magickstar
Glandeuse Pinéale
- Inscrit
- 12/9/08
- Messages
- 102
I am a complete novice with cactus growing and indeed consuming. I have a 2 yr old San Pedro that has not grown very much since I got it. The first year I had it in a pot outdoors (I now know that the pot had the wrong ratio of width to depth and was definitely too narrow for the roots).
I brought it indoors in the first winter. This was not because of the climate but for security because we went travelling for 3 months. In that time it had very little, if any water.
The guy I bought it from at the Boom Festival, had a cactus growing business in southern Spain, with most of his plants growing outdoors. He said that with the similar climate between his location and ours in Portugal, we could safely leave the San Pedro outside. He said that the occasional frost in winter would not be a problem and the main thing to avoid was letting it stay water-logged.
As a result, I decided this year to plant it out straight in the ground in a place with free drainage. I gave it a couple of doses of cactus fertiliser this spring. I left it fairly dry all summer and am now thinking this was a mistake. Now I have to decide what to do with it before winter sets in again.
The plant was 23 cm when I bought it. They guy said it was one dose worth if I wanted to consume it straight away but I wanted it to grow enough to share it. In the first year it developed a baby offshoot. This is now only about 8 cm - all it has grown in two years - quite a disappointment. The cactus is clearly not happy with me but I don´t really know what it needs. The colour is somewhat paler than I would expect. I have read that a plant under stress like this produces more mescaline but really I would prefer it to be growing happily, so that I can take cuttings from it.
Should I dig it up before winter and put it in the right sized pot indoors? If yes, what size pot, what growing medium, how much light and water over winter? If it is better left undisturbed outdoors, what additional care will it need before spring?
I brought it indoors in the first winter. This was not because of the climate but for security because we went travelling for 3 months. In that time it had very little, if any water.
The guy I bought it from at the Boom Festival, had a cactus growing business in southern Spain, with most of his plants growing outdoors. He said that with the similar climate between his location and ours in Portugal, we could safely leave the San Pedro outside. He said that the occasional frost in winter would not be a problem and the main thing to avoid was letting it stay water-logged.
As a result, I decided this year to plant it out straight in the ground in a place with free drainage. I gave it a couple of doses of cactus fertiliser this spring. I left it fairly dry all summer and am now thinking this was a mistake. Now I have to decide what to do with it before winter sets in again.
The plant was 23 cm when I bought it. They guy said it was one dose worth if I wanted to consume it straight away but I wanted it to grow enough to share it. In the first year it developed a baby offshoot. This is now only about 8 cm - all it has grown in two years - quite a disappointment. The cactus is clearly not happy with me but I don´t really know what it needs. The colour is somewhat paler than I would expect. I have read that a plant under stress like this produces more mescaline but really I would prefer it to be growing happily, so that I can take cuttings from it.
Should I dig it up before winter and put it in the right sized pot indoors? If yes, what size pot, what growing medium, how much light and water over winter? If it is better left undisturbed outdoors, what additional care will it need before spring?