So towards the end of week 10 (75 days) the ladies were ready, more than ready.
I had taken them to the point where they were clearly ready, then given them even more time. The plants signaled their state of readiness visually. The plants look like a plant in the Autumn of it’s life. The female cannabis plant grows buds which then becomes resinous (sticky) in order to catch and trap pollen.
The pollen fertilizes the bud and the bud grows seeds which then scatter in the winds and grows a new plant and the cycle continues.
The plant wants to produce and give up its gift before the cold weather hits. When the plants have buds bubbling with swollen calyxes with dried balled up pistils sprouting out with Amber streaks, all the large fan leaves are long gone, the plant looks bare (due to lost leaves) the bulk of the remaining leaves are yellowed, Growth has slowed to pretty much a stand still, you check the trichomes with a magnifier and you see the majority of them are Milky (cloudy) a lesser percentage are clear and you have a few Amber, the bud is mature and ready to harvest.
Oh and the bud will be coated in trichomes making it appear as if the bud has been dipped in sugar.
THC is actually developed and stored in these trichomes so need to be handled with care to keep optimal potency.
So for drying I selected a good sized box, whittled some wood to use as hangers and hey presto, that’s how I made my drying room, low cost, low tech and made with 100% recyclable products (keeping it green).
I selected the plant that had ceased to grow over the last week, got my pruners, clippers and three paper bags, 1 for large leafs (no visible trichomes) 1 for larger/longer bud leaf and 1 for the smaller bud leaf (covered in trichomes).
Once all these things were in place, I got to clipping.
