PH is going down...

They look like they are fox tailing so your getting close. When you harvest is a personal thing, I like about 50/50 for my day smoke and 60/40 or 70/30 for my couch lock evening smoke. What is your preference, an early harvest will give you a "heady" high and a late harvest will give her some good pow. I would begin to flush her and start removing them yellow crusty leaves. They looked stressed have they been dealing with high humidity, 45% or higher, what is your humidity? Look good almost there now JAS

I am struggling to keep the humidity below 55. I live in a high humidity area. Outside is 90% humidity today. My RH is 47 in my closet right now.

I put some stakes in the cabinet tonight to help her stand up. She looks much better not laying down on herself... Looks nice and full again. : ) I have to admit that I screwed up and broke a stem on one of the colas. So, I decided to use it to learn with. I trimmed it down, and hung it up to dry. Now I have a bud to play with for the drying process before my actual harvest. It also gave me the chance to get a really good look at the trichs since I could have it sit still : )


My best rest guess right now is that she is probably about 5% cloudy... I saw two amber ones and everything else is still clear. The pistils got thinner since yesterday, but still mostly white, but much curlier.


Are you guys into the one cut method and hang the whole thing upside down? Or... Harvest what looks like it is ready to harvest and let the rest keep going? (I want two distinct batches... Morning time up and moving around buzz and some that is pure couch lock for the evenings)

I harvest as the buds become ready but it's really up to you. If you have a lot of small "popcorn" at the bottom of plants just leave them for a couple weeks & they will get a bit bigger. Judging from that last pic you have another 2 weeks to go at least but picking some choice buds early to play around with won't hurt much. Difference in effects & taste are much more noticeable from strain to strain but it seems like the same bud picked at different levels of maturity works about the same to me. I don't notice much of a difference even though there is supposed to be. Curing I believe to be the most important factor because if you smoke the bud before it's hard enough it has not yet reached its full potential. I like the way you use those vertical cfls btw I want to do this in my setup.

midnitetoak said:

I harvest as the buds become ready but it's really up to you. If you have a lot of small "popcorn" at the bottom of plants just leave them for a couple weeks & they will get a bit bigger. Judging from that last pic you have another 2 weeks to go at least but picking some choice buds early to play around with won't hurt much. Difference in effects & taste are much more noticeable from strain to strain but it seems like the same bud picked at different levels of maturity works about the same to me. I don't notice much of a difference even though there is supposed to be. Curing I believe to be the most important factor because if you smoke the bud before it's hard enough it has not yet reached its full potential. I like the way you use those vertical cfls btw I want to do this in my setup.

Click to expand...

Wow! Thank you! I have to say I am very happy with the light penetration I am getting with them. There are virtually no shadows in the cabinet. The colas lay right up against the lights and they seem to love it. No burns... Obvious increase in growth the closer they get to them. I do struggle with heat though.

I have been reading a lot on curing. I am really looking forward to getting to that part.

Me

I go 3 to 4 days of drying just hung up on some twine. I like to do most of my trimming before I hang so that when the bud is a little crispy on the outside and the stems bend right over without breaking they go right into jars to cure. While I'm waiting for my shit to dry I run the fresh frozen trims through bubble bags to make hash to smoke on whilst waiting for dry/cure. I loosely pack the jars about 3/4 full and the buds usually reduce to about half full when finished curing- then I combine the jars. It takes 2 weeks to cure minimum but the trichs will continue to develop & improve for months. I never cured for more than 6 weeks so far because I go through it so fast which is why patience with curing is crucial. I open the jars for 20 mins twice a day for the first week or so then once everyday for another week then just once or twice a week after that.

Please don't take this as me disagreeing with you... Just looking to learn.

That is quite contrary to a lot of the things I have been reading. There is a lot out there about keeping the jars closed for 12 hours and then leaving open for 4 hours... It seems like what you are doing would take longer... What am I missing?

i have never actually done it yet...

Your buds are looking good. Waiting is really hard. The tops of my current grow finished a couple weeks ago and I'm pulling the rest this week. Getting the cure right can be tricky especially with RH so high. Not a problem here in the desert, this winter we'll be in the single digits. You may want to look into the Boveda 62% packs. I've been doing a similar dry/cure as midnitetoak. Hang for 3-4 days until slightly crispy then into jars with a hygrometer. Sometimes the buds need to breathe more the first few days. Dialing in the environment, training, and nutes are science, curing is art.

I live in a high humidity environment. It is normally 100% in the summers here... And it is summer 9 months a year lol. We get 70% RH outside in the winter... I am petty sure I just solved my RH problem. I bought a programmable dehumifier. I am hoping to set it on 45% and just stop having to think about RH from now on ( it has not gotten here yet )

i do have a couple of small hygrometers to put in the jars. I was planning on a 2 - 4 day drying hang and then I was going to follow the 12/4 hours burping schedule... Now I am not so sure how long to burp.

Me

I planned to buy hydrometers but never got around to it... I just feel how moist or dry the bud is by hand. The first jar I ever pulled started to get a white mold forming after a week but then I installed a small dehumidifier in the room to combat this. I did not allow the bud in question to dry long enough hung up & did not realize how much softer the bud would get after being in the jar for awhile. Maybe the way I do it is different than the way you have read about but that is why I am telling you; because you will find your own way through experience. It doesn't matter exactly how many hours a day to cure and/or burp your jars I'm just saying its a crucial part of harvesting that many, myself included, tend to overlook. Just be sure to burp your jars 2x a day for the first week or two & you'll be fine. If it seems like it's never gonna dry & you want to smoke it soon just lay it out on a tray for 30 mins at a time but properly cured bud(1 month or more in the jar) is so worth the wait.

Thank you for that! What you wrote makes a lot of sense to me. I do believe I am gonna put that advice in my pocket... Keep it for awhile.

So far with my first grow, I have.... Come a long way. This has been a really cool learning experience. I cannot wait for my next grow. The funny thing is, with all of the mistakes I made this time, the only two that were non-repairable was because I didn't find my own way thru it. I messed up the nutes in late stage veg and early stage flower. I took someone at their word for how to do it and he ended up being wrong. He was right about everything else up to that point. So, I sorta of felt like I had a "heck in the box" on nute levels... Oops.

there is a check in that box now : )

i dont think my next next grow will be perfect either. It just won't be the same mistakes I made this time. So, yes, I will take your advice.

We all learn by making mistakes ...I almost killed my plants too!!! (See my old posts)lots of people want to help each other here on RIU but do not always give the best advice... (Myself included) take what you read with a grain of salt but be willing to try new things...there are innovators here as well as morons...and they both dispense brilliant and inaccurate info

After a few weeks of pH swings I harvest last night. Here a couple pics to keep your spirits up. You'll make it to harvest just fine.

View attachment 2885594View attachment 2885595View attachment 2885596

It looks to my untrained eyes that she is about a week at most away from harvest. I am seeing more cloudy trichs now... I am really not very good yet with this little microscope, but I can see things enough to guess 20% cloudy. Looking inside of 6 different buds... 3 tops.... Yea they were a little cloudier, but not much more than the other three from lower on the stems. What do you guys think?


This Saturday will be exactly 7 weeks of flower.

theartoflife said:

After a few weeks of pH swings I harvest last night. Here a couple pics to keep your spirits up. You'll make it to harvest just fine.

View attachment 2885594View attachment 2885595View attachment 2885596

Click to expand...

nice harvest! I really love the vase full of buds!

Buds look good mate, and I really like your grow cabinet, nice job.