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, most likely due to the condition if the 'custom soil', but I'm 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. The soil is the depleted dirt from the purple punch OG II grow, so basicly the grow-medium contains about the same amount of nutrients as doilet paper, even too little for this hardy plant I guess.. RH 62%, should be pretty on point tbh. 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.. and I'm too lazy to mix a new batch of NPK nutes just yet, and will wait for the other seeds to germinate before adding anything but a mist of tap-water for now. I made a small bacth of (true)TDS666(666mg salts/1000ml water) NPK 3:1:1,5 nutes, see if things turn green again.. 15ml added at the base of each seedling, feels too soon to call em plants yet xD Monster maker 1 has more mass already after just 5 days compared to theese needles with 1 month+ head start heh.. (I still love em tho..). I'm pondering to start 2 more 500ml soil pots, pop 10 seeds directly into substrate and wait, as this grow is as maintenance-free as it can be and the biomass accumulation is snail-pace.. so the more the merrier! :) Not sure if it's just me, but I think the added NPK-DIY-Mix seems to move the autumn colors more towards green. Didn't even take a week for the plants to transform from yellow-orange to green again, even if the issue isn't eradicated just yet. To me it looks like the depleted soil from the Purple Punch OG grow, I recycled to this project, no nutrients added was too much even for this hardy survival plant. I was just worried I'd over-feed it, killing them, but they seem to like the 'orchid' nutes I made for them (same mix I use for poppies and other plants who are ez to kill by adding too much nitrigen for example..). The mix works OK for about anything I've used it on, just doesnt get the plants the deeper green, just more of a lighter tone to them, and if I want to go nuts I just add more KNO3, Ca(NO3)2 or whatever I need to use to create a balanced concoction. So.. like many vets has already stated over the years: -keep pH in check, 3:1:2 VEG and maintain the TDS low enough to not cause a lock-out, staying just under the luxury uptake level, adapt to the plant-response; u won't fck up :) What happens in the pot is far more important than if ur RH is 43%, 55% or 63% or if the growspace is 23C, 25C or 27C. I'm so happy they were starving, because that means I can start blast them with nutrients now! xD It feels like I know them a bit better at this point & will start another grow, with more seeds this time! The dream would be to populate 12x10liter pots, overflowing with this medicinal herb. **As things are developing at snail pace I'll timelapse things a bit and return to this grow in 5 weeks with an update. If u are one of the 2 ppl liking this grow, patience; I'll be back! :)