A very, very long story, condensed as much as I can. If there's any truth in the therapeutic benefits of writing, then please bear with me - this is a "session":
Someone decided to make some "alterations" to my two plants last night.
"Ted" and I decided that a small grow closet could financially benefit the struggling household, and so after receiving permission from him (he's the home-owner), I paid for, designed, and built a really sweet little eco-system for some...tomatoes.
For months, I studied plants. I purchased several books and read them all, front-to-back, twice. I lurked on these forums for hours each day. I sought advice from several growers whose successes I witnessed (and partook of) first-hand.
And even when I felt I was ready, it seemed that I wasn't. As things got underway, my learning continued.
For three months, I alone tended to the plants. Ted would come down just to look at them from time to time, and I'd give him updates on how the tomatoes were doing. Because I had paid for all the materials and was single-handedly taking care of the plants - and all of this was all happening in Ted's home, it was settled that we would split the profits down the middle, once the tomatoes were ready for market.
On more than one occasion, I had to speak with Ted regarding the importance of keeping things quiet. First, he decided to show his brother and nephew the grow-room. Later on, his cousin. I explained to him that the first rule of the grow-room is "no-one knows about the grow-room".
I also had several conversations with him about who was growing the plants. We'd talked many times about how no-one else was to have any part of the operation, let alone know about it.
Just yesterday, Ted's aforementioned cousin (we'll call him slack-jawed Moe), who's afflicted with one of the worst cases of know-it-all syndrome I've ever come across, made some off-handed remarks about how the plants should be grown. Even when he first saw them a month ago, he matter-of-factly stated they weren't "tall" enough.
And I told Ted just the other day that, while he may be good at building cabinets, slack-jawed Moe doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Ted is well-aware of his cousins know-it-all personality, which makes the story that much more humorous.
I usually lock the room at night, or when I leave the house. I keep the keys on me, but I have an extra set hidden in my bedroom.
I had gone out last night to run some errands. Halfway to town, I get a call from Ted - he'd like to know where the key is, because his tomato-salesman friend (we'll call him "Dick") wants to check out the room. My immediate response was, "I have the key with me", but aware there's an extra set, he pushed the issue until I finally, and as reluctantly as I think I've ever been, conceded and told him where the other key was.
I rationalized it in my head - this guy deals with weight. He's very much "in the game" as far as tomato-distribution. He's always got tomatoes on him. He's been in the tomato business since before I was born. And besides, he's the one who gave us the seeds! Knowledge of our tomato growing will remain safe.
But, to my amazement, I discovered that there's a close second-place on the shit-scale to getting caught growing tomatoes:
When I got home, I went in to look at my plants. I always do that - but knowing that others had been in there when I wasn't home somehow made checking things out seem that much more important.
On first sight, everything looked fine. The tomatoes were looking beautiful. Then it sunk in that the plants themselves didn't look quite the same as they did earlier in the day.
There was a pair of scissors lying on the floor next to the pots, and it dawned on me that someone had cut ALL of the leaves off the plant, and actually fully-manicured all of the leaves off each of the buds.
Call me stupid, but nowhere in all of my studies did I read that cutting healthy leafs off of still-growing plants was a good idea. In fact, all of my research (and common sense) tells me:
A. Plants get their energy from the process of photosynthesis. The leaves of plants act similarly to "solar panels" which absorb light energy and convert it into food, which feeds the rest of the plant, including the fruit-bodies.
B. Considering A, the leaves are there for a reason. They serve a critical function to the life of a plant. Cutting should be kept to a minimum during the vegetative phase, and pretty-much avoided during flowering, because they are prone to stresses which can lead to unwanted chemical changes, including hermaphroditism. Trim dead or nearly dead leaves only.
C. The leaves droop down and curl over the curing buds, which act as a protective barrier against dust, mold, and/or other airborne contaminates. A full manicure should only be done once the leaves have reached a certain level of flaccidity (ie., are dry).
C. Fully manicuring a still-growing plant (in this particular case, there was a good three weeks to a month left of flowering) is just never done. I've been able to find only one post here at RIU where a new member asked the community if they should manicure their live plants, and the response was similar to A through C here - that basically, no, you shouldn't. I have never read anywhere that live buds should be stripped of all their leaves at any stage of the growing process.
And finally:
D. No-one had the right to even suggest that anything be done to my plants, in my grow-room, let alone actually do it.
It turns out, ironically, that it was know-it-all slack-jawed Moe and Dick who'd made the suggestion to Ted, who proceeded to butcher my plants. These two were referred to as "experts" by Ted during a very heated argument which erupted after I'd confronted him about what happened.
I asked Ted, as a person who knows nothing about plants and didn't even so much as water the plants one time, why he thought it would be acceptable to do what he did, and to do it without even talking to me about it first. That's when he told me that he had two "experts" suggest it to him. (UPDATE: Ted recently flat-out denied to my girlfriend that he ever said that, and when I confronted him about it he tried to excuse himself by saying he'd said it during the heat of the argument, and that Slack-Jawed Moe had nothing to do with it - even though I heard Moe say that night that "the plants needed to be cut") I told him that it didn't matter who suggested it - it wasn't his or anyone else's place to even touch the plants I had worked so hard to grow. He then explained to me that "Dick" has been to Amsterdam. Yes, he actually tried to use that argument.
Well, I told Ted that I didn't care if Johnny Appleseed came over and suggested ways to tend the plants - that what he did was wrong for many reasons, that he "f@$ked up", and needed to admit it.
Ted, who often uses yelling and violence to get his points across, then began trying to justify his actions further by screaming, "This is MY house! I won't humble myself to YOU!".
Needless to say, the situation is only getting worse. Ted's wife even decided to jump on board and tell me that the plants needed to be cut because I "have no idea what I'm doing - the plants looked like shit, and you didn't have much luck with those mushrooms ya grew last year, either!" I'm told I'm no longer welcome here and need to move out tonight.
So, were the "experts" correct? Was it a good idea to fully manicure all the leaves off of a still-growing plant?
And what would YOU do if someone had decided to "help" you by going behind your back and making changes to your grow?
