Today is day 49 of flowering and of my 5 plants, one plant is a good 50/50 trich and top of another plant is 75%amber. I cut the former at the bottom and took the top off the latter.

because not all of my plants were ready at the same time, I am unable to use my very small grow room as the drying room as I had hoped. I was able to make a drying box though out of the container my 4' 4bult T5HO light came in. By tieing a string across one end to another I have hung up my recently cut down trees using wooden clothes pins (and was sure that they did not touch-as I understand this can cause mold).

The "drying box" is near the grow room, so I know the humidity will be in the same vicinity as the grow room (50-65%) and the temperature in the drying box is room temp (65-75) for the basement.
I plan on drying for 3-7 days and already have rubber lined glass mason jars ready for curing.

this is my first harvest and I'm not sure if I have everything right... any suggestions on things I need to change? Does my "drying box" need ventilation, or will being next a dehumidifier suffice? Any advice from you more experienced growers is greatly appreciated.

It sounds like ya got the idea. It should take at least 7 days to dry. 49 days flowering is too soon. They will be airy when dry. If they are dry in 3 days they are airy. The buds should be hard.

__________________
-- just a thought--

I've been too one-sighted in this last phase of growing. For $12 I picked up a 60-100x monoscope to use in identifying trich development and haven't paid any attention really to the texture of the buds. I didn't imagine any of my plants would be ready this early into flowering, especially since I am using T5HO which makes the whole process take an extra couple of weeks versus HID... however, I made every mistake in the book and the 1 plant that is ready is only 6" with minimal growth tips. She's small, but the trichs are 50/50. The one plant that is considerably larger than the others is around 18" and still has a LONG way to go. All growth tips are still showing white hairs and the trichs are barely even visible to the naked eye. I think that girl will have another 30 days or so. For awhile I thought it was stunted since all other plants have visible trichs- but now I can see that the growth tips are doubling up on themselves... and the top 6" is going to be one giant nugget I'll do my best to patient with her.

thanx for the quick reply- I was starting to freak myself out about the drying/curing process right after I chopped the little girl down.

Ya maybe seeing amber trich because ya touched the buds and then bruised the trichs turning them amber?

__________________
-- just a thought--