Your Notifications won't be under your avatar and you don't click on your avatar to see them.
You have to click on the actual Notification button (bell) and it will show a list of all Notifications and from there you can click on individual Notifications to see, reply, or like them.
When I open Grow Diaries, I always immediately refresh the page. Idk why but it seems to help.
Sometimes you have to go back and forth between the home page and the page you're trying to load before it loads correctly.
If you can't get into your Diaries, if you go to the breeder tab and click on whatever breeder you're growing and scroll down and click on the strain you're growing, you can find your diary and go into from there.