Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

Heat One day last summer, June 10, 2019, we had the hottest day we’ve had in our 22 years at this home. It reached 102 degrees fahrenheit. During this heat, as you can see in the photo, local quail flew into the garden and took comfort beneath the canopy of…

4 Halfway to Planting Today, the youngsters in the cottage are halfway to planting day, provided enough females survive. To help make certain I fill our beds, I’ve started five feminized seeds. So of the 32 plants in 3-gallon pots, all I need are seven females. Other than wanting a…

Some Growling Required It would be fair to describe where we live as being on the border of a wilderness. We are surrounded by near pristine land. That such land still exists in California is a testament to the grit and stones of the people who fought to keep it…

Inside the Cottage For six weeks, my grow is indoors. I watch the sky and chart the progress of the sun, but while that process takes shape, I keep an eye on the babies. This is made easier by having the temperature and humidity being relayed into the house, so…

Training If you go back to the first blog in this series, you’ll see the weights of our four harvests listed. You can see the improvement in the beds based on weight alone. But the soil improvement was only one component to our sudden and dramatic rise in yield. The…

I’ Cultivars and Terpenes One day in the garden with Bee, we were silently and happily pruning. Bee was working on a Harlequin plant displaying a Fibonacci sequence in its growth. We were both staring and marveling at the beauty, and the surprise of the discovery. Bee took a deep…

As previously written, I love growing local cultivars. I love trying to grow a cultivar that someone I know has put the time and energy into developing and engineering. These are plants carrying unique information. That these plants are not known, or not widely known, makes them even more special…

This will be my third year of growing exclusively with seeds, so it will be my third year of sexing. I have had two completely different experiences so far, which is not unusual. The first year, I had more females than males, which is unusual. I started very few seeds…

Yesterday, I spent several hours doing the slow, precise work of transplanting 32 starts from little cups to 3-gallon pots. As much as I enjoy every step in this process, I will admit to this being one of my least favorite days. The simple reason is the amount of bagged…

The accompanying photo was taken last fall, when we finally were able to fit all 17.1 pounds into half gallon jars, and then into a cool, dry, closet for storage. Each jar is identified by a two digit designation for the cultivar, the bed number and the year. Further, once…