Harvest Day - Some Early, Some on time

When do you like to harvest?

  • When it's ripe

    Votes: 4 44.4%
  • 10/70/20, clear/cloudy/amber

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • pistils are orange and retracted, calyx's are swollen, and sugar leaves feel crisp (not dry)

    Votes: 4 44.4%
  • 30/70, clear/cloudy

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • When the seedbank tells me it should be

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Immediately before peak ripeness

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1-2 weeks before full ripeness

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

Edwardo Ruffian

Well-Known Member
Hello fellow growers,

I have outlined some thoughts from my first grow/harvest below. I would appreciate any thoughts or comments but I know it's long winded and from an amateurs perspective, if it's too much to read then please enjoy the pictures.

Harvested my plants at day 100 from seed, and flowering 8 weeks. All these plants were grown from seed coming from the same CO dispensary bud, but got radically different plants, the bud must have been seeded by multiple different strain's pollen.

Due to adopting a 10wk old lab puppy didn't have the time to setup my harvest room 100%, so didn't have a scale handy to take a wet weight, but that's not super important anyway.

I decided to wet trim my first batch and see how I liked it, and after 16 hrs of trimming I can say I love it. The process gets tedious after a few hours, but due to the plants ending up so different each plant was different to trim and kept things interesting.

I didn't hang most of the smaller buds to dry, since the branching structure of the plants didn't provide any handy hook points for them. The trim and popcorn buds are drying on large screens along with the smaller nugs to dry. With plenty of top colas and bigger buds to smoke, i'll be using the smaller buds and popcorn/trim to make bubble hash with.

While I didn't get a wet weight of all the harvest, I did go back in and weigh some of the smaller buds and a
few of the top cola's to give myself an estimate. With the partial seeding will be hard to estimate a dry weight even after they are dried and cured (how much do seeds weigh anyway).

- popcorn buds the size of walnuts weigh in at .75-1.5 grams wet
- quarter roll sized buds weight in at 3.5 to 4 grams wet each and have dozens of them
- The top colas I weighed ranged from 20-35 grams each and can be averaged to 22 grams and there are approximately 20-25 of them
My current drying conditions are 65-70F and 45-50% RH. I will be checking the progress several times a day. since there is varied size colas I will probably be jarring up the buds as they are ready.

This harvest really taught me the differences in a fully mature plant vs a slightly immature plant. I had one plant that had stiff and hard feeling leaves, not brittle and dry from lack of water. The stalks of that plant were hollow and all the cellulose lining was dried out. The buds on this plant were very hard and all the calyx's had turned slightly different colors. Conversely the plants that were not quite ready, while feeling rock hard, the buds still have a slight squishy sticky feel that the mature plant did not. Also the sugar leaves on this plant still had the feeling of a leaf still alive and producing, and the calyx's were just starting to turn colors. I've been enjoying the smoke from some buds that had fallen over, the high is great maybe a little short and slightly racey but if the end product has a more mature high I will be happy with everything.
 

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70's natureboy

Well-Known Member
Very good for a first grow. The weed looks as good as any. I hope it has some flavor. It sounds like you are on top of the curing process. I like mine pretty dry before going in a jar. If it goes in the jar too wet it can kill the flavor.
 

Edwardo Ruffian

Well-Known Member
Very good for a first grow. The weed looks as good as any. I hope it has some flavor. It sounds like you are on top of the curing process. I like mine pretty dry before going in a jar. If it goes in the jar too wet it can kill the flavor.
Its drying at 65-68F and 45-50% RH, been 2 days now and it's going well, starting to see some shrinking and the outsides of the buds are super sticky and less wet. Goinng to jar once the outsides are crispy and the buds are still a bit squishy. then just a bunch of jar burping I hope, depending on the jars will dump out any that are too wet. got some boveda 62% but don't have enough for my quantity, but i'll use em when I can.
 

Dan Drews

Well-Known Member
Its drying at 65-68F and 45-50% RH, been 2 days now and it's going well, starting to see some shrinking and the outsides of the buds are super sticky and less wet. Goinng to jar once the outsides are crispy and the buds are still a bit squishy. then just a bunch of jar burping I hope, depending on the jars will dump out any that are too wet. got some boveda 62% but don't have enough for my quantity, but i'll use em when I can.
Like you said, after you jar, anything that is too wet can be put into paper bags for eight hours or overnight, then back in the jars. Just be sure NOT to jar too early.
 

Edwardo Ruffian

Well-Known Member
Like you said, after you jar, anything that is too wet can be put into paper bags for eight hours or overnight, then back in the jars. Just be sure NOT to jar too early.
Only jarred when the outsides were a bit hard and slightly crunchy. pulled em out to dry when they moistened back up.
 
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