Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

Veg growth on a 400 plus year old tree, yes, I’ll take a little of that in my tea, please.

The plants are settled in their beds. There are a few minor problems to address, but overall, the transition from inside to outside has been smooth. The plants are taking off. I love when I transplant, and the next day, I can tell that the plant grew.

Since I’ve given myself some extra weeks of vegetative growth, I want to spend some time discussing the importance of proper veg time for plants. Over the last three or four years, I have come to the conclusion that I’ve been cheating my grow. I have struggled with plants that flower early, because I have struggled getting adequate light for my plants.

The supplemental outdoor lighting completely changed the paradigm. For many years, I didn’t put plants in beds until June 1, because that felt like the safest time to plant. Most of my beds are getting a little over 12 hours of sun for about three weeks before and three weeks after Solstice. Anything I tried to plant in May would attempt to flower. Sometimes, they would attempt to flower even if I planted them in June. 

Not anymore. I have zero early flowering plants this year, for the first time ever. I’ll admit to feeling giddy about this. Not a big deal for some of you, but a huge deal here.

So, now I’m looking to hone this new gift of supplemental lighting, to discover the exact parameters that will define my perfect time to get plants into beds.

This year, I started seeds on April 7. The final plants went into beds on May 19, six weeks later. 

Next year, I will start regular seeds on April 2. This would make planting day May 14, and on May 14 this year, my beds were easily getting over thirteen hours of sun (with the supplemental lighting). Some of that sun was peeking through large redwoods at the end of the day, but whatever it takes. All my plants need is a touch of sun, or any kind of decent light, to make them think the sun is still up. The amount of light hitting them is increasing with each day. This is close to the fourteen hours they get in the cottage, and will actually exceed fourteen hours in only a few days. 

The ruse is working. As a bonus, I think those small LED lights are actually a growing benefit for the vegetables we have planted in the row immediately beneath them. They are pointed mostly at the vegetables, with peripheral lighting touching the cannabis.

So what does that extra time actually mean for the plants? Here are two photos, one from May 28 last year, and one from May 27 this year.

May 28, 2024

May 27, 2025

The difference between the two cannot be made up over the course of the summer and fall. This is the difference that three weeks of extra vegetative growth can mean. It’s the difference between a good sized plant, and a big plant. I expect the impact on potency to be subtle though stronger, but I expect it to have a significant impact on yield. For an outdoor grower, yield is everything. We only grow once a year.

The most challenging problem so far has been aphids. Aphids are not easy to see, and I didn’t see them. I should have figured it out, based on the curled leaves, but I blamed that on nitrogen rich beds and the cold making the plants stagnant. I wasn’t wrong in my explanation, but I wasn’t primarily correct, either. I hadn’t noticed the aphids, who had taken residency in nooks and crannies underneath line of sight. The plants were being attacked.

Once Bee noticed them and we started rinsing them off, there was obvious improvement. Even so, one of the plants, Cherry Punch in bed 15, still had some aphids sucking away at the inner nodal growth and slowing her down.

Since the predator insects are only beginning to arrive, I needed to act decisively. Aphids cannot be ignored. If you notice they have wings, that means they’re having babies, and that means an infestation is close. Luckily, this is early in my beds, but merely washing them off every day wasn’t stopping them. They get back on.

So, I reached for Dr. Bronner’s reliable soap. I think it’s pretty cool that the soap I use to mop the floors and clean the walls of my drying cottage is the same soap I use to kill aphids. 1 tablespoon per quart of water in a foliar spray. I made a one gallon batch (with four tablespoons) for my battery powered foliar spray, and I’m keeping the sprayer in the beds for early morning sprays the next couple of days. I’ll keep spraying with soap until my next IPM spray, which is Venerate next Tuesday, which also kills aphids.

In the meantime, I know exactly what to give them: More mycorrhizae and less nitrogen. Same amount of Humic Acid and Molasses. Same pinch of Sea 90 salt, from the brand new bag. They don’t need any extra Growing formula. Most of what they need right now is already in the beds. Local fruit needs to develop and ripen before I can use it in teas.

Every plant was topped yesterday. I generally only top once, but if a particular plant is showing potential for significantly larger growth, I might top again. I can see a high probability of topping both Cherry Punch plants twice, for example. But for me, I usually top only once and never more than two. Any more than that will cause crowding amongst all the new growth and lead to more pruning. I’ll prune more if necessary, but if limiting the amount of topping leads to less pruning, I’ll take it.

Pruning is essential during the veg growing period. I am constantly eying where the big flowers are going to grow, and how I can best support them by removing less significant growth. As I have mentioned before, we prefer training over topping outdoors, and would probably prefer topping over training indoors. If we can train a productive bough to not interfere with another productive branch, that’s what we choose to do. I will avoid pruning wherever and whenever possible. The reason I avoid it is that every cut outdoors opens the possibilities of pathogens attacking the plant. Every cut is an opening. Even something as simple as accidentally stripping some bark when removing a fan leaf can lead to mold.

Under the right conditions, mold can thrive even on the bark of a branch, if something is stripped without applying honey to the wound. I cannot stress enough the importance of having honey close by for plant wounds. It’s such a simple fix, to apply some honey to a Q-tip and then to the wounded area. It seals the wound shut, and keeps pathogens at bay while the plant heals.

But if your growing medium hasn’t been pre-conditioned and fortified like mine, with both fish and fava beans, right now is when you use your best Grow type sources. Whatever works best for you. Pour it on right now. 

That said, if you don’t pour anything too special on right now, the plant will still grow. Especially from seed, these are pretty resilient plants. Take good care of them and they will take good care of themselves. They know exactly what they are doing.

If you want to grow large plants outdoors, you need to find the right start date. My goal is to hone in on the perfect start date for future grows. With this year’s grow, I’m closer to knowing than I’ve ever been. Having the supplemental lighting means I can start earlier. It’s only taken me ten years to figure this out. Hopefully, with the help of this blog, it will take less time for you.

And finally, a quick update on the CBG & Me Part 2 blog: I ordered 50 seeds from Oregon CBD, and in the seed package, there were more than 50 seeds. So–a tip of the hat to Oregon CBD. Most of these seeds are now in the ground, doing their thing. An experienced grower on the North Coast is handling the grow. We’ve got plenty of medicine to help our friend while we wait for the reinforcements to arrive in September. Stay tuned.

Lavender and Sage being friends.

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Or contact me directly with your idea (good seeds are always welcome–and if I grow them, I will get the flowers tested and share with you the results.

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