What to do what to do

Today's photo album!

It's been about 5 days since the last blog post and I could go into all the soul searching I did about nixing the project and how something someone said triggered an emotion in my brain area that led me to keep the project alive and post some more... The honest, boring reason why there hasn't been any updates is that 1.) Netflix 2.) I'm lazy.

Another biggun is that I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to sustain 170-odd plants. Maybe it just hit recently, but that's a hell of a lot of sprouts! Obama found out about the project's earmark on the stimulus bill, so my budget's all shot to crap now. See, the thing they don't tell you about indoor growing is that every little odd and end you need to do it is gonna cost you $20. There's just no way around it. Want a timer? 20 bucks. A water pump? 20 bucks. Hygrometer? 20 bucks. I could keep going. Second thing they don't tell you is that if you order something you need off of eBay, one of two scenarios will follow. One, what you ordered is not at all what you need or thought it was or two, you never find out because it's two weeks after you won the auction and the guy sends you an email saying he's 'backed up' and 'will give you a refund instead'. (You never get the refund.) So... yeah.

Anyway... the plants are getting bigger and the sunflowers have sprouted and were pushing up against the top of the jiffy greenhouses. Figured that was bad so they got the transplant. Nothing fancy. Just took the plug, put dirt around it, whittled a pot out of rosewood, found a priest to sprinkle it with holy water, and you know put an ad in the paper. The pots for transplanting are of my own design. Bought a sleeve of clear, plastic containers and drilled a bunch of holes in them. They got some miracle gro potting soil and some water, whala they're transplanted. After about 10 transplants I was done and had enough.

Not sure which day it happened, but it happened. Tweeks has sproutafied. No matter how hard I tried by dumping expensive coffee on him, he defied all odds and kept living. Take that Darwin ya big party pooper! Tweeks is like half an inch above the soil now for no apparent reason. I'll have to look at the archives to figure out if he is actually Brussels or not, but as of right now I'll say definitively he is one baaad Brusselfuc... watch yo mouth yes, I am talking about Tweeks. Actually a bit proud he survived. Like that baby you had, but you had seven others at the same time so you decided to not breast feed it and only give it coffee but it still lived even though you're a horrible selfish mother living off tax dollars and farming babies like golden retrievers, but the baby survives and then you're like 'What? Oh. Neat. Something else adding to the ongoing struggle for space in Chinatown,' because you named the moldy laundry room where you keep your 14 children 'Chinatown'. And then Supernanny punches you in the face which inevitably backfires because the sudden shock of her fist's impact somehow activated dormant leavings up inside your cervix causing a chain reaction that ends in even more media coverage because with wars going on across the globe, deadly brushfires, and everything else one lady with poor judgment who took enough steroids to ensure lifelong incontenence and disappointed lovers needs to be featured on the news... and and and...

Where was I? Yeah, Brussels sprout. The ones in the greenhouse are doing amazing. There's some sage Germans coming up too :) I am interested in what that plant is about and smells like. Did you know? Sage is in the Salvia family. There's an interesting fact to tell your smoking friends.

In Clone news: I've started to cycle the lampkin so the plants get a few hours each day to rest and figure out what roots are. Pretty much been leaving them alone while the root-coke works its magic. I could be mistaken, but it appears John Doe is developing new leaves. Aloenzo doesn't look so hot. Sorta baby pea soup colored. My "smoking=faster growth" theory is getting shot to hell. Well there goes my grant from Philip Morris. It seemed so plausible too...

Reconfigurating the way pictures are done. A couple will still be sprinkled randomly throughout the posts, but now there will be a link for the 'days photoalbum' and you can look at whatever you want. Like today the link will be right at the top. The point of this is that I've been taking 10 or so pictures a day and only end up with two or three on here so what's the point of paying the plants to pose nude if no one's gawking at alll the pictures? It's just bad business.

That's all for today. I have shouted "Grow Monkey Grow!" at the plants and they have answered.

~Grow Monkey

Another day in Chinatown

Did a little house cleaning with some of the plants that were frustrating the bejesus out of me. Ended up tossing a couple that still haven't sprouted to conserve space. Now there are two sage seeds outside the Jiffy greenhouses, kickin it like it was meant to be kicked. Hopefully they will go German soon and then sprout.

In the absence of some of my supplies (President's day delayed my mail-ordered presents) and good growing conditions, I've been wicking the plugs daily. What that means is taking all the Jiffy plugs that are outside the greenhouses and putting them in water until they are moist. Then, slapping them back inside the holders. Tada! Wicked plugs. Anyway, I figure once a day is good and will keep those guys nice and moist.

Here's a shot of the spinach. These three make me feel more accomplished than any of the rest. Spinach is a b**** to German and seeing them sprout like they got a pair is refreshing. *girds loins* ungirds. Yep. Theya maka me prouda.

Anyway, this is weird.

Second shot is of the many cabbages growing in the Jiffy greenhouse. Lately, I've started wondering how many cabbages I actually want. I mean, if it's perfectly grown and tastes better than any other cabbage on earth it is still, a cabbage. I highly doubt I can eat fifty cabbages. Even if shared, that is a lot of friggin cabbage. Brussels sprouts I can eat pounds of, but cabbage... Jesus christ what was I thinking?!?! (I was thinking about Smurfs.) So, the plan now is to either make more friends who are rabbits or Fedex some cabbages to third-world countries. And this is how the Blood-Cabbage controversy was born... 50 cabbages? You know what. Screw it. Let's go a hundred. Grow monkeys grow! HAHAHAHA!!! (FYI: insane laughter over the mundane is a sign of cabin fever)

Finally some strange developments in other areas. The jelly bean tomatoes (which are impossible to German in Kleenex) are flourishing inside those damn greenhouses. In fact, something happened during transplantation so that two seeds ended up in the same plug. They both went German. I don't know whether to send a thankyou card to Jiffy or give them the finger. Inevitably, I had to get over my pride and acknowledge no matter what techniques I use to create Germans, Jiffy will always kick my ass at it. Instead of moving the sprout I have decided in all my wisdom to keep these conjoined twins conjoined. They will share the name Tweedle Deedum and hopefully both will live and produce copius amounts of freak tomatoes.

I'm ignoring Aloenzo and John Doe. I feel that is the only way they will survive. My tinkering has caused enough pain and must be constrained to Chinatown which can handle a few casualties. Anyway, both those guys are boring and are going in the trash if they don't stop their tedious suckfest.

Adding some shots of the demonic sunflowers tomorrow. Adding pictures of the peanuts when they decide to spontaneously German like my father's.


~Grow Monkey

Presidents Day

In honor of President's day I watched the first 30 minutes of Robocop on Hulu.com. It would have been more, but in all her wisdom, Hulu decided to stop the projector mid-film. Personally, I think Robocop is quite analogous to the current political climate President Obama inherited. Firstly, Robocop, like Obama, must merge the separatist worlds to get anything done. In Obama's case, the Republicans and Democrats and in the case of Robocop, the humans and the cyborgs. Obama and Robocop are both agents of change, ushering in a new era of changiness that can be believed in if one so chooses. Finally, they both talk the same too.

All the plants are doing their thing. The spinach is starting to sprout. A couple cabbages are working on their second sets of leaves. The Brussels sprouts are doing well. Temps are good. Ph's are good. Lights are what they are... There is an air of peace in Chinatown tonight. Took some more pictures of random sprouts and things to illustrate the gist of what I'm rambling on about. The first picture shows the gang. It's easy to distinguish Albino Pete from the others because of his pigment issues and the half-assed transplant job I performed from plug to cup.

The second photo shows a couple of the cabbage plants that are on their second pairs of leaves. Grow monkeys grow!!

And the last pic I'll bore you with today is what spinach looks like when it finally sprouts. The difference in starter leaves between the spinach and cabbages is huge. Notice how the spinach has elongated string-like leaves and the cabbages have more clover-esque deals going on. The difference between the cabbage and Brussels sprout are more marginal at this point. They're both growing at about the same rate and their leaves are relatively similar.

Oh what the hell, one more pic.

Here's the cabbages growing inside one of the jiffy greenhouses. So far, this is sprouting Germans faster than any other method. Second, is the Miracle Gro soil cups, but I'm guilty of letting the plugs outside the greenhouses getting bone dry, so the results may be skewed.

Anyway, that's the news from Chinatown. Folk in Deutschland have been awfully quiet. Hopefully the root-coke is working out for the fellas. They both seem not dead, so that's good.

P.S. Happy Presidents Day

~Grow Monkey

John gets hormonal

Did some scavenging in this giant dumpster called Walmart and found some great deals on supplies. Got two more jiffy greenhouses and some cloning gel that's not a gel at all. It's a powder or root-coke as I like to call it. Those two cutting bastards are screwing up my life and they needed some root-coke to jazz things up.

I blew there minds. Now they're face down in the dirt tripping balls and hopefully growing some damn roots.

To the left, is the drugs and on the left is John Doe getting his coke fix. Aloenzo got a big dose too. For those nerds who want to know how to root stuff at home, the process goes thusly: 1.) Find your plant. 2.) Wait till he's not looking and yank that sprout from his dirthole. 3.) Now *quickly* run to the car and root through the Walmart grocery bag until you locate the root powder. 4.) Run back in, make sure you still have your plant in hand and remember, if it has a name, it's wrong to kill it so don't drop that sucker in the snow. 5.) Get back to the room, and dunk John Doe in some water and with nailclippers, cut some of the stem off at a 45 degrees angle while still submerged in the water. 6.) Dip the wet stem into the root-coke and wiggle it around. At this point, your plant is 'snorting', so give him a second. 7.) Find some place better to put him than the carpet and insert his coked up portions into the dirt. 8.) Repeat this process for Aloenzo but with more frustrated anger. 9.)Take those coke fiends back to Deutschland and place under the lampkin for rehab.

In other news, Chinatown had a huge influx of populations despite the one seed per plant decree. There are now two jiffy greenhouses full of Germans and seeds. There are other rogue plants still around too. Priscilla's the Brussels sprout queen. The only other big sprout in that camp is Albino Pete who is featured in the picture to the left. When he sprouted, there was no green on his leaves. His tap root is dangling through the jiffy peat and he needed some place to go.

That's an issue that came up. Turns out watering the jiffy plugs twice a day didn't keep them moist. I think the dryness of Pete's plug is part of the reason why his tap root is so long. To solve this, I took a jiffy greenhouse top and turned it upside down. Then, i put all the plugs in that top and flooded it with water. The plugs wicked up the water and pretty soon they were ready to go back in their holders. Pete got upgraded to a plastic cup with miracle gro soil in it.
Planted quite a few more spinach and Brussels sprout seeds and a hell of a lot more cabbages. Tomatoes and jelly bean tomatoes. Some sage and some weird sunflowers. And two peanuts.

Got a hygrometer too. The humidity is awesome in those greenhouses. Hoping that'll encourage the spinach plants to do something more than bore me. The rest of the grow box's humidity is right around 30%. I don't really think it matters a ton at this stage, but it's a cool tool to have. The humidity in my pants is 14% if you know what I mean. Anyway, that's pretty much all for today. Total head count of all the plants, including the cuttings is 167. That's a lot of monkeys.

~Grow monkey

Cleaning house

It was getting a tad bit crowded in Deutschland and it was time to move those Germans to a new home. But, there was no place to move them. So, I made a place.
Here's a shot of the final product. This took about 3 hours to assemble and cost around 46 bucks. It's 3 feet high and 4 feet across with holes drilled in the top for the fluorescent light chains. This makes it simple to raise the light as it grows. There is a fan out of frame behind the heater that blows hot air constantly to maintain temperatures. This is necessary because it's so damn cold in the house. That thing in the middle is a jiffy greenhouse thing that I'm going to modify later on into an ebb/flow hydroponic system for my cabbages. I figure I can fit about ten in there.

As far as the sprouts are concerned, Lazarus and Priscilla are kicking ass. They're both about an inch tall and loving the constant light. Only one spinach German has sprouted so far and six seeds are still in a wet napkin, challenging my patience.

John Doe is looking healthy, but Aloenzo is starting to brown. This is either because his precious bodily fluids are being used to form roots or he's dieing. A few days ago some rooted aloe vera 'pups' arrived at the house, so if Aloenzo ends up kicking the bucket, I might pull the ol switcharoo in an attempt to juke the results. I did some emergency surgery on Al, replacing that shitty dirt I got from some random houseplant with the miracle gro potting mix. Hopefully this will encourage him not to die. If it works, I will contact the AMA and demand they plant elderly people in Miracle Gro. Unless they're worth more dead than alive. In that case they should be planted in random house plant dirt.

I'll write up how I made my grow house in another post. It's relatively simple, but the materials were a bit more pricy than I expected. The 46 dollar figure includes a 4ft fluorescent fixture and 2-pack of bulbs, so really, the box itself clocked in around 30 bucks, which isn't too bad. I was shooting for 20, but oh well. I'm adding another fluorescent fixture today that will hang right next to the other one. This grow town's name is Chinatown because it will eventually be jammed full of Chinese Cabbages. I've informed the sprouts they are legally allowed only one seed.

~GrowMonkey

The °F 'n Problem

Well as patient as I've tried to have been, which isn't very patient at all, I always felt there was something amiss with the grow situation. Thought maybe trying to root the cuttings in fertilized potting soil could be it. Maybe the color of the compact fluorescent light or CFL was off... anyways, I couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I found the problem/solution...

It was the damn temperature! This never occurred to me. It's crazy hot in my room, but according to the thermometer, a mere 55 °F in Deutschland. "Hundekacke!" I yelped as I ran to find heat beams for my precious Germans.

After some monkeying around and a bit of modifications to the growing arrangement, the temp got up beyond 60 °F and is holding steady around 65 °F.

The plants listened. The modifications were done around 1am Wednesday morning and by 7am....
The first German to emerge from his birthing grave! A Chinese German no less. For this, he earned the name Lazarus.

John Doe is digging the light too. I swear he grew a quarter of an inch since the heat situation was rectified. Aloenzo is keeping quiet, but that's the part of his demeanor the ladies dig. Both of the fellas got watered because it's been awhile since their last drinks.

When I got home tonight, there were a few more Germans sprouting out of their graves. Headcount is at four.

So far the seed/german ratio race has Brussels Sprout in the lead with 10 out of 10 to go German, Chinese Cabbage with 7 out of 10 to German and Spinach with 4ish to German. I say 4ish, because the root business was in no way busting through those shells. The best of the four had a couple 2mm roots pertruding out and it was difficult to tell what the hell was going on with the majority of those guys. I've read germinating spinach is difficult, so this was somewhat expected. If these guys keep giving me trouble, I'm shoving them in the fridge and trying out what I found here.

Around a week into it, the monkeys are finally showing signs of growth :)

P.S.- No matter what temperature you think a room is, thermometers are smarter than you.

~Grow Monkey

Lady in the House

Oh plants. No sprouts to speak of today. Just a lot of buried Germans, still contemplating their emergence.

This German's name is Priscilla. She enjoys long walks on the beach and good listeners. Like her counterparts, she is an Aquarius and underage, so don't go getting any ideas.

I finally got motivated enough to french press some coffee. Tastes great. Had an idea and now there's another side experiment to see how coffee affects the growth of Brussels sprout. Root for Tweeks!

Me and the gang listened to some mantras today to focus our minds on achieving great things. Here's a link to what we listened to- http://snurl.com/bnajh - The Ganesh Mantra (Obstacle Breaker) and there's links from there to others. If you start to get mantra fever, Youtube has all sorts of playlists comprised of folks chanting mantras and whatnot. Everyone knows plants have tiny ears all over their bodies which is why their leaves are waxy (there are no q-tips small enough for plants mini-ears). Also, I think the overpopulation problems in India may be a sideeffect of mantras' ability to encourage rapid growth and that's what I'm looking for here with these fellas. Grow monkeys grow!

Till tomorrow,

~Grow Monkey

Population Explosion

Did a bit o the ol research with the internet and found some guy talking about how he's had success growing Aloe Vera from leaf cuttings. So IT IS POSSIBLE! Tough nugget to swallow is that you have to wait 3 weeks for it to callous and before there's any chance of roots showing up, so Aloenzo is off the hook for now. John's beginning to straighten out because of the light position change, so he's off the hook for now as well..

So, hold on to your hats, because a lot happened last night. The Brussels sprout that had previously turned into paper mache because of poor moisture conditions (caused by evil dehumidifying elves who snuck in whilst I slept and vampired them) sprung back into life, leaving in its wake seven stout little Germans! Now you know why they call them "Brussels" sprout and not "French layabout" sprout. So they were good to go onward to the next phase of life along with the Chinese Cabbage... But what else? Oh, the spinach! Hell if a couple of those screwballs weren't showing promise themselves. Decided to stick the two crapping out roots and a couple other prospects in jiffy peat discs along with their vegetable kindred. The jiffy was a lucky grab from a local store after I'd stuck three Brussels and three Chinese in miracle gro potting mix/plastic cups. Now there's some side experiment race happening between Jiffy & Miracle Gro for quickest seedling formator. Who will win? Only time decide...

The picture above shows a collage of processes. Starting in the upper left hand corner, that's the stuff I snagged from the local plant place to facillitate my Frankenstonian experiments. Upper right shows how you jiffy those peat discs into peat masterpieces. I used my secret formula of a giant mixing bowl and water (don't tell it's secret). Lower-left is the post-planted spinach and Chinese Germans side-by-side but the labels are unreadable so really that could be anything growing there. Maybe it's all a big lie?! But, alas, it's not. And finally, home to many a German is the Deutschland with Führer Aloenzo at the helm.

So that's the news for now. Seeds are growing great. John's straightening out and Aloenzo is less misunderstood.

~Grow Monkey

The Germans are Coming!

Impatient as always, I decided to check those seeds for activity today. It's been about 40 hours since they've been Kleenex'd.
Those fuzzy white dots used to be like those fuzzy black dots and lifeless. We officially have Germans! The Kleenex containing Brussels sprout seeds dried out so they got the ol' hydration and nothing in that camp has yet to do anything spectacular. The spinach has remained wet and has also remained dormant as of today. The winner here is the Chinese cabbage. After 40 hours of hanging out in wet tissue town, the seeds are beginning to take the hint and get growing. GROW MONKEY GROW!!!
Turned the lights off last night so I could sleep. They stayed off for about 12 hours or so, not counting natural light coming through the window. Temperature wise, my bedroom door is pretty much always shut with the heater on high to keep the temp above 40f or whatever cold ass temperature it is in this house.
Modified the setup a bit by putting that sanitary lampkin on a stack of math books and Burpee's seed starter book. Finally getting some use out of those tomes. Hopefully this will straighten Mr. Doe out. He was getting a bit crooked. Transplanted him last night to a clear cup and noticed there wasn't much rooting going on. Plant is awfully green and the clear cup will show off any roots that do decide to form. Re potted the African violet with new dirt. That dirt was crazy wet and it was difficult shaking it off the roots without breaking roots off. That plant is probably a lost cause.
Aloenzo is hanging in there. Not sure what his plans are yet, but I'll keep jacking him with the light machines until he wiggles out some life. He's still green as hell so there's no signs of death perse, but there's no real signs of life either. Total coma business on that front.
There's John being all crooked. The new light position should straighten him up a bit. As far as roots go, right now he can go to hell.

Today's moral is: "If you want something to happen quickly, look to the Chinese" One of these projects will have to involve a germination race between the Chinese and the Mexicans to once and for all see who is more productive.

~Grow Monkey

New Friends

I watered the cuttings yesterday. The mystery houseplant is leaning towards the lampkin now, getting its light on so to speak. The aloe is doing it's aloe thing which is nothing. They both got their water and both seem out to bore me to death.

New Additions:
Got some seeds at Kmart. Brussels sprout (Brassica oleracea), Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa), and Spinach (Espinaca Hibrida Hoja Pequena). I threw ten seeds from each packet in some kleenex, folded it up, stuck it in see-through plastic cups, and wetted them thoroughly with tap water. It's been about 24 hours and none have germinated yet. The clear cups gave me an idea to transplant the mystery plant so I'm gonna. I don't really care about this plant and those seeds are less of a concern now. They're all just something for me to mess around with while I wait for my triumphant aloe to grow triumphantly large and produce lots of healy juices for hippies too cheap to buy neosporin.

There's a pic of the seeds in my ultra-hi tech germinarium. Apparently, "germinarium" is too high-tech a word for blogger.com to handle. They say it's a misspelling. Misspell this!

Here's a picture of the mystery plant upclose. Notice how it doesn't realize it's about to get transplanted even though it totally is. The second pic is of the whole setup. Two 23w CFLs are going 24 hours a day. You can see the african violet with all the leaves picked off that were affected by root rot. Dad said I should transplant that and I figure, what the hell, so I'm gonna. The mother aloe plant is loving the light. It's got some new spear shooting out the top center.

I decided to name the two plants. They mystery plant is John Doe and the aloe is Aloenzo. Hopefully having names will inspire them to register for social security cards.

Updates tomorrow after transplanting with some photo pictures.

~Grow Monkey

Project numero uno (Translated: My first exciting grow project)

Here's the scoop. I get home and there's all sorts of plants that need some lovin. So like Shaft, I see the need and fill it with need sauce.

Project 1:

Question: Can you grow aloe from a cutting?
Answer: I dunno. Let's try.

Heard some bullshit online that you need to start aloe from a pup. Whatever the hell a 'pup' is. I've never seen any dog kick some aloe out its belly, but whatever it's probably some term horticulturists use to lord over us average folk. All I know is that aloe looks sorta cactus-y so it should do something like a cactus should. Really technical, I know, but it's not about terms/jargon here... it's about the experience!

I took a cutting from an aloe plant. It's about a foot long. Shoved it in some dirt with little water. I've read that you don't want too much water or the plant won't have to 'work' to get it. Root formation is the plants way of getting off its ass and surviving. But they do it all slow and this blog is a way for me to keep busy while they get around to it.

There's another cutting that had already started to root that's under the same lights. One light is a lamp with a shade, the other is my sanitary lampkin. They were both planted yesterday, the mystery cutting in some miracle grow potting soil and the aloe in some dirt that was in some other plant in the living room. Both in two inch wide peat pots. Both light sources are compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), 1600 lumens a pop. Picked a two-pack up at Home Depot for six bucks, whoopdee doo. They will be left on 24 hours a day to promote growth, make it impossible to sleep, and ruin the electric bill.


This is a picture from yesterday. This is the initial setup with a incadecent light in the lamp.


Here's one from today. You can see it got a bit more cluttered, but those other plants aren't doing any harm because they're being watched by me Jesus and the feds. The mother aloe plant is in there looking at it's body part. You can see my sanitary lampkin doing its job with a cfl jammed in its head. I have no idea what that other cutting is. Its some houseplant mystery. It had roots already though so screw it, lets make it bigger! Hopefully it won't grow up and attack me Little-Shop-of-Horrors-style.

By the way, I chain smoke and I think this will help those guys grow. My reasoning is, if smoking causes cancer and cancer is cell growth and plants have cells, then logically, plants will grow faster around me. Take that health monkeys!


That's about it for now. I'll try to do daily updates, with pictures and stuff, but I'm not making any promises.

~Grow Monkey

Introductions

Hey. My name is Mike and I'll be your grow monkey this evening. So let's put on some pants and get started!