Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

[Radogast]

Such a nice update Amy

Tucking your plants in in different ways, talking to the hover flies - thanks for sharing.

 

[KingJoe83]

Yes tucking is saving my grow it's annoying but I only do it when I feed them twice a day .

But yes it's all about getting those bud sites opened up .

You can even if had width for space take a strong and tie it down lightly to open it right up ?


Lovely update .

 

[Amy Gardner]

Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Well done Amy.

And hover flies too! That's great news for the girls, who by the way look amazing! Love those big, big leaves on Professor #2. They look so exotic in an already exotic garden.

Your enclosure has come along famously. All that work paying off. Your catching on nicely to training techniques. Pigeons would be so proud of you. I do that with all my plants now. Before I started watching him I was much more gentle with my charges. Now I reach in there and roughhouse with them. Lol!

They're gonna take off like mad now. This is one of my favorite stages of development, when they get all full before they start blooming. Nothing beats plants full of buds though, correct?

Thanks Sue! Your enjoyment of my garden is a great pleasure, and your praise, a nice confidence provider. They really are rewarding me aren't they .

Such a nice update Amy

Tucking your plants in in different ways, talking to the hover flies - thanks for sharing.

You're very welcome Sir Radogast (would he have been knighted? ... in my queendom he would be).

Yes tucking is saving my grow it's annoying but I only do it when I feed them twice a day .

But yes it's all about getting those bud sites opened up .

You can even if had width for space take a strong and tie it down lightly to open it right up ?


Lovely update .

There's nothing about tending to the plants that I find annoying King!

I am loving the leaf tucking, working out where the plant will hang on to itself and when it won't. I like to think I'm forming a relationship with them while they're here. A while ago, Teddy Edwards mentioned to me to try to start thinking about them as individuals. At that point they were young and were getting 'group' treatment. This thought has been part of the backdrop over last month or so and I'm now definitely more aware of their differences than their similarities.

I am indeed thinking of pulling The Professor #2 all the way over. I suspected I saw a hair on her this morning but I wasn't wearing my glasses, so can't be sure. I'll check in a while, when it cools down a bit outside.

.

 

[KingJoe83]

Re: Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Thanks Sue! Your enjoyment of my garden is a great pleasure, and your praise, a nice confidence provider. They really are rewarding me aren't they .



You're very welcome Sir Radogast (would he have been knighted, in my queendom he would be).




There's nothing about tending to the plants that I find annoying King!

I am loving the leaf tucking, working out where the plant will hang on to itself and when it won't. I like to think I'm forming a relationship with them while they're here. A while ago, Teddy Edwards mentioned to me to try to start thinking about them as individuals. At that point they were young and were getting 'group' treatment. This thought has been part of the backdrop over last month or so and I'm now definitely more aware of their differences than their similarities.

I am indeed thinking of pulling The Professor #2 all the way over. I suspected I saw a hair on her this morning but I wasn't wearing my glasses, so can't be sure. I'll check in a while, when it cools down a bit outside.

.

Yeah I hear ya Amy .

It'll am learning the same thing currently about which ones can be ticked and others that can't get lightly trimmed fanned or the cut sadly. But I wait til stretch is over before cutting those fans .

My way of madness is similar I guess

Looking good though .

 

[Oldbear]

Amy that's such a lovely garden. Makes me happy to sit here looking at the pictures. My outdoor garden site is buried under 2 feet of snow, and its -1000 outside.

How are the bush plants doing? Are the cages keeping the critters away?

 

[Amy Gardner]

Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Amy that's such a lovely garden. Makes me happy to sit here looking at the pictures. My outdoor garden site is buried under 2 feet of snow, and its -1000 outside.

How are the bush plants doing? Are the cages keeping the critters away?

Thanks bear ., makes me happy to hear that my garden makes you happy. Your next season will be upon you before you know it and you'll be out there getting your hands in the dirt. ...

The pods are doing ok - not enough light and the professor may be a male, but time will tell. I actually have photos from a week ago (maybe more actually) when I did some more LST but I haven't been well enough to put the update together. It'll be old news by the time I get to it. Feeling a little stronger now so hopefully will update with pics soon .

And yes, they're doing the job of keeping out the critters. I'm impressed, it's just netting that's over them. Definitely a very cost effective solution! Only issue I have with them is that it requires me to crawl in to get to the plants, so I'm not getting close to them very often. The girls in the veggie enclosure on the other hand are getting a gentle LST tweak and tip spreading pretty much every day .

Geez bear, -1000 is pretty cold, eh? hope you've got a nice fireplace and some good whiskey to keep you warm.

 

[GROWant]

Hi Amy, nice to see your outdoor plant, it looks beautiful
Just let you know sue harvested her journal.
SweetSue Showcases The GROWant GR240 - Lighting Up A 2x2

 

[Amy Gardner]

Hi all - I'm a bit absent from the journal at present as I'm in a bad 'crash' zone healthwise. I actually have an update on the pods pretty much written and have managed to get the pics ready to go, I've just been unable to upload the pic and pull it all together. My plants are still alive tho, rest assured! It feels terrible to have landed in such a low place again after being able to do a few things. BUt that's the challenge with this condition. When you have improvement, the idea is that you should continue at the low level of activity that brought you that improvement, in order ton get more. It's a very challenging paradigm to maintain because when you feel better it's so hard not to do more! Clearly a couple of swims in the ocean (very minimal, no waves, just floating around), followed by a few social occasions (again, very minimal engagement with many rests) and then the ant incident have been enough to push me back a few moths it feels like. Yesterday I couldn't even have a vape until much later in the day - thank goodness for my newly discovered, thanks to 420folk, oiler status. The CBD (2:1) helps with the joint pain - but it was even better when I was able to have some dry herb on top! So today is the first day in a few days I can type. I've got a new iPad set up and hope that this new arrangement will enable me to do my updates from my bed! FOr some reason my laptop turned out to be a serious trigger for severe symptoms so Ive traded it in for an iPad (in permanent 'Night Mode') and and external monitor (for an old desktop) that has flicker free technology and low blue light functions and things are a little better. Some days though, when things are very bad, I can barely read a sentence. I've typed all this tho (on my new iPad Air 2 with keyboard case ) so today must be. Bit better

Will check in later - just wanted to share why I've been a bit absent. And actually Gee (if GroWant is still Gee) I don't need any prompting to visit Sue's journals! They're one of my happy places.

 

[Pennywise]

Hope you get back to where you need to be soon.

 

[Oldbear]

Get well updates can wait.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Hope you get back to where you need to be soon.

Get well updates can wait.

Thanks both - I'm in a situation where all the medical (mainstream and non-mainstream) advice is that I'm on a trajectory of improvement over years, so the concept of getting well is a tricky one. I am advised to concentrate on the concept of improvement rather than recovery, even though recovery can happen it takes a super long time, even when the patient is better behaved than I am

I'm definitely better than 18months ago when I was bed bound and needed assistance getting up to go to the bathroom! So it's a slow journey - thus recent crash will hopefully not last as long as previous ones and is already not as low as previous ones as I can walk ok (albeit very slowly) and wash myself! It's amazing how we take those simple things for granted until we can't do them - I stop taking those things for granted pretty damn quickly when I'm in a crash. Even talking is exhausting!

For anyone who's maybe interested, there's a fabulous documentary about the condition I have (ME) called 'Unrest'. It aired recently on PBS and has been winning festival awards all around the world. It's apparently made the short list of 25 in the documentary category for an Acadamy Award. So Kudos to the director, Jennifer Brea, who directed it largely from her bed! SHe has ME as well and its a film about he experience with it and also other people around the world who she met online.

At one point I tried to engage with that patient community online but found it a bit challenging, and depressing, as it's such a demoralising condition at times that even tho people share things that help improvement for them, these are different for everyone and it's very common that you'll find a treatment or approach or medication that really helps, but the effect doesn't last. After a while it just gets too hard to hear. I'm much happier here in the 420 community. Most days I can lose myself in the wonderful world of growing cannabis and read success stories about medicinal applications and look at stunning eye candy of my favourite plant. NOt to mention get heaps of help, directly and indirectly, with my own growing Kung-fu.

The fact that I'm typing today and can understand my own sentences is a good sign. To be honest though, because I'd like this new family to understand me just a little, even when I was out transplanting, and building bush pods, I wasn't really well at all. I designed the bush pods, but paid my helper to do all the work _ all I did was the actual transplant which at that stage was literally all I could do in that day. I have an amazing partner who facitlitates me being able to do things like that by making all my meals and more. And someone comes in once a fortnight to 'housekeep' for us (beds and cleaning). In fact, I've been on my own the last week and realise now that that is probably a big part of the current crash - it's accumulative. SO "getting better" is something I have to think differently about, its more about getting better at managing the day to day so I don't get so depleted that I crash like this - and then behave myself more when I feel better so I don't send myself backwards again.

So, that's a while lot of stream of consciousness as I lie here trying not to be too depressed - Jack Herer (the chemovar, not the dude )is winding it's way up my list of desired future grows... think it might be just my style, that or Panama... But SweetSue recently mentioned that for depression the Sativa terpene profile is desired - pinene, limonene and, if you can get it, terpinolene - and she added that JH is strong in all of those and that's why its the common go to for depression... I do love me a sativa high...

 

[Pennywise]

Jack Herer is a winner any day.

 

[Tony Urban]

Salutations,

I am humbly inviting you to participate in an advanced cannabis photographers thread. I would like you to be a contributor and supporter of this thread if it interests you. All it requires is to submit a brief bio, quoting the second post, and helping out when you can or sharing information from time to time.

Cheers

The 420 Fotographer Collective

 

[Amy Gardner]

Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Update: The bush pods

Finally. Neither of these babies is getting the sunlight i'd expected. I'm hoping that's going to improve as the sun moves north again post solstice. That said they've been doing quite well despite their lack of light. I know these spots were getting good sun back in spring, so I'll learn in a few weeks if that translates to sun in autumn as well, like I've assumed it would.

I haven't been able to tend to them as I ideally should be - maybe the pods are a bit ambitious for me physically speaking. In any case there's only one now, read on to find out why...

Pod #2 - The Professor #1

It is no more - It was a boy!

I'd suspected it for a little while and have been lightly worrying about it a bit the last couple of weeks as I've not been able go out there and check. Yesterday I ventured out and this is what I found...

yikes! our summer prevailing wind is from the NE, and this plant is North and a little East of the enclosure so it had to go (not to mention any number of other people's plants to the southwest of me - of which I am sure there are numerous). I took off the net and snapped the final portraits before chopping.

I trimmed most of it off into a bowl except the pollen sacs and left them and other debris for the possums and the wallaby.

We put only a small amount of the freshly harvested leaves into our sautéed greens last night, just before taking it of the heat so they would've been only barely heated, and there wasn't many, maybe 4-5 leaves. Seriously, both of us found ourselves very nicely relaxed and smiling for no apparent reason about an hour later, while watching the tennis. Then we both had an awesome sleep! I haven't been vaping much the last few days either, and I don't take my CBD oil later in the evening, so the good sleep was a real bonus. It seems even raw, acid, cannabinoids can give a sense of happiness and well-being. Not to mention... they were delightfully spicy

To be honest, I'm not at all sad to have had to chop it. It will be good to eat over the next little while and I'm relieved not to have another bush pod to attend to. The design doesn't let me get in and out very easily so when/if I have a dip in my condition I can't really tend to them at all (& to be honest the dips could be brought on by the effort of getting in & out of the pods in the first place). I also still have the other Professor, which is definitely a lovely lady and covered in pistils and stretching as I type... more on her in a later update (coming soon).

Pod #1 - Afghani x Critical Mass (the money bush)

SO little direct sunlight light it's ridiculous! (there were stealth considerations that made me move the location at the last minute - not such a good choice in retrospect). But I think a few hours of full on sun are getting in.

I also think i super cropped her too late and too high up and she bounced back a bit more than I really wanted. She's now been semi neglected for a while - only watered with tea from outside a couple of times. She's had some enzymes (from ground malted barley) and stinging nettle and seaweed teas over the last few weeks plus a little garden lime watered in. There's also been a lot of thunderstorms which is great. Too much rain really at times but the electricity in the thunderstorms is good, and apparently thunderstorm rain has nitrogen in it so that's a happy thing! It's actually hammering down again as I type, after hammering down yesterday afternoon as well.

This update will be mostly pictorial now. She's been LST'd and some of the smaller branches super cropped themselves when I was lightly bending - they're a bit weak this tells me, maybe that's the light lack.... I put in a few more stakes and tied parts down to try to rearrange the few developing bud sites a bit more evenly, with a view to where the sun will be during flower, which is one side of her. I'm fairly south so even the midsummer sun is somewhat north in the sky. I've noticed some of the tops have started to branch alternately, so sexual maturity is upon us! No pistils yet...

I actually wrote that section above about 10 days ago and just hadn't posted it yet. I have literally not been out there to check on her for more than a week now and we did have some nice dry sunny days for a while - hammering thunder and lightning again now tho! Have no idea what might be happening with her... so this pictorial is the update on the LST session 2 weeks ago...

Before

Preparing

Security to decode

top reasserting itself...

dealt with

post LST and supper cropping (I also weeded the clover around it, leaving the chickweed... something else for the gardner to nibble on while working, mixes nicely with a canna leaf)

a week later

Thanks for your patience! And for visiting and/or reading my journal.

While I've been a bit unwell of late to visit the pods much, I've had a few days here n there where I could easily visit the other garden site, the enclosure. It's lovely in there and I'm having a great time with it. Will update on that later. In the meantime, this little fly is always in Pod #1 with the Afghan x Critical Mass. I have no idea what it's called or what it does, but it certainly seems to do no harm to the plant which makes me decide it's doing something good. If anyone can tell me what it is... I'll send REPS!

 

[Sneakygreen]

Love a good rogue grow looking good love the pods too! Great idea! Looks like your in top nsw my uncles property looks similar.
Well I'm subbed and looking forward to what comes of your grow adventures

 

[Tony Urban]

Nice update Amy, glad you are feeling a bit better, everything is looking good. Getting out into the sun and the garden never did anyone harm. Besides a sun burn. Or ant bites followed by allergic reactions. Well ok it hurts sometimes lol

Sadly my insect identification books only cover western Canada lol. I do know that it probably doesnt taste good, being brightly coloured, and is not a predator based on the eye location/position. Pretty neat looking though.

 

[Skullman420]

Re: Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

I've been living with extreme chronic pains since 2007. The first years I had a lot of hope of getting well again. Then I lost all hope. If I can get a few minutes with less pain now and then I really appreciate it - so my expectations have gone from getting better to this.... Accepting that you have to live with this for the rest of your life - that is the hardest part. After that things get better - believe it or not. Of course my condition can't be compared with your. I am sorry for your suffering dear Amy

Thanks both - I'm in a situation where all the medical (mainstream and non-mainstream) advice is that I'm on a trajectory of improvement over years, so the concept of getting well is a tricky one. I am advised to concentrate on the concept of improvement rather than recovery, even though recovery can happen it takes a super long time, even when the patient is better behaved than I am

I'm definitely better than 18months ago when I was bed bound and needed assistance getting up to go to the bathroom! So it's a slow journey - thus recent crash will hopefully not last as long as previous ones and is already not as low as previous ones as I can walk ok (albeit very slowly) and wash myself! It's amazing how we take those simple things for granted until we can't do them - I stop taking those things for granted pretty damn quickly when I'm in a crash. Even talking is exhausting!

For anyone who's maybe interested, there's a fabulous documentary about the condition I have (ME) called 'Unrest'. It aired recently on PBS and has been winning festival awards all around the world. It's apparently made the short list of 25 in the documentary category for an Acadamy Award. So Kudos to the director, Jennifer Brea, who directed it largely from her bed! SHe has ME as well and its a film about he experience with it and also other people around the world who she met online.

At one point I tried to engage with that patient community online but found it a bit challenging, and depressing, as it's such a demoralising condition at times that even tho people share things that help improvement for them, these are different for everyone and it's very common that you'll find a treatment or approach or medication that really helps, but the effect doesn't last. After a while it just gets too hard to hear. I'm much happier here in the 420 community. Most days I can lose myself in the wonderful world of growing cannabis and read success stories about medicinal applications and look at stunning eye candy of my favourite plant. NOt to mention get heaps of help, directly and indirectly, with my own growing Kung-fu.

The fact that I'm typing today and can understand my own sentences is a good sign. To be honest though, because I'd like this new family to understand me just a little, even when I was out transplanting, and building bush pods, I wasn't really well at all. I designed the bush pods, but paid my helper to do all the work _ all I did was the actual transplant which at that stage was literally all I could do in that day. I have an amazing partner who facitlitates me being able to do things like that by making all my meals and more. And someone comes in once a fortnight to 'housekeep' for us (beds and cleaning). In fact, I've been on my own the last week and realise now that that is probably a big part of the current crash - it's accumulative. SO "getting better" is something I have to think differently about, its more about getting better at managing the day to day so I don't get so depleted that I crash like this - and then behave myself more when I feel better so I don't send myself backwards again.

So, that's a while lot of stream of consciousness as I lie here trying not to be too depressed - Jack Herer (the chemovar, not the dude )is winding it's way up my list of desired future grows... think it might be just my style, that or Panama... But SweetSue recently mentioned that for depression the Sativa terpene profile is desired - pinene, limonene and, if you can get it, terpinolene - and she added that JH is strong in all of those and that's why its the common go to for depression... I do love me a sativa high...

 

[Pennywise]

Your outdoor grow brings back happy memories from years past. I love growing outdoors despite all the little set backs Mother Nature throws at us.

 

[KingJoe83]

Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Update: The bush pods

Finally. Neither of these babies is getting the sunlight i'd expected. I'm hoping that's going to improve as the sun moves north again post solstice. That said they've been doing quite well despite their lack of light. I know these spots were getting good sun back in spring, so I'll learn in a few weeks if that translates to sun in autumn as well, like I've assumed it would.

I haven't been able to tend to them as I ideally should be - maybe the pods are a bit ambitious for me physically speaking. In any case there's only one now, read on to find out why...

Pod #2 - The Professor #1

It is no more - It was a boy!

I'd suspected it for a little while and have been lightly worrying about it a bit the last couple of weeks as I've not been able go out there and check. Yesterday I ventured out and this is what I found...

yikes! our summer prevailing wind is from the NE, and this plant is North and a little East of the enclosure so it had to go (not to mention any number of other people's plants to the southwest of me - of which I am sure there are numerous). I took off the net and snapped the final portraits before chopping.

I trimmed most of it off into a bowl except the pollen sacs and left them and other debris for the possums and the wallaby.

We put only a small amount of the freshly harvested leaves into our sautéed greens last night, just before taking it of the heat so they would've been only barely heated, and there wasn't many, maybe 4-5 leaves. Seriously, both of us found ourselves very nicely relaxed and smiling for no apparent reason about an hour later, while watching the tennis. Then we both had an awesome sleep! I haven't been vaping much the last few days either, and I don't take my CBD oil later in the evening, so the good sleep was a real bonus. It seems even raw, acid, cannabinoids can give a sense of happiness and well-being. Not to mention... they were delightfully spicy

To be honest, I'm not at all sad to have had to chop it. It will be good to eat over the next little while and I'm relieved not to have another bush pod to attend to. The design doesn't let me get in and out very easily so when/if I have a dip in my condition I can't really tend to them at all (& to be honest the dips could be brought on by the effort of getting in & out of the pods in the first place). I also still have the other Professor, which is definitely a lovely lady and covered in pistils and stretching as I type... more on her in a later update (coming soon).

Pod #1 - Afghani x Critical Mass (the money bush)

SO little direct sunlight light it's ridiculous! (there were stealth considerations that made me move the location at the last minute - not such a good choice in retrospect). But I think a few hours of full on sun are getting in.

I also think i super cropped her too late and too high up and she bounced back a bit more than I really wanted. She's now been semi neglected for a while - only watered with tea from outside a couple of times. She's had some enzymes (from ground malted barley) and stinging nettle and seaweed teas over the last few weeks plus a little garden lime watered in. There's also been a lot of thunderstorms which is great. Too much rain really at times but the electricity in the thunderstorms is good, and apparently thunderstorm rain has nitrogen in it so that's a happy thing! It's actually hammering down again as I type, after hammering down yesterday afternoon as well.

This update will be mostly pictorial now. She's been LST'd and some of the smaller branches super cropped themselves when I was lightly bending - they're a bit weak this tells me, maybe that's the light lack.... I put in a few more stakes and tied parts down to try to rearrange the few developing bud sites a bit more evenly, with a view to where the sun will be during flower, which is one side of her. I'm fairly south so even the midsummer sun is somewhat north in the sky. I've noticed some of the tops have started to branch alternately, so sexual maturity is upon us! No pistils yet...

I actually wrote that section above about 10 days ago and just hadn't posted it yet. I have literally not been out there to check on her for more than a week now and we did have some nice dry sunny days for a while - hammering thunder and lightning again now tho! Have no idea what might be happening with her... so this pictorial is the update on the LST session 2 weeks ago...

Before

Preparing

Security to decode

top reasserting itself...

dealt with

post LST and supper cropping (I also weeded the clover around it, leaving the chickweed... something else for the gardner to nibble on while working, mixes nicely with a canna leaf)

a week later

Thanks for your patience! And for visiting and/or reading my journal.

While I've been a bit unwell of late to visit the pods much, I've had a few days here n there where I could easily visit the other garden site, the enclosure. It's lovely in there and I'm having a great time with it. Will update on that later. In the meantime, this little fly is always in Pod #1 with the Afghan x Critical Mass. I have no idea what it's called or what it does, but it certainly seems to do no harm to the plant which makes me decide it's doing something good. If anyone can tell me what it is... I'll send REPS!

Looks like a female gnat

Sorry about the male Amy .

Good news you still got the money bush right?

Let me see if I can look around more about that pest for ya

Could also be a leaf hooper I'm browsing for ya

Ideas for pest for ya girl

what I think it looks like based on picture

 

[Amy Gardner]

Re: Amy Gardner's First Journal - Outdoor - Critical Cure & Chaos In The Forest

Let me see if I can look around more about that pest for ya

Lol! Cheers joe, i didn't mean it was a pest! it's just my 'critter of the week', it's been around for weeks doing no damage.... I'll check out the things you posted. i appreciate your effort, I'm not a big fan of the bulk screenshots dump tho to be honest - and you might edit those long posts when you quote them - I'm not sure everything I posted was worth posting twice!!

.