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Harvesting your cannabis the reaping of the bounty, and is the most enjoyable time you will spend with
your garden.
Cannabis Plants are harvested when the flowers are ripe. Generally, ripeness is defined as when the
white pistils start to turn brown, orange, etc. and start to withdraw back into the false seed pod. The
seed pods swell with resins usually reserved for seed production, and we have ripe sinse buds with red
and golden hairs.
Do not harvest too late! It is easy to be too careful and harvest late enough potency has declined.
Watch the plants and learn to spot peak floral potency.
Do not cure pot in the sun, it reduces potency. Slow cure hanging buds upside down in a ventilated
space. That is all that is needed to have great sensi. Drying in a paper bag works too, and may be
much more convenient. Bud tastes great when slow dried over the course of a week or two.
If your in a hurry, it is OK to dry a small amount in-between paper sheets or a paper bag in a
microwave oven. Go slow and check it, don not burn it. Use the defrost power setting for a slower,
better drying. It will be harsh smoking this way though.
A food dehydrator or food preserver will dry your pot in a few hours, but it will not taste the same as
slow-dried. Very close though. And this will speed your harvest time (which can be nerve-wracking,
with all this pot hanging around drying.)
Dry cannabis buds until the stems are brittle enough to snap, then cure them in a sealed tupperware
container , burping air and turning the buds daily for two weeks.
Once experienced cannbais grower told me to dry in an uninsulated area of the house (like the garage)
so that the temperature will rise and fall each night, as the plant is drying. If you treat the plant as if it
were still alive, it will use some of it is chlorophyll while it is drying, and the smoke will be less harsh.
enjoy the weed.
leaves right to the stem, leaving little to no stem stick in my buds. This is a learned skill, but not too difficult
to improve as you go (grow). Makes for a great smoke.
Beautiful weed.
I'm still working on this...
Thank you for your continued patience my
friends.
Rig a flat piece of 10" foil to be held under a 100 watt light bulb (no hotter) within 2-4 inches. Turn your
buds every 1-2 minutes. Should be smoke-able within about 10-15 minutes time.
water
overnight.
Take your buds and flatly wrap them in paper or use a paper envelope and place them over your
heater, radiator, or the back of your TV. Pot should be dry in a few hours or
Place buds flat on a plate. Use your microwave on 50% power or less (important not to burn). Set for only
10-12 seconds at a time, remove and turn, repeat as necessary. Done quickly, be careful.
I've heard you can use a food dehydrator, it takes a little longer (hours) but should work as well
if you have one one of these.
Also, if your buds get too dry (crispy), you can put them in a ziploc bag or glass sealable jar with a piece of
orange peel... yep, it will smoke much nicer by morning.
NEVER have your heat source be more than 150 degrees Fahrenheit! Any hotter will actually burn or
vaporize the THC or resin glands...this IS what gets you high, so be careful of this.
These tips should help you enjoy a little of your smoke a little faster... however - I still recommend
proper drying and curing - you WILL notice the difference.
This term indicates the period during which the plant is at its optimum state of ripeness. The window opens
when the plant is first ripe. Somewhere along the line the plant becomes over-ripe which signifies the
closing of the window of harvest.
For most Indicas grown indoors, the window of harvest is about two weeks long give or take a couple of
days for various strains. Indoors, if going directly from an 18/6 hour vegetative light cycle to a 12/12 hour
bud cycle, most indicas take about eight weeks to fully mature.
As to outdoors I can only speak from experience at the 45th parallel and the bloom times there. At the 45th
parallel I've found most Indicas to be at peak harvest starting at the beginning of October, sometimes very
late September, and running until the end of October, sometimes running into November during mild years
or in a greenhouse. My favorite time to harvest a nice Blueberry Indica outdoors is in the second to third
week of October.
For Sativa grown either indoors or outdoors, the window may be open much longer. Some Sativas take up to
thirteen weeks to mature indoors. Outdoors many will go well into November and even December, if
conditions are right (again, this is near or at the 45th parallel). Head High or Body Stone?
An important consideration has to do with one's preference for a head high or more of a body high. A good
head high can positively influence one's mental state much like a psychedelic; whereas a good body high is
more similar to a narcotic effect. Generally, head highs tend to be more up and body highs tend to be more
down. Suffice it to say that a good healthy mix of the two is a fine goal to achieve.
Sativas and early window harvests tend to be more of a head high, whereas Indicas and late window
harvests tend to be more of a body high. Given this rule of thumb you can pretty much come up with what
you want. That is, if you prefer a very psychedelic head high, then an early harvested Sativa might do best.
If a very narcotic body high is desired, then a late harvest indicas would probably do best. For that best-ofboth worlds high, experimentation with late harvested sativas and early-to-mid harvested indicas usually
proves interesting.
Calyx swelling is a major indicator of peak maturity. The lowest, oldest calyxes swell first and the swelling
works its way up to the highest, youngest flowers on each bud. At peak maturity about 90% of the calyxes
will almost look seeded, they are so fat.
Three quarters to 90% of the pistils will have turned reddish brown as well. For a basic Indica this takes
well into the seventh week of the flowering cycle.
By the end of the eighth week most of the calyxes will have swollen and a surge of trichome development
has coated most of the buds. It is now that the development of a very discerning palate comes into play to
determine the finest harvest time. Remember - patience is a virtue and often a discipline.
The ripening signs for most Sativas are highly similar, except extended over a longer period of time.
Occasionally, some Sativas have windows of peak harvest that actually open and close. That is, for a week
or so the plant may exhibit signs of peak ripeness.
However, a week later the plant may have a growth spurt, which lowers the trichome-to-fibre ratio and
overall potency for a little while. Usually a fibrous growth spurt is accompanied by a corresponding
trichome increase. Again, time and experience are the key elements in this regard.