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Home Page
2009 |
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Progress report: This Spring season farmer Verne
harvested over 900 huge cuttings, some with nasty 3"
spines. • killed scores of
venomous black widow
spiders with sticks, stepping on them, or squishing them
with his leather gloved hands •
fixed a 50 year old small tractor (had to buy a junk one on
Craiglist for the transmission parts), then made a sled to tow
dozens of 100 pound San Pedro tubs out to a new growing
field • rebuilt a "free" 25 year old rototiller (had to weld
the frame, replace the ignition, source new bushings, and
lap the valves) in order to till the rows between the
specimens growing in the earth • sort and move
hundreds of specimens to various new locations • screen & mix over
800 gallons of potting soil • set up 900 cuttings in newly
purchased nursery pots to root. Expenses: nursery
pots — $550, plus $100 for perlite, $500 in mechanical parts
& tools, $580 in Vet bills (wild animals bit & infected
all 3 farm cats), $700 in shipping supplies.
And you thought I'm just sitting here rolling in money? Ha!
I'm tired, sore, my hands are pincushions, and I'm broke.
—Thank you. Verne
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| Peruvian Torch seedling |
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Three years ago I mailed cash to
Peru for Peruvian Torch seeds. These are the
real deal grown from that seed.
"The biggest, healthiest,
most authentic Peruvian Sacred
Cactus sold on the Internet. No
pesticides, fungicides were ever
used to raise these." |
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2009 specimens
are sold - please
see 2010 page. |
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2009 specimens
are sold - please
see 2010 page. |
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| Wizard's arm San Pedro cuttings limited stock
available |
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How to mix potting soil |
| Let the plant specialist cat Dustball
show you her how to tutorial about
breaking up the root ball to allow new
growth. I whack at it with a bench brush, but
you can use your fist and fingers to tear
the roots free.
More... |
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EEEK! Insects!
Are they good or bad? |
May, 2009
Those are good insects! Thousands
of these are crawling over my plants inside
the greenhouse. They are everywhere this
time of year. Do you know what these little bugs are? More... |
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The myth of Butcher's Big Boy |
May, 2009
There is this story about a meat cutter
in San Francisco who liked cactus. One of
his San Pedro grew big and fat so he called
it his "Big Boy". That carnivore was named
Mr. Butcher, so of course his fatty was
called Butcher's Big Boy. Some say his name
was spelled Buutcher, others Betcher.
Unfortunately there is no seed source known
in Peru or Bolivia for this variety. That
means Buutcher's Big Boy (BBB) must be a
mongrel, a mutt, a cross breed/half breed,
etc. More... |
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The 39 year failure of Earth Day
The first year of Earth Day was April 1970.
Once upon a time we naively thought the planet could
be saved if only we loved Mother Earth and picked up
littering...
39 years later the earth's population has doubled,
pollution is poisoning the oceans.
Global climate change is melting the polar ice
caps... (full rant about Earth Day) |
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