Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

It’s about 45 minutes before dawn. I stretch, and dress warmly, because it’s 44 degrees (6.6 C) outside and I am about to go hunting for compost tea ingredients. From ten years of doing this, I know where to go on my property, in my neighborhood, and deep in the woods. But if an opportunity for something new and interesting presents itself, I want to be open to that. I’m confident that neighbors who notice me are fully aware of what I’m doing and why. In some cases, I’m doing them a favor, by picking up the downed fruit they have on the street or in driveways near the street. I also get a delicious thrill knowing that I’m getting to the free stuff before the deer or squirrels.

Downed fruit is good. Pick it up and make use of it. Bruises don’t matter.

One of the first things I tell students is to learn about the plants growing near them. This is not only a good way to learn what grows well in your area, it’s also an opportunity to find unique sources for compost teas.

I am not a plant scientist. I wasn’t trained in horticulture. But once I learned about compost teas, I became curious. I began taking walks in search of compost tea ingredients. I took pictures of plants I could not identify. I noted wherever there were fruit trees. I encourage you to do the same.

I have primarily scouted for the method of compost tea that I prefer, the aerated tea. But with Bee having recently introduced some eel grass into our environment, I’ve become curious about plant teas that soak for a week or longer before use. Given my desire to make teas that are at an equivalent stage of growth as my plants, it strikes me that longer soaking teas, made mindfully, might be at least as beneficial as what I’ve been brewing. Longer soaking teas would also cost a lot less than molasses, humic acid, growing formulas, etc. If you could fertilize your grows primarily from plants that you glean from your neighborhood, and leech at no cost other than water, it seems like a good investment of time to learn how.

I am a novice when it comes to teas like this. I’ll probably write more in a couple of years, after I’ve tried doing it for a while. Honestly, my aerated teas have been so good this year, there’s no reason to change – certainly not in mid-grow. This is for down the road, and it seems like a fun thing to try.

In the meantime, however, I have tea to make for the remainder of this grow. I tend to use material found on my property, because I have an abundance of choices. When I began, I didn’t know what I had, or what existed anywhere else. I literally live in, and am adjacent to a wilderness that is federally protected from building new structures. The area hasn’t fundamentally changed in over 60 years and parts of the woods have possibly never been traversed by humans. That pristine land like this still exists in California, especially near the coast, is a miracle by itself. 

So today, as I construct my compost teas for this week, let me show you what I find. I encourage each of you to do the same thing. Identify the plants growing in your yard and around where you live. Consider areas close to your home, where you routinely take hikes, or even on a walk to a nearby store or the post office that you might do all the time. Take some moments and begin identifying the plants you find along the trail. Some will be of no real interest or concern, but some will be fascinating to learn about, and you might discover a plant or two that helps your grow. I certainly have.

I referred to this activity in the first blog entry that I wrote about cannabis back in April of 2020. I know a few of you have learned about plants living near you, and I understand that not everybody lives near a national park or wilderness area. Not all of you can just pop out your door and grab the answer to your tea like I can. But I’m also certain that more of you can do this than you realize. 

It really comes down to how much you want to educate yourself. I’ll leave that to you.

Let’s go find some good stuff. 

In the last blog, I mentioned that I was switching to my flowering formula this week, even though it will be  weeks before any of the plants start to flower. The reason for this change is the supplemental lighting, which will remain on through July 21. As long as those lights are on, I don’t have to worry about flowering, so I can give the plants phosphorus and potassium without any fear of triggering an early bloom.

This also means I can change some of the ingredients that I add to teas. I have to admit that I prefer creating teas for flowering plants, because there are so many flowering plants that can be included. Once flowering formula has begun, actual flowers and flowering plants can start going in the teas. This also means I can introduce and fortify the grow with one of my favorite insect fighting tools–aromatics. I can begin adding pungent flowers and plants as part of my IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program, because most insects (along with deer) don’t like odors.

So this means I can clip our lavender, and from the neighborhood, I can take samples of mint:

I’ll also include lemon verbena (which everyone should grow, BTW):

Lemon verbena might be my favorite plant fragrance. I have handed a leaf of this plant to many people in distress over the years. The fragrance almost always turns their frown upside down.

Growing through  my neighbor’s fence are  new, very tender kiwi shoots:

This is what I mean by taking advantage of an opportunity. This new growth is poking out on my side of our shared fence. By law, I can do with it as I please. Of course, I’m a good neighbor, so I don’t clip anything without permission of the people living next door, despite the law. Thankfully, they let me have anything that grows my way. For this, they can have a fat sack of whatever they want from my dispensary. I believe in this kind of barter. So much better than money.

When I want horsetail (and I want it for every tea) all I have to do is cross the road by our house, towards the creek in the center of the road, and you can see the abundance of this amazing plant. Clusters of horsetail like these are all over our valleys. In addition to what it does for my teas, horsetail juice is also an antidote to stinging nettles, which is why they often grow close to one another. Because of the pure silica in this plant, it is one of the most valuable and powerful ingredients to add to a tea. It goes in every tea I brew. I didn’t know anything about this plant when I started growing. I only came to understand it after I became curious about the plants growing near me. I had no clue that it’s full of silica. By the way, I tend to pick the youngest growth. You can spot them in the front, those smaller sprouts are practically bursting with silica.

Of course, there are fruit trees. In our neighborhood, there are currently plums and apples. The plums are becoming the most ready for tea right now and the apples will follow shortly. Our neighbors have more than one apple tree, so they need me to deal with their abundance by putting a lot of apples in my tea. But first, the plums:

Of course, I will mostly use our own plums. We eat the best tasting, and the rest go into teas, because they are all packed with simple sugar, which plants crave.

After my supply is exhausted, I will pick downed plums and apples from the neighborhood. No one in the neighborhood minds when I scoop up downed fruit. 

Once there are plums ready to eat, there will soon be over-ripe plums, and eventually, plums that begin to ferment. That’s when we get drunk squirrels. If you’ve never watched a drunk squirrel, it’s worth the time and effort. It’s especially comical when there are two, and they are both hammered. They become rude and if you’re a patient observer, you might get to see one or more drunkenly fall off a branch. It only lasts a couple of weeks, but it is hysterical. I would love to get these antics on film someday.

Of course, everyone in my neighborhood probably knows what I’m doing. I even get people delivering downed apples to me. Those folks get a fat sack of their choice.

From our next door neighbor yesterday. For next week’s tea.

Of course, I have often mentioned mycorrhizae in these blogs. In my very first blog post, I mentioned digging up raw mycorrhizae on my property, which to that point, I had not actually done. It was entirely theoretical, though I had strong suspicions. We felt that we must have this substance hiding somewhere on the property, but I hadn’t found it yet.

Well, we’ve got access to it now. We began by literally digging around the base of our ancient buckeye tree, but we were honestly scared to dig too deep. We now understand that you don’t have to dig deep for mycorrhizae. We waited until we found it organically, just below the surface, and sometimes visible above the surface. 

There’s a cluster of buckeye sprouts that have grown into their own trees, all connected to the nearby Mother tree, of course. Beneath them, we’ve only had to scratch the surface to uncover a vast array of mycorrhizae. Since locating it, we’re noticing it all over the place. I see veins of it along the pathway as I walk up the hill. There is a reason for that: We live above a large network of fungus that probably extends beyond anything I can imagine. Our impression is that the entire area is connected via fungus. It explains why growth in this area is so uniformly lush.

Consequently, the natural state of the environment around me is stellar. The ground is conducive to growing, and the spring water comes out with a pH of 6.7, which is optimal for a cannabis grow.

For the last ten years, I have been scheming how I could best take advantage of this fungal resource. By denying water to Cherry Punch in bed 15,  I am finally testing what I have been hinting at for ten years.

I’m still giving her one quart of compost tea every week. She just doesn’t get water alone.

It was by taking walks and discovering other plants that I began to conjure what plants I wanted in my garden, to help me grow what I suddenly needed to grow, after Karen became ill. It was on these walks that I realized borage was everywhere out here. It was easy to spot because of the distinctive colors of the flowers, and also because of the buzzing bees, who truly love borage. Borage also has a special relationship with aphids and ants. The three are inextricably linked.

Borage

Aphids love borage. I have had borage growing inches from cannabis and aphids haven’t touched my plants, because they are enamored with borage. But they don’t know that the borage is a trap. Once the aphids are established on a borage plant, something triggers the ants. They emerge from the loam by the hundreds and they proceed to colonize the aphids into a tight cluster, from which they cannot escape. They then proceed to spend the summer keeping the aphids as slaves, sucking the juice of the borage plant right through the aphid. They almost use the aphids as straws or sieves. By the end of the summer, all that remains of the aphids is a cluster of black death. It’s an absolutely fascinating thing to watch; albeit somewhat grizzly. 

Lastly, I would like to remind everyone: Wherever you live, put up a bat house and see if they will come. The last step in the treasure filled walk is one of my own creations. Like all of these plants and fruits that grow near me, collecting guano from our local bats is one of the greatest free giveaways of all time. 

Bat guano captured from below a house is free, and in the case of the California Brown Bat, which is what hangs out around me, it is one of the best pure sources of nitrogen and frass. All you have to do is put up a house and capture the scat. Then, you have to dry it completely. Do not use it raw, because it has live bacteria that you do not want to introduce to your plants or your growing medium.

But if you dry it properly, you literally cannot use too much of this guano, and you won’t get nitrogen burn. It’s safe and effective, and it’s free. I’ve got enough guano stored right now to last me the next two years. I will probably take a break from fish as fertilizer in one of the next two years, and fertilize exclusively for one full year with the guano. If it had a NPK, it would probably be 8-0-0. It is both an immediate fertilizer, and a long game soil builder. I can’t recommend it more highly.

If the bats are around, they’ll find you. Put up a house. You don’t have to feed them. They will supply you. They will procreate in numbers, and they will return. Just remember to capture and dry the guano. Collect it often, because a strong wind will blow it all away.

I have spent a lot of time extolling the virtues of less expensive fertilization. Get to know a butcher or someone who deals with fish scraps. But even that opportunity still costs something. Whether it’s $60 for fish scraps to fertilize 22 beds, or whether it costs a fat sack, it still costs something. Captured guano costs nothing.

Everything I have described in this blog has happened since I began growing. But I’ve also sought out the information. I’ve been very curious, and that curiosity has led me to several significant improvements in how I grow, how much it costs to grow, and how much better I’m growing now than when I started. It’s all part of the same long-game treasure hunt that as growers, we are all a part.

Hey Friends: If you’d like to support jeffreyhickeyblogs.com, please feel free to donate to PayPal @jeffreydhickey.

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.

Disclaimer: The majority of the links in jeffreyhickeyblogs.com posts are affiliate program links. This means that (most of the time) when you purchase a product linked from my site, I receive a commission.