Amy Gardner Of Eden v1.1: Outdoor 420 Featuring Star Pupil x WeaponX, PCK, Lilly & Purple Satellite

[Lerugged]

We are just going into our fire season. Had a few close calls a few years ago. Our fynbos had adapted to the fires and along with the proteas are the first to regenerate. Sucks for all the animals though and especially when there are water shortages. Hoping they get them under control soon.

 

[Amy Gardner]

sounds like it may be for the best after all?

It was a good test - it sounded like a reasonable thong to do, and then doing it was like, sheesh! Not reasonable at all

can’t help but think of the poor animals too.

I know, me too! Our bush animals have been around a lot and there are many more birds including ones we don’t always see.

Sucks for all the animals though and especially when there are water shortages

The drought conditions are tough so we’re sharing our water with them - all the kangaroos and wallabies are drinking from the bird baths and ponds and a couple of other dishes of water we’ve been putting out ‘specially. Today turned colder, with thankfully little wind and some moisture in the air for a change.

On the garden front, Lilly is an interesting mutant of some kind. I took some pics but haven’t got them off the camera onto the iPad yet. There seems to be 3 leaflets coming as the first set of leaves, and they all ‘face’ the same way, in a fan-like arrangement. Not sure if it’s something it will grow out of or not. At the moment I suspect not. I’ll look forward to hearing some opinions about it once I get the photos online and you all get to see it. It’s a head scratcher for sure . I’ll need to decide really soon whether to drop another seed or not. I’ll get the pics up in the morning, I’m winding down for the day now.

 

[CraZysWeeD]

All the brighter reddish-purple areas are that way because of the red stems

Amazing, it looks like its own micro cosmos with all colors. Does this bring any new taste to the smoke?

Wildfires are dangerous, its progression is devastating for living wildlife and plants but as you said nature quickly finds its ways to repopulate these areas. It can even promote species to live there that wasn't indigenous to the place before the fire.

 

[Amy Gardner]

The soil

It seeems a good idea to track the development of the now custom amended soil in my raised bed. I’m doing it the lazy way and copy-pasting from some previous posts about it .

Last season was the first season w the DBHBB custom amendment. Prior to that, the raised bed began with soil I built for my grow in the summer of 2017-18: a mix of humus from various worm composted sources and lots of little rocks (that are just in the ground here, lots of quartz) and some veggie garden mix from the garden centre, plus the ‘dirt’ and clay from our forest and around the garden. I amended it with Oyster shell flour, crushed limestone, basalt and gypsum (aiming for the 6/5/3 ratio), along with small amounts of neem, wood ash and biochar, kelp meal and dead insects, a little borax and a little epsoms.

During the grow, I used my own-made lactobacillus serum and fermented teas of seaweed and another from stinging nettle. I foliar sprayed regularly using seaweed and casuarina - which is a big tree that grows here and is equivalent to horsetail so is very nutritious and a great antifungal agent. It was the first time I’d done something other than stick a seed amongst the ornamental garden and water it with ‘Seasol’ for the duration - I was pretty happy with the soil and the grow.

I then had that soil tested to see if it was amendable for Doc’s kit, which it was.

The results of that soil test, after a full grow and a winter, looked like this:

Doc sent me this report, along with a recipe to do up my own amendment to make it compatible with the kit, which he said would probably take 2 seasons to reach a baseline. I also had the option of having him make the amendment up for me and send it. Seeing as that sounded better and easier and I needed kit supplies anyway, I got Doc to do it

Because the micronutirents are low, I was directed to use Snake Oil - a very powerful booster for such things. It goes in with the brix foliar spray, but only once per month. (I’m assuming I’ll do that gain this year - but I’ll keep an eye on the plants and play that by ear, or eye ... ).

So at very little cost, including the cost of the soil test itself, I ended up with enough amendment to cover the 2 seasons Doc said it would take to bring the soil into line.

Last year’s grow went well in it and during this winter just past I had my garden helper in to do the hard labor needed to prep the raised bed for the coming season.

I decided to add to the volume and structure of the soil so first he dug up what was already there, loosening it up to a little over 1’ deep and adding some corro tin at the front for more retainer height. We then added on top the following; a wheelbarrow full of the soil from the bush pod sites I grew in a couple of seasons ago, a few litres of worm castings and 18L of hydrated coco coir. He dug this into the existing layer and blended it all together really well. Then we repeated that process. Once done we worked the custom dry amendment into the top few inches of soil and watered it in gently. *We expect good rains throughout spring

So it had about 10 gallons of coco, about 5L of worm castings, about 30gal of leftover soil combined with native bush soil added — and the custom DBHBB amendment scratched into the topsoil. I think I have about 500mm depth to the very hard and eucalyptus-root-filled sub-soil below, now.

*I noted up there that we expected good spring rains That was copied text from a few months ago and those spring rains didn’t really come. We had some in September so things would have been watered in nicely then, but very little since, so it dried out a lot.

This week I soaked it deeply and was pleased to find the soil structure very nice. It didnt take long to get fully saturated

This current season will be the third grow in it, the second as DBHBB. At the end of this grow, this soil will get DBHBB tested again

 

[Heavenly Hybrid]

If I was a plant, I would totally want to cozy up in that raised bed. Great work Amy, can’t wait to see what they do!

 

[Amy Gardner]

Early Update ​

High folks! I didn’t expect to have enough going on to warrant a proper update for at least a week. But, life happens...

Star Pupil x Weapon X.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 6

... even under duress.

Star Pupil x Weapon X.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 6

And death happens too. Northern Lights yesterday...

Northern Lights.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 5

... and then today

Northern Lights.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019
• 1

Day 6. Decapitated by some unknown critter overnight. Outdoor growing is perilous!

It makes for interesting photographic opportunities tho’

RIP Northern Lights.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

NL-stem.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

And then, there are mutants.

Mutant Lilly.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 4. Also a bit nibbled by something

Mutant Lilly.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 4

It’s also a bit nibbled - by whatever decapitated NL and nibbled SP x WX, I presume. I tried to open up the leaflets a bit to see if there was any growth tip at all and can’t really see one. Hard to show in a picture

Mutant Lilly.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 5. Also a bit nibbled by something

I’d already decided that this Lillymut was not something I wanted to pursue and to drop another Lilly seed (my last, now) ...

Lilly.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

... but I decided that the discovery of a headless Northern Lights followed by a problem with the rest of my NL seeds (which I’ll cover in a seperate post below), could maybe lead me in a diffferent direction replacement-wise. So I pulled out the seed box and rifled through it. I’ve recently been thinking a lot about needing something for daytime that isn’t racey or energetic at all but also isn’t a potential knock-out. I’ve loved all the Kush that has come through the garden so far and thought, maybe a nice smooth Kush that isnt too intense might be nice.

So, life takes another run at it!

NewDrop.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

According to the breeder/seedbank, Ace seeds, Pakistan Chitral Kush has high resistance to heat, cold, mildew, and botrytis . It is a 100% indica with 8-12% THC and up to 2% CBD. Ace seeds website says this about it:

Chitral is widely known in the cannabis world as being producer of one of the best Pakistani hashes.
The Pakistan Chitral line we offer you here at ACE Seeds is an excellent pure kush bred since the mid-90’s by Cannabiogen.

This indica is an explosion of colors, tastes and scents with two main phenotypes: one green and the other very colorful. Both phenotypes produce plants with high adaptability, short flowering time, generous resin production and pleasant hash plant effect.

Pakistan Chitral Kush is not only surprising due to its aroma, beauty and quality. It is also one of the few pure indicas that matures correctly even under rainy conditions, in contrast with most of the current afghani strains that easily rot under these conditions.

A true 'jewel' for the pure indica lovers and cannabis breeding.

I bought these because I think PCK will handle the highly variable environment here fairly well so I’m actually really stoked this ‘setback’ happened and pushed me in its direction. I’m hoping and expecting it will be a great toke for ‘sipping’ on, throughout a day. Not to mention some hashy dry-sift hash...

Not to be left out, the Purple Satellites are hanging in ok and have the most beautiful purpling on all their tips. Pretty!

Purple Satellite.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 5

Purple Satellite.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Dec 6, 2019

Day 6

I’ve been tempted to drop the new seeds straight into the ground (like I used to grow) but the bad drought conditions mean that there is a heavy pest pressure on the garden right now w lots of little grass hoppers and flying pesties so I might ‘pamper’ them out of their shells inside, in peat pucks, and then take it from there.

We don’t have a lot of capacity to to heaps about the pest pressure but I’ll be doing a bit of pre-planting IPM (Integrated Pest Management) to the raised bed later today. A bit of a neem drench, with some mosquito dunk dissolved in the water as well.
Never a dull moment eh!

I’m having a wonderful Saturday here. It’s finals weekend for the women’s Big Bash League cricket - which is a 3hr ‘rockNroll’, action packed version of cricket. Semi-finals today. I have 2 favourite teams I really wanted to see play each other in the final and so far one of them has made it :thumb. Second semi final still to come...

Bubba Hash and popcorn in their appropriate bowls!



Wishing everyone a great weekend

 

[Amy Gardner]

And hey! I never realised before that Hawai’i, when written in capitals with the apostrophe, is kind of a pallendrome. Those little shot glasses are turned around so we’re looking at HAWAI’I backwards.

So - about the Northern Lights seeds. I was looking closely at them, thinking about choosing another, and I spotted this

Fuzzy spores growing out of the volcano tips. That’s not good. Pics are crappy too sorry - couldn’t make the flash go off . Somewhere along the line some moisture got in there, obviously. It’s possible it happened when I was checking them before, when I first dropped the seeds - there was a little splash but at the time I thought I’d caught it before anything got contaminated. I can’t even remember if the NL seeds were out at that time. I also dont know if it would happen that quickly (5days?). In any case, all my other seeds seem fine, as do the other baggies that came with the NL so no harm done. I haven’t tossed them yet - I don’t know if they’re salvageable or not (maybe w H202?). Anyone seen this before, and seen them salvaged?

 

[Lerugged]

No idea ..Maybe just try germ a few if you have space for them? Not sure how or if anything Will happen but interesting for sure. If it's not bugs topping my seedlings its my cat

 

[InTheShed]

Beauty in destruction. Your babies are taking a beating. Do you have one of those screen domes folks use to keep flies off outside food? They would keep the larger pests at bay.

Hawah!

Chitral Kush has high resistance to heat, cold, mildew, and botrytis

Ash?

 

[Amy Gardner]

Certainly no room at this stage. I might have to let them go. I’m not overly bothered by any of it TBH. Mostly it feels like things are turning out nicely as a result of the ‘mishaps’ - I’m happy to have the PCK in water.

Beauty in destruction

Exactly

Your babies are taking a beating.

It often happens outside. Only the tough survive.

Do you have one of those screen domes folks use to keep flies off outside food?

I was thinking about exactly that earlier today!

Ash?

right! They say it’s highly ‘adaptable’ so I’m gonna say, “yes!”

 

[Amy Gardner]

Weekly Update ​

Even tho I dropped an early update because of ‘events’, I’ll aim to keep a close-to-weekly update as this grow goes forward.

So in summary of the week since sprout: Weather! We’ve had it all!

Well no hail or snow, so maybe not all, but we’ve had super hot temps and ripping winds during the day, cold nights, and amazingly low daytime humidity followed by days that barely got above 20ºC with cloud cover and smoke haze blocking out the sun and then yesterday, super hot again, although thankfully without the ripping winds. Not exactly ideal conditions for new seedlings, but they are mostly all surviving and, better yet, beginning to grow.

Also this week, we saw the decapitation of Northern Lights by some tiny critter that’s been getting into the outdoor seed raising zone, Lilly tuned out to be a mutant, and I discovered some fuzzy funk on my remaining Northern Lights seeds (I think I know what happened - lesson learned).

So, Northern Lights is off the roster, Pakistan Chitral Kush entered to take its place and I dropped another Lilly seed.

Yesterday the raised bed got a soaking followed by a neem oil drench with Bti added to the water and, shock horror, I let it be mulched! Drought conditions are so bad I succumbed to the pressure

I read around the 420 site a bit for what Doc has to say about mulch and it’s fine to use with the kit when necessary outdoors. He recommends either rice straw or a mix of pine bark and pumice. I don’t have access to those easily (and don’t want to support the Australian rice industry - water thieves) so I went with what we use all over the garden, pea straw. Hope that’s ok!

I think it got put down too thick so I may get the helper to pull some out - it’s about 3-4” thick which seems too much to me but I know nothing about mulching, maybe it’s fine. I worry about getting the drenches through it when the time comes - we had 2ml of rain overnight and it only wet the top 1” of the mulch Any thoughts about that are welcome. Do you think pulling it back to an inch or so is a better idea?
Lilly and PCK haven’t shown themselves yet, today is day 2 in the peat puck so, any minute now

Meanwhile, the seedlings are all at different stages of work on their 2nd node, despite the challenging conditions.
Go kids!

The Purple Satellites

The Star Pupil x Weapon Xs

They’ve been left to hang there on the raised bed the last 4-5days so I’m stoked they’ve all survived so far

They all got a full drench yesterday because the pots were almost completely dry (35% RH days and wind and heat will do that!). It was almost plain water, but it also had in it a little Tea, a tiny amount of TP and some Bti.

The round up of the week would’nt be complete if i didnt recap the abandoned auto project. I’ll type these words again so as to send the message loud and clear to my body and brain: I don’t commit to anything that needs to happen on a daily basis - Get it? Got it? Good! Hopefully I’ll learn one day. Growing autos in pots outside are more hassle than it’s worth - a few crazy environmental event and all bets are off! I’ve culled them both. I may throw a seed or 2 to into our veggie wicking beds like i did last year as they were kinda fun - we’ll see.

It’s nice to be settling in to another outdoor grow and I’m happy just having the phototperiod plants to care for.

The fires close to us have also meant that our forest is a bit of a shit-fight of birds at the moment. 70000 hectares of forest up in smoke is gonna displace a lot of birds! We have many that aren’t usually here and there’s a lot of shouting going on! All the bush is very stressed.

Meanwhile, 2ml of rain overnight ain’t gonna break any drought!

We’ve been refilling the bird baths more often than usual and putting out extra containers of water about the place as well, for the animals and birds that live near here. Some of you will remember the Old Man Wallaby that lived here since before us and was critter of the week on many occasions, and that he died sometime during last season (tribute to him in this post). Well, one of the younger swamp wallabies has been hanging around the edges the last few months. We think it’s a female and that it’s his offspring, perhaps. It’s super shy and flighty, mostly we see it disappearing super fast into the bush when we come out the door! But the drought conditions will make even the skittiest critter hold its ground, especially for water!

So pretty! Welcome to the grow journal little one!

That dying fern all around there is a very telling indicator of the rough drought conditions... it never dies! It’s absolutely our gauge of how dry things are, and it’s telling us things are pretty dire. Rain is forecast for later this week - fingers crossed folks!

It’s super nice to be settling in to another outdoor grow - no fans, no noise, no tent zippers, just the sun and the wild machinations of Mother Nature.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable and recharging weekend filled with your favourite cannabis.

I just can’t get Bubba Hash out of the bowl at the moment, it’s just so very nice

Thanks all, for visiting!

 

[InTheShed]

What a lovely (if thirsty) Wallaby! Maybe she'll learn you're not one of those bad humans after all .

No clue about mulch, but here's to the four survivors.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Isn’t she! We think its a she - so skitish it’s been hard to get a ‘look’ Usually with the males, you’ll spot their balls quite easily as they scamper off into the bush. I haven’t been able to spot that yet. It will require a good front to view to see if it has a pouch or not! With the kangaroos, it’s easy to tell from their physicality once they’re of a certain age, but the wallabies don’t seem to develop differently as adults the way the kangas do. Will have to wait and see.

 

[Carcass]

That Wallaby is so cute!...I also have Marsupials in my backyard- possums...No pics,but just envision a big,mangy looking rat with needle sharp teeth...
One actually came into the house a few years ago...fun fact: If you catch a possum in your house with a snare around it's neck, it will poop all the way out the door...

The little ladies are looking super happy today,Amy!

 

[Gazoo]

Page 3, a bit late

That wallaby photo reminded me how they would scare the **** out of me
when walking into a group of them at night, **** jumping up everywhere

 

[SweetSue]

It did almost take me a week Shed. If not for the personal invite....

Gosh Amy, I may not catch up, but I loved the intro. No one puts together one that’s more informative and entertaining.

I sense a lot of pineapple potential in your future. Reading the lineup I was thinking the title could have been “Amy’s Canna Fruit Salad” Lol! I was also thinking how proud I am to belong to a community that does all it can to help each other succeed.

Thanks Amy. It helps to have you grab me by the hand sometimes. I’ll back up and see how much history I can cover while I’m waiting on planes. The crowd that loves and laughs in your yard always makes for an entertaining read.

I became a mother in 1980. Not so long ago at all. Lol!

 

[CraZysWeeD]

Hope the cute jumper won't eat your garden.

 

[dr.h00k]

.........I was pumped that the Lilly popped for you, then disappointed when she was mutant...hoping the next one grows proper...cheerz......h00k......

 

[Amy Gardner]

catch a possum in your house with a snare around it's neck, it will poop all the way out the door...

Yeah - and you dont want to be anywhere in the vicinity of underneath a possum when it’s stressed or threatened either because one way they respond to that is to piss! Friend of mine got fully done once when trying to get a possum off their renno stud frame in the middle of the night. He didn’t get what was happening at first so he just stood there in it, trying to look up and see what was going on Soaked!

 

[Seedlingmtl]