Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

I start normal cannabis seeds (as opposed to feminized) wrapped in tissue, in a heated grow mat compartment. I spray each tissue and compartment with a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide. The proportion is ½ cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide per gallon of water. This is the only water…

Bee took this miraculous photo last year. In it, we have a beneficial insect eating a harmful insect. This is the Assassin Fly, and it has a burrowing beetle in its mouth. We began noticing assassin flies two years ago, the same year we embraced borage as a permaculture addition…

Did you know that the pathogen, powdery mildew, lives in the bits and pieces of plant debris leftover from your previous growth, and therefore, lives on in your soil? Did you know that the powdery mildew that attacks your zucchini is not the same powdery mildew that attacks your tomatoes,…

I have a truly vile anecdote regarding fish and raccoons that I share for full disclosure. The first year I planted fish, we had no idea what to expect. I worried about raccoons, but had to simply wait and see what happened. In that first year, and the second, they…

All growers have pest issues. Be they insects or vermin, growing food and/or cannabis attracts creatures who want to help themselves to whatever is being grown. I have largely prevented raccoons from helping themselves, and that is a major victory. I work proactively to prevent as many pests as possible.…

I remember when my teacher began talking about compost teas, I felt a bit sick to my stomach. I had heard about compost teas for a while, but knew nothing about the specifics. Whenever I heard compost tea, my thoughts were only on the unruly mess of stuff we have…

Currently, our beds are filled with nearly flowering fava beans. Why fava beans? Nitrogen is something that has to be replenished in soil. It gets depleted with every grow. If you want to grow effectively again next year, you’ll need to replace the nitrogen, and fava beans are the best…

Soon, I will begin my pre-dawn ritual of rising between 5-6 in the morning. I’ll stretch, do some pilates, pushups and crunches for about 30 minutes, before bundling up and heading outside. I have to be extra careful at this time. I had my second hernia surgery a few weeks…

In the previous post, you read about the basic infrastructural work that went into what I’m doing now. We tapped into our spring water long before we started growing cannabis. That cost close to $20,000. We built our own beds and fence, but had to re-build the beds after ten…

When we first moved to this property, we waited two years before deciding where the garden should be built. We wanted to see which way the wind blows and which way the water flows before deciding to insert our will upon the property. We live well out in an unincorporated…