The journey of Space Cookies & Gorilla

Hey growmies and welcome back to Hilke’s herbs! This was a pretty long journey in the beginning with some difficulties but I finally started again. Two plants already died during that last month’s journey, one seed died while still germinating and its replacement plant got knocked over and it was not possible to fix that broken little stem 😢 But I am here now again. Stronger! With a new Sanlight Q4W Gen 2 LED! I am really excited what this will change for that whole setup. Thank you Sanlight for these awesome LEDs! After germinating them in Easy Plugz I had some personal problems that caused this delay. I already repotted them into 1l Airpots and the Space Cookies are already 3 weeks old but without any extra light rather than the sun (which wasn’t quite much as you can see). The Gorilla is only 5 days old, the germinating process was pretty fast! It’s the only plant that was NOT germinated in an Easy Plug. So the stems are really thin and they will have to get bigger stems to survive in this harsh & cruel world. But I think they will have the best times of their lives and inside their box it isn’t THAT cruel. We will meet again next week! Stay tuned! 🌱 PS: I forgot the Silic boost I added :D

One week later. Welcome back my growmies! The plants coming out strong after the got their first shot of Coco Booster. Before that shot one plant was not sure to survive and kept falling down. But now she can stand on her own and keeps growing strong. So here we go now. Of course the Gorilla is still the smallest of em all. What a difference 3 weeks can make. Who would have guessed? We got one Gorilla and three Space Cookies and these four sisters will grow up together. Really excited! Next week they will be repotted into 9l Airpots and then they will go „BOOM“ - super fast growing! 😉 Stay tuned! 🌱 Wednesday Update: They got their 9l Airpots earlier, yay! Really excited how this will go on after the repotting. The „BOOM“ should start within one or two weeks. I also added some Mycorrhizae (it’s the white powder on the roots while repotting) for each plant and this should really help them to boost their immune system. We will see, we will see.

Hey growmies! Welcome back to Hilke‘s Herbs! We‘re in week number 3 after being put into coco and receiving their first beams of Sanlight. The stems are really tough and robust. But there are some brown spots on the leaves as seen in the pictures. I‘m gonna add CalMag when feeding her next time because the ph is ok and in my opinion it has to be a defiency of CalMag. Stay tuned for these already beautiful girls! 🌱 Thursday Update: New pictures and they were topped on Monday - did I promise you a „boom“ in the growth? Here it is! 😉

Hey growmies, how you doing during these Corona times? Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs 🌿 The plants got really strong stems! When I used LST I had to use some power bending them down. I have never had so strong stems in my previous grows! And I‘m dead serious! But I saw some brown spots and light spots between the veins on some newer leaves. As I am already giving CalMag it has to be something else and I think the ph is a little too high. Guess it‘s a defiency of potassium. So I will pull it down a bit to 5.9 - 6.0 and check if the problems will disappear. Pressed thumbs! Stay tuned! 🌱 Thursday update: after giving them CalMag again they started growing again! Probably a CalMag defiency?

Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs 🌿 We are in week 5 and something is up with them. They grow pretty slow and some leaves show some deficiencies. I want to help them and make them feel good again. There is a question in the help section and if you know what’s wrong please let me know and help them get better again. So far I am trying to flush them a little with Atazyme so if there’s too much fertilizer in the cocos it should help them get rid of it. The EC is lowered to 1.2, the ph is also ok at 6.0 - usually these are perfect stats. The smallest plant is around 20cm, the tallest is 28cm. Stay tuned! 🌱 Some doubled picture are with and without flash (flash looking more green) Edit: just read on Sanlights website it may be too intense light - and while vegetation the distance should be 50-60cm - changed it to 50cm. Could also be a deficiency of P/K (said Sanlights website) Edit2: not 100% sure yet but I may found out what’s wrong. Here’s the guess: I added some Atami Silic Boost in the beginning which I totally had forgotten when writing the diary. After researching what this silicium does to the plants I came to the conclusion it’s probably a P/K deficiency. Silicium helps the plants to convert the nutrients better and faster. One nutrient is soecially mentioned and guess which one: Phosporus! So I added Bloombastic two days ago and yesterday there was a little difference but not that much yet. Somebody guessed it’s too much calcium which I think it’s not. I have to check the EC of the runoff to really be sure if it isn’t too high. But I’m pretty sure the nutrients were okay and not too much. The dense grow may come from too much energy from the LED why I hung them a little higher. I will keep you updated!

Hey and welcome back to Hilke’s herbs 🌿 This week seemed pretty slow and I addded some Bloombastic in the beginning of this week which looked like it helped them. I think the problems are caused by a deficiency of Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). This was the reason I added Bloombastic. But as this is pretty expensive I got some PK from Atami. It’s just cheaper to use. So if I‘m right the plants should show that within one or two days. They should grow to the sky as fast as they can. I also will check if it’s better for them to get water everyday instead of just every 2 days. They do probably limit their growth because they feel like they don’t get enough water. We will see in the next few days. Does anybody know why Atami‘s website seems to be down for quite a while already? Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs 🌿 The problems did not disappear and so I decided to flush them completely. It still looks like a potassium problem to me. The EC from the runoff part 1 was 1.7. Part 2 was only 1.3. Tomorrow they will get pure water and after that they will get their normal feeding again. I‘m still very confused about the problems that showed up. Hopefully they are gone now after the flushing. Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs 🌿 The problems are still there in week 8 and I‘m super curious what it it. After the flushing I fed them PK and they grew taller again but those brown spots are still coming up. So I‘m still not quite sure what’s going on here. Is it really a deficiency of Potassium and phosphorus? If you know the answer please leave a comment! Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs and week #9 with four beautiful ladies! 🌿 Maybe I have found the problem! The EC of the (mixed) run-off is 1.9 which is kinda high after feeding with 1.5 - so there was probably a overfeeding and a block of nutrients caused by too much nutrients before. Thanks to my helper in the help section! I will check the run-off more often now if I feel or see that something is wrong. Actually the 2 plants in the front aren’t showing any problems. Only the 2 bigger ones in the background still having some leaves with brown spots. I will keep an eye on it and try to fix it by lowering the EC of the feeding until I see deficiencies. Then I will rise the EC by adding more nutrients or adding special nutrients if necessary (Calmag and/or PK). But they are almost ready to go into flowering stage. I removed some (a lot) of the lower branches and leaves today because it was too crowded under the net. They will have some days to recover and then their light timetable will change to 12/12. Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! What’s up?! Welcome to the flowering stage finally! We‘re already in flower mode since 3 days and they grew a lot in these 3 days. Some of the leaves had yellow tops. Not quite sure if it’s a nutrient burn or just another deficiency of Magnesium. Plus it could be both because I gave them a mixture of EC 2.0 and the run-off was 2.3 so I will have to feed less nutrients in the next few days. This will hopefully flush out the overdosed nutrients in the substrate. And help them to go straight into the POWER FLOWER mode which I‘m really excited about! The next few days are important for their sexual identity. They should all be female (Feminized seeds) but there is always a little risk there is a male plant in between. Or a hermaphrodite. I will check that! And give you some exciting photo shots of it! Did I already mention the thickest stems I have ever personally seen on a cannabis plant? Here we go! Thanks to Atami Silic Boost + Sanlight for that! Stay tuned! 🌱 PS: The brown spots did not completely disappear. Some few leaves do still have these brown spots but I couldn’t manage to take a picture of it.

Hey growmies! Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs in week 11 (2nd week in flower stage). What happened last week? A lot of stretching! Plus the brown spots seem to disappear finally. The plants are dropping off their lower leaves as they do not get enough light. The EC of the mixed run-off is 2.0 - after feeding 1.7 which means there is still too much fertilizer in the substrate. The plants seem to like it though. It’s okay for now but still has to be fixed. I don’t want any more problems. Those problems I‘ve had were already too many for my little heart. ❤️ That’s pretty much it for this week. Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies, welcome back to Hilke’s herbs and week #3 in flower. The plants are doing really well and the stretch seems to be over. The biggest plant is now 80cm and the smallest one is 60cm. A lot of leaves are dropping as they don’t get enough to zero light from the tight and many leaves above the net. It doesn’t matter because the rest of the plants look absolutely healthy. The buds are forming nicely but the humidity went up to 63%. So I will use the dehumidifier in a few days to lower the humidity. After all I’m happy with the progress and how those brown spots finally disappeared. Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies, welcome back to Hilke’s herbs! Week #4 in flower and they are coming up strong! The blossom builder liquid is empty so I added Top Focus as a substitute. It’s a sample that I got from the fair a while ago. I ordered new fertilizer and hope it will be delivered this week. The EC is a little to high but I couldn’t put any more water to dilute the mix more and get the EC down. I will have to check the run-off so the root zone is not getting too salty which would cause a lockout of nutrients. A nationwide lockdown is enough for now. The plants are doing really good and nothing had to be fixed this week. Let’s keep ‘em looking so good! I put the dehumidifier inside the box as the humidity reaches 75% by now. Don’t want no bud mold! Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies, welcome back to Hilke’s herbs and week #5 in flower. There is a nutrient burn! This was too much fertilizer in the last week. I flushed with EC 1.0 and the mixed run-off was 2.8 - way too high! So I will flush again in the next few days with a really low EC and measure the run-off again until it gets low enough to add fertilizer again. This should not have happened :( i will check the run-off every time now to prevent this from happening again. Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! Welcome back to another edition of Hilke’s herbs and week #6 in flower stage. After giving them a feeding with really low EC and checking the run-off until the EC was down to 1.4 I finally added some nutrients again today. They will like it I‘m pretty sure. Two plants were already showing signs of deficiencies like brighter leaves and two are in good conditions. That’s what happens when you work with seeds: Each plant has its own needs. Just like kids would have. The smell is now incredible intense but the buds kinda had a break from getting bigger. It will change now because of the feeding. Can’t have everything at once, can you? 3-4 weeks more to go until harvest and I’m already excited! Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! What’s up? Welcome back to Hilke’s herbs and this journey of these 4 beautiful plants! When I added water into the tank the EC was still up to 2.5 so I decided not to add any fertilizer except Ata Clean. The plants look good, the buds are still developing and they are getting ready to get harvested soon. I think it will be done within the next 2 weeks. I will check the trichomes to actually find the right time spot. I really like the color spectrum of the leaves! Stay tuned! 🌱

Hey growmies! How y'all doin'? Welcome back to Hilke's Herbs and week #8 in flowering stage! The EC ist still at 2.4 with no feeding at all so the plants do not get any fertilizer for some days and probably never again in their life cycle. Which will end in 1 or 2 weeks depending on their bud development in the next few days. So stay tuned! 🌱

For their life circle it was kind of ok. But in comparison to the Gorilla which was 2 weeks younger it’s just OK. I would not grow this strain again because Gorilla is way better. The trimming was pretty hard and there were a lot of popcorn buds but these occured mainly because I did not cut enough under the net. Reminder for next time: cut ANYTHING under the net - there won’t be light and so there won‘t be big buds.

This strain kicks ass! The Gorilla was 2 weeks younger than their sisters and it was the fastest plant that was ready to harvest PLUS it had the most weight! I hope there are no Gorilla semen in it. This strain is something I can highly recommend to any grower out there!