yes I do! I shall find something equally excellent to do here and report back. .

Aw, nerts, i just checked the lunar calender, it's a tiny waxing crescent on Dec 21st. Nothing ominous like a full or even a new moon. Dismal portent.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Oh Lord I'm glad I wandered in on this conversation something's been bothering me for years I have these weird nightmares that the plants are actually haunting me because I've killed so many of them I become the tree and they harvest me and it's horrible it's terrible I think they want to smoke me but then I wake up and then I have to smoke so if anybody could help me here just let me know.

Erm....
Say "I am your father, Lu... Plants". Then they can't kill you, they get upset & you sneak away to the safety of the death star...
...

Geez High, that's a frightfilled nighttime adventure .. Have you been reading the Secret Life of Plants before you go to sleep? .

 

[MerryAnna]

Geez High, that's a frightfilled nighttime adventure .. Have you been reading the Secret Life of Plants before you go to sleep? .

No, mate, i think he's been huffing paint thinners & watching "Attack of the giant killer tomatoes" on late night scary channels. And if he doesn't get a good night's sleep, he'll be a zombie at school tomorrow. These kids with their fright flicks & household intoxicants... whayever is the world coming to?

 

[Imhigh85]

okay here's what's happening I have to plants that are absolutely beautiful and stand out above and beyond all my others I have not dealt with these two strains before one is from way back when and one is a lot more recent so the one is pre 98 berries and then the other one is platinum Girl Scout cookies I really don't want to kill them but I'm running right up on harvest time so that's really is a reoccurring dream it's on my conscience I don't want to kill him but I kind of have to it's a countdown till January 6th and then I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown

 

[MerryAnna]

Update:
We're a week away from the summer solstice down here. Sun is shining, thunderstorms late afternoon, work is coming in steadily (although everything is closed for the holidays & most people have invaded the coastal provinces for a beach vacation), and boy oh boy, is there fun in the garden...
1. Swazi journal girls:
They have been terribly neglected, as i've been working round the clock for about 2/3 months now. I've soothed myself with the following:
A) every rain storm has given them a solid foliar dose of N.
B) soil is very healthy (judging by the amount of weeds that keep popping up), and i buried a LOAD of papayas, eggshells, beets & butternuts under some compost under some worm castings & added a load of LAB & microbacteria to every layer. P & K are present, as are minerals like Mg, Mn, B, S, Cu, Ca etc etc etc. There's enough food available, it's yp to the roots.
C) i feed beet & papaya FPJ directly to the soil at the roots' level (upside down 2l bottle with holes drilled through the cap & bottom & buried 3/4 of its length in the soil. )
This is a pic of the journal girls 1 week ago:

This is today:

Same angle as last week, this is how much they've recovered. I stripped out some of the smaller offshoots off the lateral branches, and removed budsites closest to the main stems on the trained plants. (Pic 1). S/c = supercropped(branches snapped/bent & taped), f/l trim = fan leaves trimmed away (in veg), FIM = "Fudge, i missed" technique - i did this to the plants labeled "untrained" in pic 1.
If one of the labels baffles you, i'll explain on request.

The girls are getting a teensy bit more sunlight per day, but still not as much as i'd mistakenly planned for, but that's life. They're all between 3.5 - 4.5 ft tall, so not too bad.

Here are my other beasties: they're a bit bigger/bushier:
Before supercropping:

2 days after s/cropping:

Check out the trunks (yup, not stems): i can't circle the front one with my hand

I did some more s/c over the past week, it just keeps getting higher although the main colas are growing at 90° - the lower shoots just keep outgrowing 5ft, it's stressing me

The 2 girls in front are left over from my first round of journalling: i hatched them in august, but these were latecomers & didn't get mentioned as the rest of them flipped due to funky weather. They were transplanted beginning september, topped in october, both about 3.5 - 4ft in height, but bushy. I hope you can see how they lean away from each other - they train themselves & make enough space for themselves if they're vegged too close together. Both stems grow at about 45° angles, which makes for very interesting grow patterns in the secondary & lateral shoots.

It's a rather sunny day, so i'll pop back in later, i'm off to cuddle with my giant weed bushes.
Ps: i love these little things

Getting a tan on some mint leaves.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Oiooh Anna you're garden is lovey ..

Thanks for the update. Is that a form of what you called lasagne gardening, the way you describe what's in the soil? They certainly seem to like it and you're seeing some pretty nice plants for not getting as much sun as you were expecting/hoping. And I looove the way you describe them growing away from each other for space - clever plants!!So nice to have the chance to spend some time there. Your carry over Swazis are going to be kind of monstrous I think, as well as the super cropped sister in the first pic, what a beauty. Next year I am totally aiming for somewhere close to that kind of size by this time of the season - it's gonna get exciting for you that's for sure. . I look forward to watching it unfold .

Hope you had a lovely day in that garden and have some more time to spend in there with them just chilling over the rest of the weekend...

.blessings to your garden from across the Atlantic and 2 continents! ..

 

[MerryAnna]

Oiooh Anna you're garden is lovey ..

Thanks for the update. Is that a form of what you called lasagne gardening, the way you describe what's in the soil? They certainly seem to like it and you're seeing some pretty nice plants for not getting as much sun as you were expecting/hoping. And I looove the way you describe them growing away from each other for space - clever plants!!So nice to have the chance to spend some time there. Your carry over Swazis are going to be kind of monstrous I think, as well as the super cropped sister in the first pic, what a beauty. Next year I am totally aiming for somewhere close to that kind of size by this time of the season - it's gonna get exciting for you that's for sure. . I look forward to watching it unfold .

Hope you had a lovely day in that garden and have some more time to spend in there with them just chilling over the rest of the weekend...

.blessings to your garden from across the Atlantic and 2 continents! ..

Hiya, Amy!
Thanks for popping over, it's like having a long distance garden/tea party, i even wore a hat & sundress today (it was that kind of saturday).
I'm not sure it's "proper"lasagna bedding, it's just my version of doing it in a hurry:
1) dig great big hole
2) fill halfway with plant & vegetable matter, fruit etc because the buds need that P & K & Ca, not N so much. Other layers are pre-digested, so the plants have something scrummy to munch on - i love my worm castings, lab & micro-bac to establish root growth as i haven't grown in this particular spot in a while (drought).
3)fill with compost & soil of some sort, stick seeds/plants in and wait.
I try to ascertain the root depth & grow phase & then correlate them, so the roots hit the right layer for their particular phase. I just try to improve the overall soil quality, and i feed the soil & roots. The monster girls have had only 2 foliar feeds: the rest of the nutes are in the soil, and they're using it. (They were pretty big before the rain started in ernest, it helped thicken out the trunks & bush them out a bit).

Amy, next year you won't know what to do with your monsters, year 1 (of growing seriously) is a giant experiment, year 2 is a breeze. Right now, you're focused on the rain, sun, temps etc, next year they'll come more naturally. I have to say that i have greater success with my in situ germinated girls than with my transplants. I find directly in soil more forgiving than pots, i just can't figure my ratios, feeds etc out correctly.

Thanks for being so lovely & supportive, Amy. It helps to have a private little cheering section, a different perspective, a nudge to update. The flowering girls get boring (3 months is a loooooong time, some like going for 4), especially if you're trying hard not to chop them out of impatience, and i rarely notice the difference from week to week. So thanks for being interested, it motivates me ❤. (It's called having a work buddy, ADHD people get really bored very easily, i actually used to fall asleep in staff meetings longer than 30 mins, not a popular employee in the end, me).
Have loads of fun in the sun, have you thought of something to do yet?
X's & O's.

I've decided to plant some ladies on the solstice (correct lunar phase for planting) for a mid-late summer grow, autumn/winter harvest. Are you in? Pop a seed in the ground in a pod, see if you can spot a difference in the grows... idk, you do you

 

[MerryAnna]

Last two paragraphs somehow got switched... hmmm

 

[Amy Gardner]

[/I
I did some more s/c over the past week, it just keeps getting higher although the main colas are growing at 90° - the lower shoots just keep outgrowing 5ft, it's stressing me

Can you maybe just keep pruning those shoots back until it starts to preflower? I know indoor growers do this... might help to keep it below the fence line. It's going to stretch once it hits flower isn't it?

 

[MerryAnna]

Can you maybe just keep pruning those shoots back until it starts to preflower? I know indoor growers do this... might help to keep it below the fence line. It's going to stretch once it hits flower isn't it?

They both flipped in the last 2 weeks... it's the flowering stretch that's pushing them, i don't want to stress them overly, s/c seems the safest....

 

[Amy Gardner]

I've decided to plant some ladies on the solstice (correct lunar phase for planting) for a mid-late summer grow, autumn/winter harvest. Are you in? Pop a seed in the ground in a pod, see if you can spot a difference in the grows... idk, you do you .

Ooh - yes. I'm in! Sounds perfect and actually answered a question I keep forgetting to ask you (i.e., when do you suggest I drop my second round of seeds?)

 

[Amy Gardner]

They both flipped in the last 2 weeks... it's the flowering stretch that's pushing them, i don't want to stress them overly, s/c seems the safest....

Aaaah... well more super-cropping or tying down it is then!

 

[Amy Gardner]

.

Amy, next year you won't know what to do with your monsters,

I will you know .. I will look at them!

Honestly, even my tiny little babies I have now... I can look at them for hours. Such an amazingly beautiful plant. On a recent super hot day, there they were, every plant around them in the vege patch was wilting and practically lying down and the Ganja was perky as all get out. Dancing in the breeze and reaching for the sky (ok so they do this to lessen the light heat intensity but it looked like reaching for it!). They just give off such a magical quality and I never tire of looking at them.