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The Corroboree

Cimi

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Posts posted by Cimi

  3. Posted

    Found that about 10 of my custard apple seeds have sprouted! Potted up individual germinating seeds in small pots of seed-raising mix and watered with Seasol solution. Hoping my mulberry cutting will root. I placed it in a small glass of 50/50 water/seaweed plant starter: http://greenharvest.com.au/tools/organic_fertiliser_prod.html#SeaweedPlantStarter

    Inspected my capsicum & rockmelon seedlings, going good. Moved my krachai seedling as it was getting too much sun.

    Loving the weather today!

  5. Posted

    Found a new flower on one of my lophs. They've just had a good feed. This, along with the turn of the season, has spurred them into a lot of new growth. This is the first time this one has flowered since I acquired it a couple of years ago, so this is really nice to see. Hopefully my rabbit doesn't eat this flower like he did my last one :angry:

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    And some new pups! I love seeing this sort of fresh, healthy new growth on a loph! So exciting :drool2:

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    And the worm farm is going nicely. The worm tea comes in handy and I can't wait for the castings.

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    • Like 3

  6. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    It would be so cool...

    Thanks everyone for the advice. I will work on improving my potted loph care first. I need to learn more about feeding and practice my technique.

    I fully think it could work if you did lots of preparation of the garden bed and provided lots of shelter. Maybe even companion planting of traditional desert plants for shelter, and to suck up excess moisture. A desert garden. It would need to be dry & very well-drained. Digging down deep with plenty of gypsum to break up the earth and using high-quality materials in the soil (eg., horticultural charcoal, crushed volcanic rock / scoria). And lots of yummy slow-release things.

    I also like the idea of a large tub.

    I would love to put an awning on the side of my house and prepare a bed underneath. That could work. But to be viable it would be a big project, so I will wait a bit. It is damn exciting, though!

    watertrade, I can't wait to see what you come up with! It will be a loph paradise!

    Question: what is the best type of fertiliser to feed regularly? I'm guessing something slow-release, like osmocote? And anything I should be wary of? Thank you, everyone.

  8. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    Yeah d00d, looks like you have a great setup, and some very happy seedlings!

    Today I repotted some very chunky scops that had been pot-bound for many years prior to living with me. They are now in nice, wide terra cotta with plenty of space for their roots to spread. Madly pupping already! I also turned my horse poo / straw patch. It is starting to break down nicely! I want to dry it out a bit. Then I will start adding random crap (eg., wood-based mulch, coffee grounds, whatever else I have lying around).

    I also got a nice fresh batch of loph potting mix ready (sand, perlite, cactus mix, gypsum, plus some horticultural charcoal I picked up from Bunnings). And then I repotted my lophs.

    I also re-potted my avocado seedling and my rose-scented geranium.

    Very productive day!

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    Sweet, thanks. That would loosen up the soil nicely without adding organic matter. It can get a bit compacted over time.

    Then, once repotted, I can experiment more with feeding different things. Maybe some dolomite would be an idea. I need to test the pH again.

  11. Posted

    Yeah good points. We do have long periods of rain at times. The roof sounds like a good idea to make it work. Maybe a compromise could be a long, rectangular container.

    They are currently in a mix of 1/3 cactus potting mix, 1/3 perlite, and 1/3 river sand. The time for repotting is approaching and I started to think about more long-term options. Also interested in other ways I can make them happier in pots. Maybe I need to fertilise more often and with more varied substances.

  13. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    Hi guys,

    I am thinking of moving my lophs out of pots and into the open garden one day. They are well-established but don't seem to be overly thriving. They are already kept outdoors, in terra cotta pots in part-sun. I like the fact that I can move them into shelter / out of harsh sun when needed in pots, but the open garden would probably allow them to grow bigger, build deeper roots and access a greater variety of nutrients.

    Has anyone here had success with this? If so, I would appreciate any tips about how best to go about it. Eg., soil preparation, position, fertilising.

    At present, I only feed Seasol a few times a year over spring / summer.

    Thanks for your feedback,

    Cimi

  15. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    Bottom-watered my lophs and placed them in a part-sun position to warm up for spring/summer. Budding already!

    I also watered my horse poo patch in preparation for an outdoor mushroom garden! So excited about it. The horse poo is leaching into the garden, on top of some straw I already had down for mulch. The whole lot will sit in part-sun for 1-2 more weeks, then it will be ready to pasteurise.

    Watered my herbs, lettuce, spinach & strawberries. Got some daikon radishes (from seed) going really well, nice and leafy. Also planted some custard apple seeds a few days ago - fingers crossed they will sprout! I planted out some trichocereus cuttings a while back. Watered them today along with my freshly-sprouted self-sowing flowers to promote good bugs (eg., red clover, queen-anne's lace, etc.). The soil here needs improving, so I will be sowing some buckwheat seeds soon for 'green manure' to increase organic matter. Hopefully I can build a good ecosystem here to reduce pests and improve soil quality, good bacteria, etc.

    It's an exciting time of year!

    • Like 2

  17. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    I got some Galangal if you want some, grows massive tubers if you let it.. Use it for cooking, yum yum.

    Sweet thanks! I s'pose I could just get some from the store couldn't I lol

    I did some more reading and there are a few good stories of people getting a nice mood lift from eating it raw / chewing. Interesting stuff.

    Some experiences I found:

    http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5777

    http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Galangal.shtml

    It's funny, the stuff on galangal is all about ingesting the root, but the wikipedia page for krachai talks about using the sap from the leaves. They are two different plants, I guess. All parts of the plant have specialised uses.

  18. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    I was initially interested in this stuff for its delicious-sounding flavour. It has pale yellow finger-like tubers which are eaten raw and cooked, and often added to soups and curries for its aromatic, spicy flavour. Sounds easy enough to grow in the right climate, too. Info: http://greenharvest.com.au/Plants/Information/Krachai.html

    Then I saw this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaempferia_galanga

    It has many amazing properties including potential as a sunscreen, killing roundworms in dogs, and inhibition of the Epstein-Barr virus.

    It could be quite a good insect repellant, apparently. Then I saw that the sap also has hallucinogenic properties, due to an 'unknown' alkaloid. It is a CNS depressant.

    Does anyone have thoughts about what the likely mechanism of action / alkaloid could be in this plant?

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    Thanks guys. I will try some more searches. I was looking for an old thread started by me about problems I was having with growing cacti from seed. It doesn't appear in my post history. It was either in 2010 or 2011. It had a few pics in it as well.

    I will keep looking!

  22. Posted

    I found this sociology thesis on the 'return' of entheogens to modern western pop culture:

    http://www.goagil.com/Larkin%20Thesis.pdf

    Pretty interesting read! It's crazy to see modern culture incorporating elements of traditional shamanism. The use of technology (eg., digital music) is also a novel element in the ritual. Modern techno-shamanic rituals are a totally new cultural experience.

    Hopefully the return of entheogens will gradually improve our society.

    • Like 1

  23. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    Keen bro!!!!

    Next person get a HEAP of peres cuttings (thick, untouched for years, displaying spines not glochids - sort of indicates maturity to me), some kava drinking powder FRESH from Fiji, and a Caapi cutting (will have to chill a little bit to make it safe to send )

    Yum!

    Next person gets 1.5m of E. Pachanoi (very scaly after years of neglect but plenty of it) & 3x P. cubensis prints (Ecuador) for microscopy purposes only.

    EDIT: I will keep / destroy the scaly cuttings unless the next person wants them, and instead include 1.5m of healthy, scale-free pach.

    • Like 2

  25. Posted · Edited by Cimi

    I would hold off on giving them direct sun

    How hot was it?

    I've seen lophs germinate and grow in part sun (5-6 hours direct sun per day) and grow fine, but i have seen plants started in darker conditions burn when given just a couple hours of sun... tricky.

     

    Yeah? Well I guess that proves that you can sensitise seedlings to sun stress by starting them too dark. Cheers for that. This means I will just need to keep up the gradual exposure to light for these two but I might give future batches more light from the start.

    There must be some kind of mechanism which determines their light sensitivity really early on, like upon germination. I'll see what happens with my next batch.

    Edit: It's possible I left them on the heat mat too long trying to induce the rest to germinate, so it may have been a heat problem. Can heat cause greater light sensitivity, or even 'sunburn' in itself?

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