Gorilla Glue Auto (Zamnesia) FIRST GROW

I was so lucky to have been selected to participate in Zamnesia's Spring Cup Grow contest, and received 5 seeds of Gorilla Glue Automatic, a 11 liter Geotextile fabric pot, and a bag of Monster Bud Mix nutrients (150 gr). The provided nutrients should be used with about 22 liter of growing medium. Assuming at least one of up to 5 seeds will germinate successfully, I started outlining my growing plan. After successful germination and growing to a size suitable for transfer, the most suitable seedling will be placed in the geotextile fabric pot provided by Zamnesia filled with 11 liters of plain gardening soil mixed with 75 grams of Monster Bud Mix fertiliser. The other 4 will be placed in different containers. I will use the other half of the provided nutrients in another 11 liter container, which can provide direct comparison against the geotextile pot. I plan to place the 3rd in a similar 11 liter container and similar soil. This may provide direct comparison between the provided nutrients and whatever alternative nutrients I choose to use with it. For the 4th seedling, I plan to use the same size container and nutrients as I will use for the 3rd, however, using coco coir instead of soil as growing medium. For the 5th I may try using some variation on growing medium and/or nutrients. Day 1: I sowed all 5 seeds in small plastic containers filled with plain soil, lightly sprayed them with water slightly above room temperature, covered them with plastic foil, and then placed them on a small heating mat inside a small plastic greenhouse under a fairly weak white LED light. Day 2: At the end of the day I opened the greenhouse to check the containers, and was happy to see that two seedlings have already sprouted up! Even more wonderful, these twin baby girls were born on 4/20! 🙏 😀 One of them shows her strength: she is pushing her seed coat up, lifting it out of the soil. The other girl has already abandoned her coat and is just stretching out, up towards the light. I am happy and grateful. 🙏 😀 However, I also feel slightly bothered about fooling them into thinking they are experiencing Father Sun and Mother Earth. 😐 I will have to make it up by giving them some extra TLC. 😍 So I have briefly introduced them to some other new members of the household who have been born in the previous two months: the peyote and san pedro babies. The gorilla girls now have experienced that they're not alone here. There are other wonderful friendly lifeforms! And they're already outgrowing some of them on their very first day. 👊 Day 3: In the afternoon I checked my greenhouse again, and the remaining 3 seeds have now also successfully germinated. 🙏 One is still covered in a layer of soil - but that seems to be only because it is pushing up the soil, breaking it. This girl shall thus be named Pachacuti ("earth shaker")after the famous Inka. It's a sunny day and it's 21°C, so I placed the greenhouse outside. All 5 newborn baby gorilla girls now experience real sunlight for the first time in their life. 😎 They shared the balcony in the vicinity of some other young plants. Among these are various heirloom potatoes from some very special places: some originate from the potato fields adjacent to two places of worship on the highest summits of Amantani island on lake Titicaca, which are open only on the third Thursday of January for a traditional shamanistic fertility ritual ceremony dedicated to Pachamama and Pachatata (Mother Earth and Father Heaven). See <https://consentido.nl/ritualidad-de-pachatata-y-pachamama-en-amantani/> for some beautiful photographs. Potatoes have historically been domesticated in the high plains around this lake. Other potatoes originate from potato fields adjacent to the archeological site Moras in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, a magnificent ancient agricultural laboratory where various plants have been cultivated over many generations on circular terrace farms of varying altitude to enhance their genetics for varying climate conditions (see e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moray_(Inca_ruin)>). 8 young plants of Nicotiana rustica (also known as Aztec tobacco, ucuch or mapacho) are currently also residing on the balcony. This plant is often used in shamanistic rituals in many tribes and cultures throughout the americas; e.g. by speaking intentions into the plants, by smoking cigars of the dried and cured leaves for protection, as admixture in ayahuasca brews, in rapé snuffs, in cold infusions for insufflation, etc. I have asked them to try and help protect the gorilla girls, and wish for good weather, health and happiness. Furthermore, around my balcony are many young seedlings of both sweet and holy basil which I grow often, mainly for use as fresh herbs for cooking Thai food. Also present are some young chili plants of military grade varieties, such as Carolina Reaper, Bhut Jolokia, and Scotch Bonnet (while some yellow Trinidad Moruga Scorpions are hopefully germinating by now as well). The chilis I grow tend to be used much more widely than the basil, e.g. for homemade Mexican / Indian / Thai dishes, spicy sauces, vodka infusions, cacao drinks, chocolate, and of course plain old practical jokes and stealthy punishment missions. The high capsaicin content of these chilis can also be helpful to fend of nasty bugs later on. Pro tip: in these times of massive Covid-19 outbreak, generous application of dried chili powder and concentrated capsaicin tinctures and extracts on strategic locations such as doorknobs turns out to be very helpful in enforcing personal hygiene / quarantine measures and regulations in a quite painful manner by exploiting the TRPV1 receptor. 😷 Remember to always wash your hands as well *before* going to the happy room people! 😂 Around sunset it felt like the perfect time for a birthday party to celebrate the successful germination of all the seeds, so I performed a small ceremony to say thanks to the sun and pachamama for enabling the life of these lovely and wonderful teacher plants, as well as my own and that of all other living beings. 🙏 Furthermore, I spoke out my intention to love and nourish them until they are ready to harvest, then asked them for forgiveness for the latter, and finally thanked them for this future sacrifice for purposes of entertainment, relief, relaxation, healing, inspiration, wisdom, spirituality, metabolic effects, and all other beneficial effects that they may provide to me and my beloved. 🙏 I concluded the ceremony by lightly smudging the young seedlings, some soil and coco coir, and the various containers (which I plan to use later) with some smoke of a smouldering stick of (sustainably harvested) palo santo (i.e. Bursera graveolens) and a few puffs of mapacho. Before sending the gorilla girls off to sleep, it was time to invite some more friendly plants to the party. Since family comes first, I smudged them with some puffs of smoke from a mix of cannabis of different strains and some plain tobacco, and placed some very strong smelling dried buds of the same strains close to them. Subsequently, I placed a few extremely small freshly picked mushrooms and small fragments of mycelium of Psilocybe cubensis mckennaii in the containers of the gorilla girls, and buried them about a centimeter under the soil surface, about 2 centimeters away from the seedlings. The weight of these tiny mushrooms is negligible as far as my mushroom harvest is concerned, yet they may contain many different biochemical substances, even if only in trace amounts. My speculative and intuitive reasoning here is that both mycelium and plants communicate with other lifeforms in their ecosystem mostly by means of various biochemical pathways, so even contact between the plant and a single molecule of yet another different substance may enable the plant to learn another word in its biochemical vocabulary, so to speak. Since mycelium is a very ancient intelligent life form, preceding both mammals (including stoned monkeys such as ourselves) and flowering plants like cannabis by about a billion years, and since it seems to be extremely powerful in many ways, it may provide some help and perhaps even wisdom or enlightenment to my baby girls as well. Finally I placed them close to my speakers, while playing a sound recording of a rainless night (as I would not want them to become jealous) in the Amazon jungle, while meeting some entheogenic plants from the Amazon jungle. Next to the mapacho plants which they had already met, I placed the gorilla girls around a few young yopo plants (Anadenanthera peregrina) which had already 'closed' their cute little leaves for the night. Then I placed a few pieces of jurema preta (Mimosa tenuiflora) root bark around them, along with some pieces of ayahuasca (Banisteropsis caapi) vine, and some leaves of chacruna (Psychotria viridis) and chaliponga (Diplopterys cabrerana). These leaves are the main typical admixture ingredients in the traditional Amazonian brew best known as ayahuasca, which I had been brewing during the previous night. Finally I sprinkled a tiny bit of dried san pedro powder and yopo snuff in the containers. I drank a cup of ayahuasca and snuggled up under a blanket in the midst of the young plants while listening to the amazing sounds of the jungle at night. All these meetings between plants which are often characterised as spiritual plants or teacher plants are primarily intended to celebrate my love and gratitude for them in a symbolic and ceremonial manner. The secondary goal is to enable, facilitate and/or enhance their interaction by any means imaginable yet feasible, whether or not any such interaction is currently known and understood. Whether it regards hard science or more intangible subjects such as philosophy, spirituality, conscience, intelligence, more often than not, I do not know for sure what to believe, and have more questions than answers. Even though life is not even remotely near fully understood, I do believe that it is amazingly powerful in all its complexity, resilience and fantastic evolutionary progress throughout nearly infinite geological and ecological variations throughout the ages. Realising these things while being around these plants humbles me, amazes me, and fills me with wonder and love. 😳😲😍 Day 4: All 5 seedlings have come clear out of the soil now, including Pachacuti. Another one is still wearing half her seed coat as a hat, which reminds me of Calimero, so this seems a suitable name for her. The remaining three seedlings shall be named Ch'aska (in honor of the goddess of flowers), Akllasisa ("chosen flower"), and Ninasisa ("fire flower"). All seedlings except Calimero now show 4 little leaves. It's 23°C outside, so the girls are spending the afternoon on the sunny balcony again. Day 5: Fortunately enough, the weather was good enough for the girls to spend the afternoon outside again, sunbathing bare naked. Day 6: Yet another day of nice spring weather. Inside, the psilocybe cubensis mckennaii mushrooms were ready for harvesting a 4th flush of 60 gram fresh weight, which should result in another hero's dose after drying. Since today's calendar date can be read as 04/24/20, or four twenty-four twenty, I prepared an omelette with 5 gram dried mushrooms that had been harvested previously and 3 gram of smashed Syrian rue seeds for a DOUBLE 420 celebration. 😎👌 Day 7: The first week of growing has been just perfect. All 5 seedlings now have 6 little leaves (including the seed leaves). The sunny days have started, spring time is in the air! 😀