Ma huang / Ephedra sinica

MalumProhibitum Exactly 5 days & 2 hours has passed since germination week 1 started, but I couldn't wait to drop some photos in first veg week :) Seed 2 has germinated, both slighly lighter brown tint, compared to the remaining 3 dark allmost black seeds. I didn't know tobacco could exterminate some insects on contact. Saw a little bug exploring the grow, landed on the aztec, went crazy and started spinning on it's face, before passing over to the shadow realm. Aztec tobacco is a must in any of my grows, and works well as a soil-binder too, where I sprinkle a few hundred seeds on fresly started pots to prepare the soil; weeks in advance of the true grow. This preserves the spongy low density soil and the small roots prevents the soil from collapsing on first watering. A healthy soil is like a solid foundation to a house, it helps a lot. Only sign of insect-life in my pots are a few spring tails, refusing to succumb to the niccotine drenched soil, apart from those it's just nothing but bacteria and fungi I think. I added some aztecs to the grow, crushing a dried flower and then proceeded to squeeze out some aztec-leaf-juice on top of the grow, as I saw some small transperent crab-like bugs exploring the grow.

MalumProhibitum Another smooth week, just 2 of 5 seeds has germinated but I'm keeping the 3 left; see if they wake up later. Keeping them under the 5W LED in the kitchen. Still no pot, but 10ml of toilet paper seems to work just fine for now.. Compared to marijuana this plant is growing at snail-pace, but as a former cactus grower this is fine. If they keep behaving, they might get a real pot in the future, but for now --toilet paper it is :) Their roots are now growing outside of the paper-containment. I'll have to move them to soil, as the roots are too easy to break already, going worse for every day I keep them in this shitty grow-medium.

MalumProhibitum Finally moved them to a little pot filled with soil. I harvested & covered the soil with aztec tobacco leaves to preserve the moisture in the soil, and to prevent me from over-water by misting the top soil like a maniac with the sprayer several times/day 💯😬--Moist! The development is painfully slow, but it feels really rewarding each day I see some tiny sign of progress! :) Cactus level performance, see if we can optimize the grow conditions to bring this little needle up to speed! 😋 1 month in, and they are still smaller and weigh less than a hemp plant on day 3 after germination; but there is progress! :)

MalumProhibitum Another uneventful week, gave them 100ml tap water, as the soil was dried up to the point where the tobacco was going limp and yeah.. that's it. Nothing to write home about, things going slow, but at the same time nothing seems out of order either. A perfect little pet project that leaves a lot of room for other projects to take shape as this is as effortless as it gets. They aren't looking lush green, but has a slight yellow tone to them, but as I'm uncertain if it's due to low nutrients, lockout, off-pH; whatever I just gonna wait this one out for now and do nothing. LightHours reduced from 24h to 23 -- figured they might need a little bit of rest :) pH is 6,8 --shouldn't cause issues. temp is a steady 26C --should be within where the plant thrives. NPK @ 3:1:1,5 and TDS was 666 before adding 100ml tap water, so nothing special really, treating them like they were orchids. To rule out overfeeding I stick to water for now, see how things develop. RH 62%, should be pretty on point tbh.. so what the fuck, is it just growing at light-speed, growing faster than the roots can absorb and distribute nutes to the full size of the massive trees the size of 2x toothpicks? 😋 For now it looks like they'd prefer to keep groing in toilet paper over my custom made soil I prepared just for them. But from experience I know 1 month toilet paper treatment is pushing it..