Nicky Grows

By Nicky Jones

We have arrived once again at 4/20. Today we celebrate all things Cannabis. As we contemplate a more laid back manner of doing things, allow me to tell you my story of how Cannabis saved my life. It gets a bit heavy, but sometimes that's just the way it is. Here goes...

Six years ago, at the age of 34, a nuclear warhead was detonated in my life. After a lifetime of wondering if I had back problems, an acute disc herniation at L4-L5 painfully confirmed this suspicion. Prior to this incident I was an active father who enjoyed running quite a bit and had a decent job working in a mill. After the incident, I quickly lost touch with who I was completely.

When I first met the neurosurgeon that went on to operate on my spine, he thought he was in the wrong room. He stared down at the chart in his hands and then back up at me with a puzzled look on his face. The MRI looked bad. At the time, I didn't so much. Just before my injury, I was in good shape clocking in at a fairly lean 180 pounds. He explained that my spine looked like the spine of a much older, much heavier man. He didn't expect to see this young, fit guy on his examining table when he walked into that room, but there I was. Pain and fear had crashed into my life like an 80 mile per hour head on collision. I rushed to the operating table.

My postoperative recovery went pretty much as bad as it could go. The company I worked for decided I needed to hurry back to work to keep my job. So I skipped much of the healing process and went chasing a little bit of money. My employer soon realized I was no longer the strong and capable worker that they had hired. It didn't take long at all for them to find a reason to push me out the door after nearly five years with the company. I had surgery in January and was jobless by April. I quickly found another job working for the city. I worked 3 days and they also fired me when they got the results of my pre-employment health screening. They said I was too high risk and therefore unemployable. I didn't know it yet, but I was down for the count. I gained 100 pounds the first year after surgery putting me around 280 pounds. I was in constant, immobilizing pain which was compounded by the added weight. The weight kept me from being active and being inactive caused more weight gain. To make matters much worse, my pain was horribly managed with a myriad of drugs including dangerous opioids, which would be given and taken away seemingly at random. I felt like I was being tormented by a mean bully. I now know this bully’s name is pain management. Round and round you go, where do you stop? Look at the statistics and you will see. Years of destructive drug addiction and pain ensued. All the while I gained weight.

Three hard years had passed since my spinal surgery and I was almost at rock bottom. Not far to go now. I was around 320 pounds. I had gained approximately 140 pounds since my injury. To mask the pain, I was on a fentanyl patch that would kill me if I were to put it on right now. I had to lose weight. I joined a weight loss program that offered a pathway to gastric sleeve surgery. This was a last ditch effort to be rid of the extra person I was carrying around. I am honestly not sure how I made it to surgery in the weight loss program. The program was great, but by this time I was in a very bad place. The psychologist that evaluated my emotional ability to have the surgery and move forward postoperatively did not want to clear me. I was a mess. With tears running down my face, I explained to the doctor that this was my last hope to get any semblance of my life back. Although I really didn’t believe it would work, I somehow convinced them that I did. I was cleared. I had to give it a shot. I was literally dying.

In preparation for my surgery, the pain management doctor decided to cut my pain meds in half. They explained that if they didn’t decrease my tolerance, then there would be no option to treat my postsurgical pain. This sent me into a tailspin of opioid withdrawals much akin to coming off of Heroin. I felt like I had some nightmarish version of the flu. In addition to all of the typical flu symptoms, I was also experiencing mind-melting depression and anxiety among other things and was having to change clothes and sheets several times a night due to the fact that I literally sweating it out. After a few days of this I made a monumental, life-altering decision. I decided that if it was gonna be this bad to reduce this poison coursing through my veins by half, then how much worse could it get to just do the whole enchilada. The answer was: much worse, It could get much worse. I had my wife hide my firearms. I had to phone friends and family I hadn't reached out to in years in the middle of the night just to avoid losing my grip on my sanity. It felt like I was sick right down to the center of my soul. This went on for weeks that seemed more like years. I decided to try medical cannabis to help with the withdrawals and the pain. I came out on the other side completely done with opioids and ready to move forward with the surgery and the next chapter of my life.

I had gastric sleeve surgery on April 10, 2017. There was nothing easy about this process. However, once I made the decision that I wanted to live my life rather that allow it to continue to be stolen from me by circumstances, I took the surgery and everything that it involved very seriously. I stuck to the program’s month long liquid diet to the letter before the surgery and left the rest in the capable hands of my surgeon. Everything went well with my operation and recovery. I continued to follow the program instructions which set me on a path which led me out of darkness and into the light.

Since my surgery I have continued to educate myself on how to live healthier. I am now very careful about not only the quantity, but the quality of the things i put into my body. I was able to go back to work, but I gave up the mill life. I now earn my living as a gardener, which is a passion I have had most of my life. I have developed a yoga practice that helps me deal not only with my pain, but allows me to condition my mind, body, and soul to remain focused on a positive, healthy lifestyle. I continue to use cannabis as an alternative to opioids and it handles my pain and occasional anxiety much more effectively than anything I have previously been prescribed. And all without the horrible life-ending side effects that come with opioid pain medications. It didn’t happen overnight, but I made it back down to 180 pounds which is where I was before my life-altering spinal injury six years ago.

I am very specific with which Cannabis strains that I use. I stick with Sativas during the day to stay focused, creative, and energetic. They help tremendously with inflammation and take the edge off my pain. Some of my favorite Sativas are Jack Herer and Green Crack. In the evening I switch over to a heavy hitting Indica such as Yoda OG or 9 Pound Hammer . These make the pain drift away and my sleep quality is top notch.

In January of this year, I experienced another acute disc herniation. This time at L5-S1. I was taken to the ER by ambulance and spent nearly a week in the hospital learning to walk again with the new level of pain. This was nearly the same injury with nearly identical symptoms and pain as my original spinal injury. But this time it went much differently. In the hospital, the entire staff were very interested in what was different about me. It really caught their attention when instead of asking for more IV pain medication, I said “No thanks, I am weaning myself off of that, so I won’t need my dose for another 6 hours”. Before I left the hospital, I was completely off the IV pain meds and up walking the halls. According to my nurses, I was a continued hot topic during daily staff meetings. The thing is, I wasn’t seeking any attention or special treatment. I used the spotlight to show anyone who was willing to look that there was a better way to swing when life throws curves. They sent me home with a few pain pills which I was done with 3 days later, about the same time that I ditched the walker I came home with. I now have the most heartwarming support system in the form of family, friends, and healthcare providers. With the help of my beautiful RN wife, amazing physical therapist, and a brand new perspective on life I am healing my current injury without surgery or opioid pain medications. Therapy and Cannabis. Although my right heel remains completely numb as a reminder that I did in fact experience some serious nerve agitation due to the herniation, the rest of me is wide awake and present for every moment of my life.

By Nicky Jones

The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow - Unknown

Gardeners come from all walks of life and all levels of experience. Poll the wisest of all of these lovers of the natural world and you will find a commonality: they all encountered difficult challenges in the garden that they had to work through. Here is the part where I tell you how that each time they had a challenge arise, a quick consultation of their handy gardener’s bible always resulted in a simple, cut-and-dried solution. Once the solution was implemented, said gardener was promptly rewarded with miraculous results. Specifically, in 7-10 days their magic beans would germinate and shoot a nitrogen induced stalk to the heavens, leading steadily upward to hyperosmiac giants, immeasurable wealth, and a myriad of happily ever afters.

Now we all know that there is no gardener’s bible. There is no simple, cut-and-dried solution. You wanna know the honest truth? Sometimes the solution only comes after years of experimentation on generations of plants. You wanna know the brutally honest truth? Sometimes the solution is that there isn't a solution and back to the drawing board we go. We all hit brick walls. We all get to the point where we just need a lifeline. A resource. A tip or a trick that at least points us in the right direction. Like most gardeners, I draw from many sources of knowledge ranging from muddy childhood memories to in-depth scholarly articles in botanical journals. Although there is no “one” source for good gardening information, there are often sources that stand out among the others. Many times as you weed through virtual fields of misinformation in search of your solution, you uncover a truly amazing knowledge source. And what do we do in the gardening community when we come across one of these rare springs of wisdom? We put a pin in it and then we share the heck out of it. Which is what we should do! Destroying snake oil myths and spreading true knowledge is such a critical aspect of being a mindful gardener. So without further ado, allow me to introduce the closest thing I have found in recent years to the gardener’s bible: the MIgardener.

Luke Marion, The MIgardener.

The MIgardener actually started out as more of a who than a what. Rewind to the year 2011. Luke Marion is a midwestern high school kid with a dream and a YouTube account. Oh and let’s not leave out his natural talent for growing things and showing others how to do the same. When I stumbled across one of Luke’s MIgardener videos a few years back when I was having a problem in my own garden, it only took a few minutes for me to realize that I was about to be taken to school by a kid. By the end of the video I had liked, subscribed, and bought shares. Luke Marion is the real deal. A true plant aficionado who propagates science-based plant knowledge like his middle name is Kudzu. Today, the MIgardener, short for Michigan Gardener, uses over 7 different social media platforms to teach people how to efficiently and enjoyably grow their own food. So what more could you want from a gardening company that has spent years refining their craft and helping others to do the same? Their seeds of course! 

That’s right. Luke thought it might be a good idea to save seed all these years. Go figure. Now he sells his select heirloom seed on the MIgardener website for $1 per pack! Please don’t misunderstand me. This is premium heirloom seed from a homegrown business sporting an amazing vision for their community for one dollar per pack! The MIgardener seed packs are beautifully simplistic with all the right info on the back. They are also backed up by an online library of knowledge presented by Luke Marion just in case you need a little help with planting or run into trouble along the way. The MIgardener takes their seed mission to the next level with their non-profit seeds4needs program. Through this outreach, they collect all extra and unwanted seeds and distribute them to people who can’t afford to buy seed on their own (Link provided below for you to donate). Teaching people how to grow food and giving them the seed to do it with is a great way to make sure a lot less people go to bed hungry at night. This gardening season, as I put together my cultivation list, I decided to support Luke Marion’s cause and buy all of my seed from the MIgardener - and it was a no brainer.

MIGardener.com

By Nicky Jones

On this February the 14th, as we observe a vaguely documented, possibly Christian and/or Roman holiday that allegedly involves two Italians and a North African all named Valentinus, let us reflect on what we are really celebrating today - love? It is love right? We’ll go with that.

Above: One of the St. Valentines. Probably.

As we lovingly reflect on the possibility that these three men named Valentinus may have been quite brutally murdered in cold blood during the 3rd century by horrible, loveless individuals, let us hold affection close to our hearts. Oh and we must not leave out Cupid!

Above: The Triumph of Galatea by Raphael. Or basically a bunch of cupids sticking up a bunch of weird half-naked individuals.

How could we forget this amorous mythological deity born of war and beauty, who was magically transformed into a baby angel by some painters from the middle ages?! As we go about our day of buying chocolates and flowers that will be half-price in less than 24 hours, remember that a winged infant armed with a recurve bow could be lying in wait to assassinate your fondest earthly companion - or make them fall maddeningly in love with you. Not really sure on that one. On that note, I leave you will a skull that some guys say belongs to someone who died a really long time ago. Happy Valentines Day!

By Nicky Jones

I was a very young boy when I realized that the Old Farmer's Almanac decided whether I went fishing or not. My grandfather swore by that dusty old digest. If that little book said the fish weren’t biting today, then that meant their little fish lips would not be parting - and we would NOT be going fishing. The old timer’s really put a great deal of stock in this antiquated publication. Generations of plant people have passed this writing down to their son’s and daughter’s (and grandson’s) as if it were a sacred text. So just how much value does the Old Farmer’s Almanac hold for the modern gardener?

In recent years, we have used technology coupled with simple scientific observation to prove how inaccurate our cherished old almanac truly is when it comes to predicting the weather. Most recent studies say that the weather predictions in the Old Farmer’s Almanac are only about fifty percent accurate. It’s easy to guess that this is far less accurate than today’s weather forecasts. Here’s the thing: when studied under a modern microscope, many archaic things tend to lose their luster. The fact remains, modern weather forecasting was heralded by the invention of the telegraph in the early 1840’s. The Old Farmer's Almanac had already been around for 40 years by then. Sometimes things are just awesome because they were here long before you and I were.

Originally edited by Robert B. Thomas in 1792, the Old Farmer's Almanac is steeped in the history and tradition of American gardening culture. As much as this book may be lacking in modern weather predicting accuracy, it makes up for in time-tested character and heritage. This book is a treasure trove of filigreed folk art, old-timey planting superstition, and heartfelt stories straight out of rural Americana. They also throw in useful data such as frost dates, growing seasons, and lunar information. As if all of that isn’t worth a small seven dollar investment, the almanac even holds annual recipe and essay contests with decent cash prize payouts!

If you decide to check out the Old Farmer’s Almanac and end up loving it as much as I do, then you will absolutely have to grab their gorgeous gardening calendar. This year's calendar is so stunningly beautiful and packed full of so much interesting plant knowledge that I had to pick it up for one or two of my closest gardener friends. My wife noticed how enamored I was with the 2019 calendar, so she bought me a copy and put it under the Christmas tree. Once I unwrapped this thing, the struggle ensued not to put it on the wall before new years. When I finally put the calendar up, an idea for an herb garden planter stood out immediately. The January page inspired me to complete my first gardening project of 2019. I will be blogging the DIY very soon! Stay tuned.

When you're on the verge of cancelling your fishing plans and dashing a young future anglers hopes on the rocks, remember folks: fish can’t read and the almanac may not always be right. The true value of the The Old Farmer’s Almanac lies in the way that it masterfully mixes science and folklore, then sprinkles in some stardust to create a magically composted garden tradition. This September, as your Summer crops turn to Fall recipes, be sure to visit your local feed and seed store and pick up your copy of the Old Farmer’s Almanac 2020 edition.

References:

History of the Old Farmer’s Almanac. (2016, August 4). Retrieved from https://www.almanac.com/content/history-old-farmers-almanac

By Nicky Jones

Let's have a conversation about Sansevieria. Sansevieria is that sleek unmistakable tropical plant with succulent, sword-like leaves that you may recognize better by its common name - the snake plant!

Pictured above is my favorite snake plant. She is a Sansevieria trifasciata named Janet after my awesome mother-in-law :)

The one thing that everyone knows about the snake plant is that it’s the best indoor air cleaner on the planet. Well, that is not exactly the case. The truth is, the striking Sansevieria plant can effortlessly add to the aesthetic of any room, but it won’t do much in the way of indoor air purification. Neither will any other plant. Most arguments in favor of houseplants as indoor air cleaners are based on NASA studies conducted in the late 1980’s using small sealed chambers. These findings have never been substantiated by further research using real-world conditions. One follow up study states it would take nearly 700 plants in a 1500 square foot house to achieve results on par with the NASA study. The good news is that the snake plant is so easy to propagate, you could probably have 700 plants in no time flat! Here’s how:

There are a few ways of propagating the snake plant:

Method 1: You can cut and plant the rhizomes, which are part of the stem that grows just underground.

Method 2: You can divide the plants as they grow and spread.

Method 3: By far, the easiest method of propagating the snake plant is by leaf cutting. Watch this:

First, just grab some snake plant leaves and a pair of sharp scissors. Make sure you sterilize the scissors before cutting. Alcohol is fine.

Next, cut leaves into 4 to 6 inch pieces.

Now you should mark the sides of the cut leaves that were facing down. The orientation is important when potting the snake plant cuttings.

Gather all your cuttings.

Prepare some well draining potting medium. Here is what I use:

Nicky’s Succulent Soil Mix

Poke each cutting a few inches into the soil being mindful of which end is up. 

Your newly planted cuttings will root in about a month and will form rosette shaped plantlets in another month or so.The plantlets can then be potted up to individual pots or used in arrangements. It’s OK to remove the parent leaf once the plantlet is established.

The snake plant is very easy to cohabitate with. She will be happy hanging out in a shady corner with some indirect sunlight. Allow your snake plant to dry out between waterings and water very sparingly during the fall and winter when the plant is mostly dormant. The snake plant is very prone to rot from overwatering. Fertilize sparingly during the spring and summer months and not at all during the fall and winter. All that’s left to do is name your snake plant babies and share them with your neighbors!

By Nicky Jones

The most important lesson that I've learned over the many years that I have spent in the garden is you must always be prepared for the next lesson. This past weekend presented me with the opportunity to attend an indoor seed starting clinic hosted by one of my favorite local nurseries, Alsip. The clinic was presented by a truly amazing gardener named Susan Klinger - and she also happens to be a regional manager for Burpee.

Burpee often gets a bad rap for being THE big box seed company. Like many of you, I enjoy collecting rare and unique seed from a variety of sources. I currently have some freshly heirloom Skyscraper “Eclipse” Sunflower seeds who earned their name by blooming during the 2017 Solar Eclipse. These amazing seeds were given to me by a gardener friend of mine and of course I am absolutely dying to bury them in some richly composted soil this spring. Despite our passion for uniquely beautiful plants, we must remember that companies like Burpee fill an important role in supplying seeds to the masses. Not to mention they’ve been around since 1876 and have helped us through a few pretty big wars. We may meticulously enjoy a very refined cup of Tien Chi tea; and why not? Burpee is a nice tall glass of Lipton over ice. How refreshing.

Susan’s seed starting presentation was very on point. She expertly covered the material, which opened delicately with an overview of basic plant needs, and progressed quickly delivering a nutrient rich dose of science-based seed-starting knowledge. Look for the PowerPoint slides down the page. I found the warmth requirement details for seed vs. seedling to be particularly helpful. Susan also personalized the presentation by including projected last frost dates for the local area. Overall, the clinic was impressive; however, what really stood out to me you wouldn’t find on the PowerPoint slides. Susan's passion for creating sustainable food sources through home gardening shone above all else.

What really caught my attention was the fact that Susan prefaced her entire presentation with the fact that the USDA is really pushing locally grown food. Susan even challenged a few of us by showing off pics of her own brand new high tunnel. She and her husband recently completed construction, and I would comfortably wager that her amazing new greenhouse will soon be bursting with new plant life. Here’s where it really gets good. Susan's ten thousand dollar high tunnel was paid for in full by an easily attainable grant from the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) . Link below of course. A renewed focus on locally grown food is a cause I will always get behind. How much more local can we get than our own backyards?

USDA High Tunnel System Initiative

Susan Klinger’s High Tunnel, 2019 (Photo by Susan Klinger)

Images of PowerPoint slides from Burpee Seed Starting Clinic 2019:

By Nicky Jones

My grandfather was a Beekeeper. Sometimes his breath would smell like honey from the honeycomb he would chew. Memories of childhood can be so elusive. The bigger the space between then and now, the more difficult it can be to conjure the portal that allows us to peer through time and look back on those days. I remember being intrigued by a peculiar device that my grandfather owned. Maybe I was seven.

It was a little hand-held contraption made of tin. It had a small cylindrical chamber with a smokestack and a bellows attached. As a child, it would seem very odd to me when my grandfather would gather pine straw from the yard, stuff it down inside this tin man accordion of sorts, and light it on fire. Once it was burning and smoking quite nicely, he would pump the bellows, which would push thick plumes of smoke out through the smokestack. It was enchanting to watch. What I describe to you is called a bee smoker. It does just what the name implies. It smokes bees. Since smoke happens to make bees really calm, this is an important beekeeper’s tool. You can actually go and get one of these nostalgic little devices right now on Amazon for around fifteen dollars. The design has remained unchanged through the decades. In contrast, much has changed with me.

Image by Alexander Wild.

I have lived half a lifetime since my childhood and my grandfather’s bees. Along the path, I lost and found bits of myself. I lost my grandfather, or at least lost touch with him a few times along that stretch of years. Then I finally lost him for good about ten years back. A quick fisticuffs with cancer and he was gone. What can never be lost is the near druidic respect for the natural world that my grandfather imparted in me. My grandfather the beekeeper. My grandfather who was also a welder and a veteran, a woodsman and a poet, and an old-timey gardener who was many years ahead of his time with his composting; but that’s for another discussion.

So I made the decision to have bees this coming spring 2019. It was actually more my wife’s idea than mine. We were standing in the kitchen just after the new year, enjoying some bread & butter pickles from the garden and talking. “So what’s next for us in the gardens this year?” she asks. “Bees?” My eyes lit up! Did she just say Bees?! She was completely unaware that I had been on a quest that very week to find us some local honey. It was not a simple quest! I had posted in several of my gardening and beekeeping groups on Facebook seeking honey. A friend of mine from one of the groups pointed me to a guy that he claimed was selling honey fairly local to my area. With a phone call, I found out that this honey guy had nearly ten years experience as a beekeeper, he had thirty hives, and he only lived two miles away from my house! I contacted him right away.

It took us almost two weeks of missing one another to finally come up with a solid day to meet and discuss bees. Our schedules kept conflicting and the weather was far from ideal. The day before I was finally supposed to meet my beekeeper friend for the first time, I suffered an acute episode involving my spine. I was taken to the hospital via ambulance suffering a boatload of pain and I couldn’t walk. I spent over seventeen hours in the emergency room before I was finally admitted into the hospital. I texted my beekeeper friend to let him know I wouldn't be able to get together with him. The next day, I spoke with my mom on the phone from my hospital room. During the call, I struggled to stay positive. She could tell I really missed my family and that I was pretty disheartened about not making my meeting with the beekeeper. I wasn’t giving up on this idea of honeybees in the spring so during my few days in the hospital, the bees became an integral part of my healing process. I had to build hives and buy bees. I had to meet my beekeeper friend. I had to get home. But first I had to walk. So i did.

I was surrounded by an unbelievable support system that fast-tracked me back to walking and out of that hospital in about five days. My wife, an amazing nurturer with nearly a decade of experience working as an RN, oversaw every facet of my care. She enveloped me with positive healing energy and bottomless love every second of every day and then she brought me home. My first day back home, of course I called my beekeeper friend. I had just set up a meeting with him and hung up the phone when there was a knock at my door. It was a package from Amazon. I opened the box and nearly cried. I pulled out a brand new beekeeper suit! When I had spoken to my mom from the hospital, she heard it in my voice how badly I wanted to become a beekeeper. So she ordered me a suit!

There is work to be done. Hives to be built. Processes to be learned. As the Crocuses burst forth from the snow, raising their sleepy heads to herald spring, a queen bee will call her court. Her colony will grow and develop and thrive because of an amazing group of people that love and support me. The queen will owe her deepest gratitude to a beekeeper that hasn’t tended hives in many, many years: my grandfather the beekeeper. What an amazing honor to continue in a noble task that an old timer showed to a young boy half a lifetime ago. I will be a beekeeper!

Image by Liz Mackney.