raising a little baby kava plant :)

[kl.Jerome]

Used to be that Nuka Hiva sold sprouted stem nodules that you could stick in good soil and grow.  I had bought a few nearly ten years back now but they never survived.  I think I over watered them as I didn't know much about gardening back then. 

I'm not sure if they still sell the nodes or if that was just a temporary venture.  I remember when corresponding with them they told me of another woman who had grown the plant in Florida, where I live.

I wish I had had success back then!  How is the plant doing now?

 

[starsofclay]

plant it doing just fine. its a slow grower for sure!

no, it doesn't really get that cold here but I do bring it in on nights that i know will be in the 50's.


anybody know how to rotate this image???

 

[kl.krutonsb]

*turns computer sideways*

 

[kl.Jerome]

That dead edge of the leaves, was that caused by some high, cold wind?  Or did the temperature dip too low.  Where abouts are you in Florida?  I'm just North of the frost line, but I have no trouble with banana's, papayas and other tropical plants. Just curious where the Kava will survive.

 

[starsofclay]

Im in Mount Dora, which is an hour northwest of Orlando, i think...- the brown edges are because it dipped low a few times and I had forgotten to bring the plant indoors.
I've read that they don't like to be outside if it gets 53 degrees or lower for 3 consecutive days

I usually don't have problems with banana trees until like Jan and then they turn completely brown but will come back to life in spring

I'm hoping to make cuttings next year and sell them to any takers on this forum
or ebay, considering there was only one seller on ebay when I bought this

 

[kl.Jerome]

It looks as though I'll be living here for a while (Tampa area), so I'd be thrilled to buy a cutting from you next year.  Good luck through the winter.  Mo'i is one of my favorite kava's.

 

[kavalover]

Woo can't wait for next spring! I would definitely be up for a cutting!

 

[starsofclay]

hasn't grown much lately, probably because i've been keeping it inside out of the cold alot, the the leaves that did grow are kinda of wimpy looking, but i know it will take off in spring and grow really well.

 

[kl.Gray Owl]

If you could put it under a 100W halogen--not too close--it would probably be happy, the radiant heat from the halogen will also help, also keep it away from air vents I have a feeling it won't be happy with air blowing on it--maybe that could be the cause of the brown edges, anyway I have seen that with pothos too close to a vent. I'm too far North, going to be planting some nice Nicotiana Rustica, Nicotiana Silvestre, Bearberry, Leonurus Sibericus, Sceletium Tortuosum (Kanna) and going to order some rooted Partridge Berry, which is a mildly psychoactive wintergreen, oh yeah and some Solenostemon scutellarioides, which is a psychoactive coleus. If I was determined to grow kava, I could probably do it in containers and winter over indoors, keeping the dog away from it could be a challenge though.

For rotating the image you could try using http://pixlr.com/

 

[starsofclay]

I love entheogens!
I'm growing wild dagga right now and I was trying to grow kanna but it all died- little chunks started missing out of it like bugs were eating it, so i went ahead and sacrificed it and ate the whole thing. You are probably wondering why i didn't ferment it first, but it was actually cooperi bellerosum, which is a close cousin of kanna and apparantely you don't have to ferment it.

 I would love to have some of the coleus, I made a mistake and bought a bunch of the wrong kind one time, and that was a NASTY tea for it not to have any effects!

what is nicotiana?

have you ever tried any of the dream enhancing plants like calea zachetichichi?

 

[kl.Gray Owl]

I love entheogens!
I'm growing wild dagga right now and I was trying to grow kanna but it all died- little chunks started missing out of it like bugs were eating it, so i went ahead and sacrificed it and ate the whole thing. You are probably wondering why i didn't ferment it first, but it was actually cooperi bellerosum, which is a close cousin of kanna and apparantely you don't have to ferment it.

 I would love to have some of the coleus, I made a mistake and bought a bunch of the wrong kind one time, and that was a NASTY tea for it not to have any effects!

what is nicotiana?

have you ever tried any of the dream enhancing plants like calea zachetichichi?

Nicotiana is wild tobacco, Rustica it is much, much stronger than regular tobacco (usually Virginianis) and was used traditionally by the Indians, also it is a smaller plant.  The seeds that I got are supposed to have pretty red and white flowers that have a nice scent somewhat like jasmine.  The Silvestre is going to be huge though, but it has really cool huge white flowers that look a lot like Datura.  I heard the main reason for fermenting kanna is for strains that contain oxalic acid, which at minimum can be crystals that would feel like taking a mouthful of needles, if concentrated enough it can be like bleach or even toxic like in the leaves of rhubarb.  Even the right kind of coleus is supposed to be nasty, to get full effects you are supposed to eat it raw and it takes a ton of it.  The seeds that I got are supposed to be scutellarioides, which is the one that contains salvinorin A, the variety is called "black dragon" the leaves are red with dark margins.  I haven't tried calea zachetichichi yet or anything else that was specifically dream enhancing.  In high school I produced a hash-like product from nutmeg, it was interesting in the way that shrooms are interesting, not really something that I would take recreationally, but can be interesting as a mind-expanding sort of thing.  For many years I had good success with shamanic drumming, but I guess I have gotten sort of lazy, LOL.

I loved the show Going Tribal, that kind of killed my romantic notions about Iboga and Ayahuasca, I would still be curious to try it, but preferably with the assistance of someone who knows what they are doing.  I went through a phase when I was obsessed with Carlos Castaneda, I'm pretty sure he was a con-man and never really did any of the things that he claimed that he did (see The Don Juan Papers) mostly because his geography is all wrong in terms of what plants are where.  PIKHAL was also an interesting read, but left me with a sense of the potential for narcissism in this sort of pursuit, at least that is the feeling that I got from Shulgin as very self-indulgent, I get the feeling that the character in Altered States is at least partly inspired by him.

 

[kl.Gray Owl]

I looked up calea zachetichichi and it's another one that sounds a bit like dagga i.e. extremely bitter. It's on my wish list, but I think kava is going to be my herb of choice for awhile. Celastrus paniculata looks interesting, wonder if it can help with those kava 2nd day stone symptoms. I've been curious about amanita muscaria for awhile but the potency of fungii can be highly variable and I worry about toxic effects.



My N@H stone arrived today and a nice acacia wooden bowl that I got to get into the mood I gather stone is not a good weeknight brew but once I smell it it's going to be hard to resist at least having one shell, awaiting shaman and a BKH white kava that I hope my wife might tolerate if she ever tries it. I drink some pretty heinous-tasting stuff so she never believes me when I tell her that something tastes good. But the smell and taste of kava is really growing on me already, and that's with wretched Kona Kava stuff.

 

[kavalover]

I grow Calea Z, I love the stuff but it has little recreational value compared to kava. It produces no effects, for me anyway, while awake but the stuff is great for dreams. What I do is prepare the tea using fresh leaves, just boil some water and pour a good handful of leaves in and let that soak for about 15 minutes then put the tea near my bed. I set my alarm to go off in the following 3 and a half hours, go to sleep, wake up 3 hours later, down to tea, then go back to sleep. I have reached some outstandingly lucid experiences with this method.

 

[starsofclay]

that's awesome! it seems nearly impossible to find a real variety of calea z, considering that many sellers are actually selling a very close relative and probably don't know it. (i've done alot of research after the one i tried never game me results) I bought on from ebay and it was non bitter, but looks like calea should. so i think its possible that I have an "off brand" if you will.



i had bought it dried from iamshaman, and it tasted nasty enough, but never had any different dreams.



speaking of nasty taste, you may think that getting used to the taste of kava would help, but no. calea is NASTY

 

[kl.hunghung.sustainedreaction]

Hi all,



i know this thread is a little old already, but i thought better to reanimate it than to open a new one:



Since the legal situation here in this country is so inacceptable damned dumb - looks like kava will be a good thing to

add to my antidepressiva regimen to prevent having to take even more since the doses are growing over the years

- i'm desperately searching for a vendor or anyone that ships kava plants - or better some fresh unrooted cuttings -

to europe ...



I know it's not a very sane try, regarding the large distances, but i guess it might be worth it, and also my only chance

to supply myself on a regular basis, even if it will take years to the first harvest - so, if anyone here has any hint, i'd

greatly appreciate it!

(sorry, hope my english doesn't sound too weird )

 

[Paradise Kava]

Aloha!

It's so awesome that you are growing kava starsofclay.

I love to grow and drink Moi and it's not too hard to grow on our latitude. We are about near Cuba's latitude in Hawaii so you are close.

Things to avoid:



Full direct sun. If this was ISA, or a robust variety with lots of di-hidros, full sun is fine. But not for Moi.



Over- fertilization. We have lost a lot of kava over the years because of over feeding. Fertilizer should be used sparingly, and put nears the edges and never on or near the stem area. A 16-16-16 (NPK) should work just fine. Over fert. will kill kava, ESPECIALLY kava babies who have not formed a good root structure.



Moi is a Normal growing plant. It's not straight growing or prostrate. It likes to be babied and needs attention in some areas like watering, keeping the kava moist is good with good drainage, or you will see mold spots where the buds should be.



Try a 50/50 mix of black cinder and Promix when you up pot. We used this mix with success at the farm.



You can never get root bound with kava since there is no tap root. So you can leave kava plants in one gallon pots for years. Problem is that they need that much more fertilization, more frequently this way and that when you DO eventually transfer them into the earth, they will take very long to untangle and spread out.



Compost if your best friend, as with any plant. Mixing this with chicken manure (not too much or the kava burns) is perfect to add into that 50/50 mixture



Hope this helps, All the very best to you~
 - Adil Ghiasi

PS - when you are ready to start cuttings, check out this visual tutorial on our facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/...3380879338967&type=3