My grafted TARS-23 chocolate tree (one of a collection of Puerto Rican heirlooms) that I potted up into the 5-gallon hydroponic system has started flowering. I grafted this thing back in March. I expect more of my grafts to start flowering soon. #growingchocolate
Finally got around to getting a laser cutter/engraver. I figure starting off with a large bed and 22w is good. Later, I’ll get a CO2 laser and a CNC machine to round out my engraving tools. This laser has a cover that will vent out the window. I can’t wait. Lasers make everything better. #laser
I'm finally potting up my grafted chocolate trees into my 5-gallon hydroponic system. They're going to be so happy. Will prune them when I get a mist-bench for cuttings. I have room for two more of my grafts, then I'll have to build a new system for the redundants and rootstocks. #growingchocolate
Kona flowers are opening. Here’s an image, post-coitus. Gerard the mechanical toothbrush had a lot of action this afternoon. More flowers are yet to open too. Hoping to reap a decent crop of coffee from this little tree. Can’t wait to get some of these sprouted and in hydroponics. #growingcoffee
More flowers on my larger Kona coffee tree. Several branches are loaded down with flowers. Gonna have a mess of coffee cherries in a few months. Will probably plant them, though I may save a few for a quarter-pound to roast roast. A few being about 700 beans, or 350 cherries. #growingcoffee
My humble beginnings of a hydroponic pineapple farm. Two on the left are Golds, the center is Sugarloaf, and two on the right are Jade. The rest are in pots outside, waiting to fruit and produce suckers as I expand the hydroponic crop. Hope to have hundreds and thousands in time. #growingpineapples
I could have potted this Gold sucker into a DWC when I pulled it off the mother plant, but I didn’t have a bucket ready. Now it is, and has been added to my little collection of hydroponic pineapples. #growingpineapples
My Sugarloaf pineapple sucker is finally in it’s final home in the DWC. I needed to root it first so I could direct a few of the roots down through the net-pot to give the plant a jumpstart. Now I am poking around the mother plant hoping for more suckers or a pineapple… #growingpineapples
Definitely going to be getting one of these. Cannot wait to make some AWESOME dive, zipline, parasailing, hiking, and other adventure videos!!! #videography
youtu.be/-Vo8QAy_b38?...
The Gold I harvested from has given me a sucker with roots. it’s in water now, and I'll insert it into a DWC bucket. There’s another sucker, too. Soon I’ll depot the plant, rip off all leaves, and lay the stem on its side in some moist perlite. It’ll produce lots of suckers then. #growingpineapples
Lisa Vanecek with her dive instructor Jay Fraze after her discovery dive this past weekend. Yep. She's hooked. We have a lot more diving ahead of us... I am so giddy, and proud. #scubadiving
Sugarloaf sucker has rooted. I need the roots to be three times longer so they’ll more easily settle through the slots in the net-pot (in background), into the nutrients and bubbles. Another week perhaps? I wanted to put it in the DWC tonight, but the roots were just too short. #growingpineapples
I am eager to migrate my potted pineapples into DWC buckets. But, I’ll have to wait for crowns and suckers. My sugarloaf suckered and I popped it off. It broke off higher than expected. Too high? But two weeks in, I’ve got roots. Already have a DWC bucket ready for this one. #growingpineapples
Potted up my largest White Jade pineapple sucker. It had done well in a 16oz cup but it’s time to set it free in a DWC bucket. It’ll get big quickly. I need more buckets, net-lids, air-stones, etc etc… Logistics. They’ll find a home in a corner of the garage under lights soon. #growingpineapples
White Jade pineapples sucker a lot. I depotted these 17 suckers and inserted into a DWC lid with 7 netpot holes. They’ll park here for a bit while I get more DWC buckets prepared. I still have another 18. Gonna have a ton of hydroponic White Jade pineapples in a couple of years. #growingpineapples
Depotted my White Jade Pineapple and inserted it into a DWC bucket. It should grow MUCH better now, and faster. Fortunately, the few roots it had were healthy, and there was no rot. It’ll probably fruit in a year. My other potted pines are too big to do this, sadly. More to come… #growingpineapples
Here is my diminutive rooted chocolate tree cutting. I’ll get it in a recirculating system soon and its growth should take off. I may experiment with rooting chocolate trees as I prune their branches to expand my orchard. #growingchocolate
I ended up pruning my large chocolate tree back pretty hard. It was getting too tall and spreading too far and shading itself. I chopped off the top jorquette and cut back the long branches. Tons of new growth. I’ll keep shaping it periodically. #growingchocolate
My grow tent is a jungle. Soon I’ll remove the eight strongest grafts to pot up into my other hydroponic system. I expect many to flower within a year, even. The rest will go into another system I am building. Soon I’ll have coffee seedlings in there. #hydroponicchocolate
Coffee flowers from my Typica tree from Kona have withered and dropped off, leaving behind the baby coffee cherries. In about six months, they’ll be the size of cherries and ripe. Then I’ll embark on my hydroponic journey with coffee trees. I may have extras however… #growingcoffee
A squirrel ate my pineapple, sadly. Left enough for me to confirm it was indeed a sweet Gold, and the crown was intact. This crown is now rooted and in a DWC hydroponic bucket. All my pines will end up in hydroponics eventually. No more ants or weeds or watering inconsistency. #pineapple
The first few clusters of Kona coffee flowers have finally opened. More are on the way. I hit the flowers this morning and afternoon with a buzzing toothbrush to help with pollination. Fingers crossed they’ll produce lots of cherry. #growingcoffee
My largest Kona coffee tree is flowering again. I will have enough to plant some into hydroponics. I’ve been wanting to get my coffee orchard on hydroponics for years. Far easier with seedlings than big trees. Then I can put the big trees on hydroponics with the assurance I have backups. #coffee
Motherfucking windfarms
I sent yet another novel off to my editor yesterday. Now I am dusting off my projects as I consider the next novel to write. Here's a candidate I am looking at: www.mjv.com/snippets/exp... #CooperativeContinuum
Everything Trump does regarding wars - Iran, Gaza, Ukraine - must be looked at through the lens of his utter obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize. It absolutely grates on him that a black president won the Nobel Peace Prize, and he has not. So nothing he does is selfless. It's all about Trump.
They vote against their own best interests, then blame others when the shit hits the fan. Exact same thing happened in Kerr County when they tried to refuse Biden money for flood prevention upgrades and then used that money for other unrelated projects instead. Their blood is on THEIR HANDS.
Well, this was unexpected. After grafting a mature scion onto rootstock, it can take a year and usually two before it flowers. Some say as soon as 6 months, but my scions were itty-bitty. This precocious Jaca chocolate tree is less than two months grafted, and is already flowering. #cacao #grafting
He has committed a host of impeachable offenses. He will be impeached bigly.
Theobroma cacao flower
Here is an open flower on one of my Criollo chocolate trees. When I get a few flowering at the same time, I’ll try my hand at hand-pollination. I need to get a stand for the camera or a 10x floor-stand magnifier to see what I am doing, however. Flowers are tiny! #cacao
