Garden Update - Day 47
Hello Everyone,
It's been almost a couple weeks since the last update, and since then a lot has changed with how things are going.
First let's take a look at the outdoor garden.
The outdoor garden has been thriving for the most part.
My involvement has been minimal and has become less, due to the nightmares that come with shared living spaces.
I've always wanted to have an outdoor garden and never did so because of foreseeable issues with city living, and those foreseeable issues came true for me with my first ever garden outdoors.
It's a matter of people with boundary issues and low self awareness, coupled with drug and alcohol problems overstepping boundaries and essentially just taking the garden over to the point of claiming "my garden" and bragging about it to the other neighbors.
I like gardening with other people, but it has to be the right people, or it just becomes a miserable experience for me.
I'm sorry to say that this garden has turned into just that, a miserable experience because of people forcing their way into my project without even asking me if I was ok with taking on a joint project. Amazing how they weren't the first to mention a garden idea either, but as soon as I mentioned that I was putting in a garden they proclaimed how perfect that was because they were gearing up to do the same exact thing, so now we'll just do it together! (they never asked) Yes these types are a dime a dozen in the city.
It's difficult to address these situations constructively when dealing with toxic alcoholic drug addicted people, so I just avoid the nonsense by withdrawing and letting things play out. My only other alternative is to become aggressive and mean about it, and since I'm good at reading people I know this is a recipe for me to leave in some handcuffs, so fuck it... I'll just do my indoor thing as per the usual until one day I get my own piece of land and can choose who I allow into my garden.
Some immediate thoughts could be "why didn't you just tell them from the start it was a solo project and no thank you?" Which is a valid thought... but sensitive empaths with good people reading abilities know this conundrum very well... how everything is a personal attack with these low IQ bandwagoners and they would immediately take that as some attack/rejection and make a problem about it instead of being cool.
A person who's not pushing their way into my stuff has a better chance of being invited to take part. That's the irony of it.. People who invite themselves into your stuff are usually the types you would not want involved.
Some people in this world like to piggyback off of others peoples ideas/success/endeavors and just don't have any purpose of their own, and I'm fucking sick of it.
In other, more positive news...
I'm really happy with the indoor plants because no one is fucking that up for me!
So let's take a look.
For those that follow my updates, it's apparent that there's only one Crack Mack cannabis plant remaining of the three that I had growing.
Two of them turned out to be male, which really sucks but I'm grateful to have at least one female.
Especially considering this vegetation time. 47 days of vegetation time since sprouting, this is not a huge plant for that much time.
I performed two serious stem trainings that definitely slowed the growth for about a week, but it's starting to take off now.
Also present was some burnt tips. My diagnosis is that the pH was too high. I took a soil reading and it came back about 6.5 soil pH. For optimal growth with this high sativa genetic, a 6.0 pH reading is pretty good for a coir/soil mixed compound.
To combat the high soil pH, I've decreased my current water supply pH to around a 5-5.5 pH. This is slightly lower than the target pH, but since I was pH'ing a 6 previously and the soil still maintained higher pH, it makes logical sense to me that the mark should be lower than the intended mark at the water pH measure, to bring that soil measure down.
So far the plant is responding with healthy new growth that is not exhibiting burnt tips.
Graptopetalum/Sedum
My little sedum hybrids are looking really pretty lately. These plants have a mind of their own in terms of their health throughout the year.
Sometimes they start struggling on me and sometimes they look really good like right now.
I think I should probably try a new grow medium.
This is mostly a coco base medium and perhaps a compound with better drainage and less water retention would be better.
Part of what has helped me come to this conclusion (besides the varying health of the plant over time) is looking at the success rates of other gardeners with these types of plants and what has worked for them to garner high levels of success. Like @nikv, who aside from being an awesome Cadlady, is also quite gifted with caring for succulents. I bet she would know what kind of medium I should put these succulents in.
Aloe
Aloe plants seem to do pretty good in coco based mediums as long as they get high luminosity and aren't in highly humid environments.
I know from experience that aloes in this medium do not do well in normal home conditions. The coco will hold moisture for far too long and the aloe will not be able to make use of all the extra water because rapid photosynthesis is not possible in normal household living conditions. This is the number one cause of root rot with potted aloes.
Even aloes in mediums like sand and rocks struggle in normal home environments. They are a very light demanding plant and they simply will not thrive if they do not get high levels of light.
The pups in the photo above are just starting to root. I can tell just by how they look. Pups that are taken with no supporting root system will turn a dull greyish color, and they'll maintain that dull color until the roots start shooting, and then the lovely green color will seep back in once they are taking, like what is happening now.
Those pups were pulled from this mother, which we can see has four more pups growing and may even shoot more during this rapid development stage.
This mother aloe was once a small little pup herself like the one's she's growing, and came from this plant 👇
This was the mother aloe that started it all. I picked her up from Walmart about two years ago and she grew to this immense size in about six months.
No other aloe I've grown from her pups (and there's been a lot) has reached size and growth rates of their mother, except for the one that is growing now as a big mother. I would say it's close to its mothers growth rate, but still doesn't impress as much as the initial aloe.
It's truly a special plant, and its days of giving pups are likely over if I never transplant it out of this pot to a bigger one.
I'm undecided if I ever will transplant this big aloe, but I have plenty of time to think about it and all different stage aloe plants right now, so I'm not stressing it a single bit.
Bamboo
I made a huge blunder with my bamboo and put it outside too early in the season. The blunder was huge because the plant almost died.
I chopped a main stalk off and threw it into water, later it grew some roots so I transplanted it.
@davidke20 had noticed my bamboo was looking super sad, and he was right because I almost killed the poor bamboo, but look at how my blunder made this bamboo multiply and now I'm going to have more bamboos as a result of one sad bamboo :D
Let's end this post talking about my cayenne pepper plant.
Out of all of my plants, this one feels the most magical to me. If only for the sake of pure imagination, I like to envision this is the dwelling of my plant fairies. Like their little base station where they just hang out all day and sometimes will leave the base station to tend to the other plants needs.
It's a far fetched imagining but one time I swear I saw a fairy flying around the plant while I was tripping on mushrooms.
That will do it for this update.
What do you all think of how the plants are looking?
I would love to read your thoughts in the comment section!
Thank you for stopping by.
Have a good day! -@futuremind
But it all looks so good out there! I'm sorry you're having these problems. I thought they sounded so promising in the beginning. On the bright side, they don't sound like the kind of people who eat a lot of fresh veggies, so perhaps it was mostly be yours?
And inside, spectacular. The sedum does look really pretty.
I'm soooo bad to aloe. I just let them multiply until they all die. It's pathetic.
You've got some green thumb there my friend. I look forward to the day you have your own garden too. It's coming!
Thank you for the compliment @owasco!
It's hard to say. They've already done some foolish things that had police at their door and there's a lot of elements to their behavior that could lead to an early eviction. That's why I am just stepping back and letting things take their course. As soon as I had a good perspective on the situation I immediately reduced my expectations. A few tomatoes is not worth the stress of toxic people, so in that regard they can have the garden if that's what it takes for me to survive another day on this planet without having to endure more stress from people I shouldn't have to endure it from.
Those sedums start to blush a pinkish purple color if they are getting a high amount of light. They are super pretty, but they are kind of hard to keep like that lol.
I can understand why you might let all those pups go and die like that. It can become overwhelming dealing with aloes because they get massive pretty quick, and also if you don't have a general use for them there's no reason to grow so many.
I've been eating raw aloe pads and noticing huge health improvements.
Holy smokes, I'm getting anxiety just reading this, and by anxiety I mean unbridled rage. I love my boundaries, especially when it comes to my labour, so a situation like this would require me to summon my inner Buddha to deal with it. 🙏 It's also difficult to navigate a situation when substance problems are involved, so laying low is probably the wise course of action. Too bad because I think that was a neat project to sharpen your growing skills, but there's plenty of other stuff to keep your green thumbs busy.
Thank you for the kind words @litguru.
Your way of likening the anxiety state of reading this to that of unbridled rage tells me you know exactly how I'm feeling about the experience.
Summoning the inner Buddha is definitely necessary these days to navigate the world in general I would say lol.
The indoor grow stuff does help offset the frustrations of it all.
Hopefully I'll be able to get this Crack Mack huge before flowering. Might have to veg her out another month or so.
Hmmm so the outside garden that you've got going on doesn't actually belong to you? Like other people can go around and wander there and even pull out the stuff?
Yeah no way broh if you want someone to join you have asked for the helping hand, but that's you're project and yours alone... but let it play out bruh, most likely thing is they would grow tired of it.
It technically does belong to me I suppose, but I don't own the house and it's a multi resident type of place, so other people have use of the back yard and they've just kind of pushed their way into it and seem to lack awareness of boundaries and such. Yeah bro I just take a step back and let things play out. I try not to let small stuff stress me out too much, especially when I can grow virtually anything I want to in the tents.
You are working very hard for your plants. Of course, you had to face some problems like for your bamboo plant but to be honest, this is also the best way to understand and learn something closely. Now you know the risks of keeping bamboo outside and I'm sure you will be able to grow it even better now. Don't let anyone spoil your garden, do it in your own way. All your plants look much healthier than mine and I really am happy for that.
Sending Love and Ecency Vote!
Indeed I learned fast that bamboo likes to stay in a warm climate and won't make that mistake again! I was lucky the plant didn't die completely.
Thank you for the kind words @untilwelearn!
Ooh wow
Do you mean that there are some people who actually plant on your land even without them asking you to know if you are cool with the joint or not?
How’s that?
That’s rude but it happens here too
It's kind of like that yeah. Some people like to just push their way into other peoples projects when they feel they can. That's mostly why I like growing stuff indoors, because then people cannot push boundaries and I can be the sole caretaker of the plants. I don't mind gardening with other people, but some people are just rude about it without even realizing they're being rude. It's a crazy world we live in.
Oh my friend I am so sorry that this dream you had for so long has been complicated by these people, maybe you could give them some basic and super simple task to fill their egos and at the same time to stop bothering you I really hope you can control the situation but especially that it doesn't affect you so much, you don't deserve it.
On my side the oaks that I was germinating... did not end up in good harbor here in Argentina we are entering winter and I think these sprouts did not support it, I have one that is still struggling and other seeds that began to germinate so I hope to have better luck with these.
Thank you my friend.
Sometimes that is just how it goes. Introverted types like us need our space and privacy but sometimes that is just hard to obtain in this world.
That is unfortunate news about your oak germinations. Hopefully the one that is still struggling will make a turnaround for you and grow nicely and the other seeds will be healthy as well. I wish you better luck with the new ones, sometimes we get unlucky with the germinations.
You have so many great looking plants. It really sucks that your neighbors ruined your garden experience. The garden does look like it is doing really well though. Hopefully you are able to enjoy some of the veggies you are growing out there.
Thanks man.
Despite some of the frustrations the plants have grown super healthy with minimal involvement so that is pretty cool regardless. I'm sure I'll get some stuff out of it. There will probably be a lot of tomatoes.