Early Summer at Stony Oasis: Hugelkultur Cannabis Grow Update

The Cannabis Plants Settle into Their Dryland Hugelkultur Beds…

Time for an update on my Hugelkultur cannabis grow…how are the plants fairing, are they growing? Are they struggling because of the ongoing inclement weather we have been having this spring?

Today is the 10th of June, and summer is hitting the Semcoe mountains of central WA this week, after a long cold wet spell of spring weather. And my cannabis plants have a large root system developed by now so with that actual warm weather I expect them to really take off in their dryland hugelkultur planting bed.

Their roots have undoubtedly found some of the richness of the super soil I have filled the hugelkultur bed with.

My weather app tells me it will hit 90 degrees or in Goldendale WA this week which means my property will be in the high 80’s. The plants are going to love this. I am going there today for a couple days get more done on my solar install, and of course take care of all the plants I have growing. Curious if many of the 26 fruit trees are actively growing…coming out of any transplant shock.

Here is a good image of my cannabis plants from my last visit, and I will do a comparison image today when I get there. Although the weather has been a bit rough this past week (high winds and unseasonably cold) I expect they will have grown some.

Ok, now to fill today’s orders (thank you guys so much…YOU are the reason I can do what I am doing!) I am going to hit the road and get things done. Today I start back on my electric room…get the inside walls covered, and put up some con create board under where my electrical components will be mounted.

I will continue this update post when I get back home…

Back home after a great trip up! Here we are in the middle of June already but I am getting very close to moving there. About 10 more hours of work and the solar is done, then I just need a solar generator for a bit of redundancy and I am there…

Finishing My Solar Install at Stony Oasis

Got the concrete board for fire protection installed…next the components will be installed there. I bought all SunGoldPower stuff…will it work when I am done? I sure hope so. I have decided that I am going to make a small Geo-thermal heating/cooling system just for this electric room. It is important to keep the batteries above freezing, and I am betting with a small…maybe 100 ft long buried tube I have a fan blow air through will keep the inside of this well insulated electric room above freezing even in the coldest winter.

Doubling the Size of the Pond

I have doubled the size of my pond. I was hoping to find a place in the bedrock I could dig down in with the excavator and make a deep spot. That did not really happen, but the surface area is twice as big now and a bigger pond is always better…right?

I did this last trip up, and this trip I could see the water was down…so I ran all the water the well produces…about 6 gals a minute into the pond for about 5 hours to fill it…now if the water that pumps out daily on top of the little hill will keep the pond full I am golden.

The pond of course is cloudy after digging in it but in a few weeks it will clear up and again be full of life. All the creatures that live there love the pond, and many come to visit. I am going to put some fish in it just to see if the pond will stay deep enough that the fish can hide for the occasional Blue Heron that will stop by.

Increasing My Well Pumps Ability to Pump Water

In the interest of pumping even more water to water more plants I have added another 430 watt panel to the 3 that were running my well pump. That soalr array has 6 of these 430 watt panels…3 were running the well pump, and the other 3 were sitting idle…simple waiting for me to buy a solar generator as a back up power source that they would keep charged.

Then I got to thinking…I wonder if I supplied my well pump (which can run on 300 volts AC or DC) with more voltage then the 150 volts that run it now….will it pump more water? Will it suck my well dry? It is an easy thing to do and try so I did. Well the pump now pumps another gallon a minute, and that is awesome! So…why not add another one, and take the voltage up to about 250 volts? So next trip up I will do That and see what happens. I will still have one 430 watt panel to keep my solar generator charged.

So, that is what I will do….then as I did this time I will run it right out of one of the hydrants full flow for several hours to assure I will never suck my well dry…if I do not I should be golden.

Conclusion

Stony Oasis Farms is coming around. I am getting lots of exciting things done there, and it is all because of you…my customers! Your seed buying here on Just Cannabis Seed is what fuels everything I am able to do there!

I you would like to become an even more substantial contributor to Stony Oasis, I would love to have donations! If you are interested contact me.

One thing I need…that will make my property much easier to manage is a tractor…maybe a 60 HP, with a PTO driven wood chipper. Wood chips would be a game changer there. I would use them for mulch, and to make paths to walk on everywhere. Then I could concentrate my efforts more on things I want to grow rather the the natural vegetation…like cheat grass…that also loves all the water I am providing.