Organic Greenhouse Gorilla Cookies Auto

Okay, so I am pretty bad at being consistent with updates, but have been on vacation for last 2.5 weeks so I kinda have an excuse. Anyways, 5.5 weeks in and she has started to flower, and stretched like crazy. It has been super hot here, and she has a little heat stress, but the big problem is spider mites, they are all over her, as well as our cantaloupe and watermelon plants. I have given them all a good wash down and dose of an organic insecticide. I will retreat every few days for the next week or so and then reassess. Hopefully she recovers - and the cantaloupe, because we have fruit growing which is awesome considering our Alberta climate. No nutrients yet, the super soil seems to be doing great. I will add some of the flowering fish fertilizer this weekend though, as well as some epsom salts. Likely I will continue to feed the fish fertilizer weekly until near harvest, just so she doesnt go hungry. She is starting to get a little stank going on, not anything too crazy, but when walking through the backyard sometimes a little waft breezes through. UPDATE: End of Week 6: She seems to be doing pretty good. Plenty of flower growth and the 2 washes that I have given her with the hose this week have not seemed to mind. Added some Demetrious Earth as well and ordered some predatory mites which aparently work pretty good on spider mites. The next week will be pretty important, I defoliated the worst affected leaves, and washed the rest. But she really cant afford to lose too much more foliage.

Well its been a bit of a more chill week, and it seems we are making progress in the war against spider mites. I have washed her again this week, and added diatomaceous earth. We have also ordered 1000 predator mites (Phytoseiulus persimilis) to join the battle, we are expecting them to arrive today. Certainly a learning experience, and we will likely get more beneficial insects into the Greenhouse earlier next year as a preventative measure. The stank is increasing. This girl wafts her sweetness across the yard, hopefully not too many people smell it from the back lane. That's the risk in growing outdoors in the city I guess!

Not as much sun this week as i would have liked, but she is still growing, new pistils pop every day and colas are slowly getting more dense. Smell has increased a bunch this week, it is certainly not guerilla growing! Added 2nd round of predator mites this week, there is no new signs of spider mites, so feeling cautiously optimistic.

Well it looks like we are in the home stretch. I was hoping for one more round of bud growth, as recently she has been shooting new white pistils each week as buds get fatter. But it seems that she is done and ready to ripen. To be honest, she is sooooo smelly that I its probably soon time she is cut down. It is in the backyard but I can smell it about 3 houses down in the front. We are certainly getting some strange looks from the neighbors, and security is our likely biggest problem moving forward. I typically give away about 75% of each harvest, so the most of the neighbors are pretty supportive. Had a little bud rot earlier this week, i caught it early and promptly and carefully removed it and anything near it. So quickly in fact, that I forgot to take any photos, sorry bout that! We have had a bunch of rain recently, and humidity has been high in the greenhouse. We have had such a hot and dry summer, that I have only been concerned with fans to exhaust and circulate due to heat, and have since remedied with an overhead fan and another fan in the corner to keep things moving. We certainly need to invest in some good quality circulation fans next year. Have been looking at her a couple of times daily and she has shown no sign since of any rot. I was a little skeptical that the rot wouldnt continue to spread, but she is proving hardy. I also got a new microscope this week. Moving up from 30x to 60/120x magnification is super helpful for monitoring trichromes. So far only about 10-15% of trichromes have turned amber, with the majority of the rest still clear. I will continue to monitor daily. Feedings have moved to just water and molasses at 6.25pH. She has been super thirsty this last week, and I am feeding her much more frequently. Thanks for tuning in!

She is yellowing up and continuing to ripen. The biggest improvement this week was in the density of the buds, they are super solid! Getting really close now, maybe a week or so more till she gets cut down.

Well I have ended up with 42 grams of dried bud, which i think is pretty good considering the spider mite destruction in early to mid flower. Great smelling and tasting buds and really happy with resistance. Drying did go quicker than I would have liked (4 days before put in curing jars).