Growing

The time has come for harvesting cannabis. After exactly three months of growing cannabis in my apartment in Denver, it’s time to cut these babies down!

As I reported last week (and a bit the week before), I’ve been flushing my plants with mostly water (and just a little bit of nutrients, as I didn’t want to create any serious deficiencies so close to harvest) for the last two weeks. They’ve gotten too big for the small kitchen closest that I’ve repurposed into a grow room, so the tops of the colas have some light shock.

However, overall the buds are looking great! There are lots of crystals on the Triple Diesel, and the Third Dimension has produced several large, awesome looking colas. I expect that each plant will yield about 2 ounces each, which is pretty good for a small space and a first grow where I learned as I went.

Like most of the other stages I’ve already gone through, I’m going to keep harvest relatively simple. As soon as I’m done writing this post, I’m going to cut down large sections of each plant, keeping the buds on the stem. I’m going to trim most of the large fan leaves off, getting the buds just about where I want them when totally finished.

Once most of the larger leaves are cleaned up, I’ll hang the branches upside down in the closest for about the next week, after which I’ll transfer them to glass mason jars for curing.

I’ll definitely save all the fans leaves, and I’m not 100% sure yet what I want to do with them. I’ll probably freeze some of the bigger fan leaves so that I can juice cannabis for a bit longer, and some of the other trim I might save and make my own hash or even hash oil, which is a relatively easy process that would yield some really nice extra smoke.

I’ve been getting some great advice from growers I know in the Colorado medical marijuana industry about the best practices for growing and have already gotten a few good tips for harvesting and curing. As I’ve done for many other posts, I’d like to open up the comment section. Any growers out there have any good tips for how to have a successful harvest?

I’ve seen lots of bud that would have been great other than a bad curing process, so this is the first stage of this where I’m a bit nervous about making a mistake and harvesting bud that smells and taste like my closet. Let me know what you think!

Updated 5:32 pm MST 06/17/13:

After writing the above, I cut down the plants and was very pleased with the weight. While the plants will lose a vast majority of their weight during the next week of drying, the Third Dimension was SO HEAVY with LOTS of great looking colas!

Like a proud new parent, I show you my internet equivalent of a wallet photo of the newborns:

harvesting cannabis, Source: Prospero

Third Dimension is an absolute monster!
Several large branches and awesome looking top colas with a sweet smell and some very sticky buds!

Got a bit light shocked and definitely did not yield as much as the Third Dimension, but sweet none the less.

Triple Diesel! Strong, distinct Sour Diesel smell with 1 large cola and several other dense buds underneath.
Got a bit light shocked and definitely did not yield as much as the Third Dimension, but sweet nonetheless.

Drying Cannabis, harvesting cannabis, Source: Prospero

A first trial run of my very makeshift dry room. I took a string and hung it where the light was and then just hung the pre-trimmed bud up to see if I could fit everything into the closet. Luckily, there’s just enough room.

The first version of the drying room pictured above didn’t work (the string broke soon after I set this up and started trimming the first branch), so I ended up going with something similar to what I tried out, but smaller and more enforced to ensure that the buds won’t fall while drying.

I’ll see you here at the same time next week with a status update of the drying and curing phase!

Prospero’s Grow – 15 Week Series:

  1. Week 1: Set Up and Explanation of Juicing Cannabis
  2. Week 2: All Going Well and Nutrient Advice
  3. Week 3: Advanced Nutrients Nirvana and Some Real Growth!
  4. Week 4: New Developments from The Wizard and Start of Juicing Cannabis
  5. Week 5: T-minus 1 Week to Flower and Important Lesson On Watering Cannabis Plants
  6. Week 6: It’s Flower Time!
  7. Week 7: Starting to Flower and Introduction of Advanced Nutrient Bud Candy
  8. Week 8: Flushing Cannabis Plants and Raising the Grow Light
  9. Week 9: Frosty Leaves and Real Buds! More Juicing Cannabis Information
  10. Week 10: Growing Steadily and Some Thoughts On Pruning Cannabis
  11. Week 11: About Time to Start Flushing
  12. Week 12: Almost Harvest Time, Strong Cannabis Smell
  13. Week 13: Harvesting Cannabis. This is It! [this post]
  14. Week 14: Trimming and Curing Cannabis
  15. Week 15: Final Thoughts On Growing your Own Marijuana
  16. Epilogue: How to Make Your Own Homegrown Bud Joint Stash