The raft for the Sea of Green was filled after a few days, the girls took special care of the cloning process. Mike wondered if he was getting in over his head by having them commit so much effort to a project that he wasn't sure would work out. If it turned out to be a disaster, they might lose confidence. Because of that, he spent a lot of time near the outdoor grow space.
When he wasn't busy preparing for more clones he was busy tending to the plants in the tunnel.
The Garden was getting big and with the first raft of the Sea of Green hydroponic setup in place he finally had a viable way to cultivate seeds faster. He could easily take the plants and make extracts but he had so many other plants to do what with.
No, the rafts perfectly suited the development for seeds.
Mike called the girls over when they had finished bringing over the last few, there were a hundred and fifty clones in one bed. A large vial, filled with a yellowish-green pollen appeared in his hands.
"This is Pollen. Its from a male." He then pulled out a jar of paintbrushes and handed them out to all the girls. "I'm gonna teach you all how to make babies!"
The girls all but dropped the paintbrushes, they fumbled with them in their hands. "Mike?!" Some of them started to chide him, knowing that he was playing with their emotions. 'Hehe'
He rotated his head from side to side, shaking it gently and clicking his tongue a few times. 'tisk, tisk, tisk.' Mike grabbed a paintbrush from the jar and said "pay attention, to make these girls have babies, they need pollen from the males. If this was in the wild, nature would surely play a part but, since we're doing this behind shields and barriers, the process has to be done by our hands. What you do is take the paintbrush and dab it in the pollen. Don't mash it in, but get the paintbrush nice and dirt with pollen." He demonstrated for them then went up to the hydroponics bed.
"What you do is find the buds, and tap the pollen on them. 'GENTLY!' That act alone will make a lot of seeds." Mike's tendency to double down on his bets was always a gamble but he was feeling lucky. "None of these clones are quite ready for pollination, they don't have any buds yet but I wanted you all to be familiar with it. In a few weeks, it will be time to do this so try to remember it when the time comes."
Some of the plants that were in planters had gotten rather large and quickly. They were quickly outgrowing the planters. Mike saw this and went to check, he called the girls over. "When a plant gets to a certain size in a planter, its roots have spread out as far as they will go. There is a taproot that has to get nutrients and water, if planted in the ground they can potentially go very deep into the soil. That helps the plants grow very strong and stronger plants make bigger flowers."
"I thought you said we were growing buds?" Rissa asked.
"You're confused about the difference between buds and flowers? Okay.. well, the buds are flowers and so are the flowers from the males. Buds are the flowers on the females and those little yellow-greenish flowers on the males look like balls." Mike grabbed himself gently and the girls giggled.
"So its like that, they seem very different from normal plants." Rissa's interest in nuances was growing, her recent playful attitude had gotten much more serious like she was growing up.
Mike nodded. "You're right. They are much closer to living beings than they get credit for. Cannabis contains neurochemicals, the same kind that are in our brains. If nature finds a way, life develops. For all we know, Cannabis has a soul. Back to the point, I brought you all over here because I wanted to tell you all about transplanting."
"These plants have Root lock, or... they should be experiencing the bind right about now. When the plants are in a planter, they send the roots out in all directions to find a place to grow. But, since its in a planter, the roots are stuck inside. When the roots reach the edge of the planter, they start following the edge of the planter and eventually, they run back into themselves as they circle its edge. We call this root wrap. The taproots also do this, and if the roots can't grow or expand, they suffocate, die and rot. That kills the plant or stunts its growth. We don't want that." Mike pulled a larger planter out of storage. "If we're going to put it into another planter, the planter has to be at least thirty percent larger than the old one. Your plants are only now maturing after a few weeks but they will soon be too big for the planters. Using planters is great for small plants but anything that's big should be planted in the ground instead."
Vella was still taking notes, her hand stopped moving and she asked, "So, should we move the ones in planters into the ground? For some reason I feel that you were about to say that.."
Laughing, Mike kissed Vella, he shook her shoulders slightly. "You're absolutely right. Each of you go to your plants and dig a hole wide enough for the planter to rest in. When you're done, wait for the others to finish and explain back filling while you do it."
They spread themselves out and found their plants, in the center of the formation they each began to dig. Mike didn't tell them to use tools or anything, he wanted to see what they would do. Sure enough, most of them were digging with their hands. He stopped them all once he saw who was doing what, "Use these." He passed some small tools out. "Use them to dig out the soil, it should be fairly soft."
The girls made quick work of the holes once they had the garden hoes. Mike almost forgot to explain back filling, he cleared his throat quietly and continued the class. "Back filling is when you fill the hole in, but you do it from below the plant and you do it gently. Also, you want the plant to be on a slight mound so don't bury the planter. Now that you all have your holes dug, take the plant out of the planter gently, use your hand and get a good grip on the edge, tip the planter to the side and slide the planter out and off the root ball."
"Oh! There really are roots all over the sides!" Mona smacked her forehead.
"Don't hit yourselves, this is normal. See how milky those roots look, these are healthy roots. If they were greasy looking or dry we would have problems later. Once the plant is freed from the planter, try not to shake it or break it when setting it gently into the hole. You don't have to be perfect but try not to break any roots if possible." Mike did his best to explain but the girls were naturals, even March. She might not be interested in getting dirty but she liked flowers and would often ask about the plants.
Once they had finished planting, all of them back filled the plants and then cleaned up the loose dirt. "Don't forget your garden tools." Vella sat down. "Why is it so hot outside?"
"You're just experiencing an honest days work, don't worry about it, its just sweat." Mike didn't know that Vella could work up a sweat, even in their late night escapades he didn't notice anything of the sort, her comment caught him off guard.
"Okay, I get why we're growing these plants spaced out. I've seen the big ones, but won't the sea of green setup also get big?" She kept a puzzled expression and pointed a finger up while trying to remember exactly how Mike had said it. "Won't they choke each other out?"
Mike laughed again. "You're not wrong, if we were growing early in the season, yes.. these plants would fight each other. But we're not. We're only growing them in a flowering light cycle. See." Mike pointed to the formation what housed the Sea of Green. The barrier was darkening. "The barriers are set on a timer. Since I'm using that formation for seeds and flowering, its going to be dark more than half of the day. Flowers bloom and grow in darkness, the absorb in the light."
"Oh." Vella wrote down what he just said.
"You know, you don't have to write everything down." Mike didn't want to stop her but she seemed like she was unwilling to let a single word slip by, it made him feel like she was worried about missing any bit of information.
"Master doesn't seem like he's going to be sticking around, you've even said you wanted to venture out some day. How else are the girls going to remember everything?" Vella smiled and clocked the girls at her side.
"Hehe..." Mike rubbed his head. "Well, you're being very thoughtful. I'll remember that later on. In your books, you'll find charts.. they aren't perfect, I don't have the originals. The charts show light levels and how close is too close. There is also a guide to rotating plants that are grown small indoors, when you grow indoors, sometimes you don't have a lot of space. When that happens, your plants need to be regularly rotated. That's why I had all of you attach a tag to the lip of all the planters, you might not use it but it shows a marking so you can rotate it and not forget your place. When you rotate, you give your plants the chance to grow more fully, especially if they are in a corner or edge of the light source."
Each of the girls were flipping through the books that Mike had handed out, they all tried to make sense of the charts in the back. They were full of color.
It was at this time that March came running back with one of the hunters from the City.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
"March? What's going on, who's this?" Vella stopped her and asked.
"This is Roman. He's one of the Nyankin tribesmen that live to the north. Its better if he explains." March stepped back.
Mike stepped forward, they were interrupting his class. "Is it Roman?"
"Yes. Sorry to interrupt you, but there seems to be a problem and when I explained it to this young girl, she told me that I should talk to you." Roman felt like he was being brought before a judge, Mike's appearance was very intimidating but there was something about his eyes that forced him to answer.
"What is it that's the problem?" Mike's patience was pretty broad most of the time, there were no real threats in his eyes that existed anymore, he was at an Apex.
"There seems to be some problem with creatures, they are about this high and have wings. A nest of them has been taking out our cattle, they fly back in this direction every night. I had assumed that they were roosting in the area but cannot locate them. I would normally just hunt them down but this girl stopped me when I explained and brought me here. Do you know these creatures?"
"Class is dismissed, you all head back to the Casino, I'm going to figure out what this guy is talking about." Mike dismissed the class and grabbed Roman. "Don't be alarmed." Mike spread his wings and carried the man out of the field and to the top of the City center Star.
He whistled and dozens of figures flew out of the woods and toward his position.
"What are you doing? Those things are carnivores and you're calling them over, are you crazy!!!?" Roman struggled to keep himself calm, he almost lost his footing and fell from the top of the building.
Three of the largest beasts landed on the building and came up to Mike.
They bowed their heads gently like pets being called to their owner, Roman's expression stiffened.
"What are you going to do? Have I offended you and now you plan to feed me to .. these creatures?" Roman fell into utter despair, there was a look in his eyes like he never had expected such a thing to occur.
"Would you stop babbling for half a second." Mike looked at Roman, his tail was tucked behind his leg. 'I guess he's really afraid.'
Mike coughed, gaining roman's attention. "Are these the creatures you saw?" Then, he noticed the full bellies of several females in the group behind the Alphas. 'So that's it.'
"Take me to where you live, I want to see just how much you've lost." Mike jumped atop one of the Dragoons and put Roman on the back. "Hold on and don't kick the Dragoon.."
"Dragoon?" Roman felt like he had heard that name before.
Mike and Roman flew to the north, the pack followed behind.