Harvesting
The best way to tell if your Cannabis plants are ready to harvest, both indoors and outdoors, is to look at the stigmas and trichomes.
Stigma: The hair-like strands that cover the buds. They’ll turn from white to orange and will start to curl up when approaching readiness.
Trichomes: The resinous glands all over the plant. These will mature from clear to opaque and then amber. Ripe, healthy trichomes will be sticky and milky white; unripe trichomes will be clear; and overripe or diseased trichomes will be amber or brown. You want to have a majority of milky white trichomes when harvesting.
Flush your plants with only water, no fertilizer, for about a week before harvesting.
Plan for trimming and drying your harvest. Trimming removes buds from plants, cutting off branches, stems, and sugar and fan leaves. All of these are harsh to smoke and don’t contain many trichomes, although they do have a little. You’ll need to decide whether you want to Wet trim (remove the buds from the other parts of the plant immediately), or Dry trim. Dry trimming means leaving the buds on the stems and drying it all for several days before removing the excess.
You’ll need to set up a place for your buds to dry before curing. If you’re wet trimming, a screen or drying rack is all that’s needed in a dry, dark, well ventilated space. If you’ll dry trim, you’ll want a place to hang the branches, such as a wheeled clothing rack or indoor clothes line. Estimate the space you’ll need by looking at your plants!
On harvest day:
- Double check the trichomes on your plants to make sure they’re ready. If you’re growing different strains, some may be ready to harvest before others. Look closely.
- Wear clothes that can get dirty—harvesting weed is sticky! You might want gloves.
- Keep your shears and scissors sharp! Consider having two pairs, or rubbing alcohol and rags to clean them as you go.
- It’s good to harvest before the plants get too hot—outdoors, this means harvesting in the morning after any dew has evaporated; indoors, harvest soon after the lights come on.
- If wet trimming, be sure to trim buds immediately after chopping down plants.
- If dry trimming, it’s helpful to cut branches in a way to give them a hook on one end, making it easy to hang them. Hang these on a rack.
Whether wet or dry trimming, check drying buds or branches after two days by bending a branch or stem—if the stem snaps, that means buds are fully dry. If they don’t snap, leave them and check the next day. Drying should take between 2-7 days.
Be sure to label the stems, especially if you’ve harvested more than one variety.
Curing
Once the buds are mostly dry (snapping stem!), it’s time to cure them. A slow dry and cure will greatly improve the flavor and aroma of your bud.
Place the trimmed buds into some type of airtight container. Most people use wide-mouth quart or half-gallon glass mason jars, but you can also use ceramic, metal, or wood vessels. Plastic bags aren’t good for curing because they’re not impervious to oxygen and can impart flavor.
Pack the buds loosely in the containers without stuffing or crushing them. Close the containers and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Within a day or two you’ll notice that the buds get a little softer as moisture from the middle of the buds rehydrates the outer parts. If this doesn’t happen, you have likely over-dried your cannabis. Jot that in your notes!
Humidity inside the sealed jars should be 55-65%. You can also put a digital hygrometer—which measures moisture—inside each jar to make sure. If buds are too dry, humidity packs can rehydrate buds. If buds are too wet, leave the lid off for half a day or a full day before resealing them. Be sure to check humidity levels every day and leave the lid off for a period of time if they still are too wet.
During the first week of curing, regardless of humidity level, open the containers once or twice a day for a couple minutes—this is called burping. This releases moisture and replenishes oxygen inside the container.
If you notice an odor of ammonia when opening a container, it means the buds are not dry enough and anaerobic bacteria are consuming them. Leave the lid off for a day and reseal the next day.
After the first week, burp containers only once every few days.
After 2 to 4 weeks in containers, your cannabis should be cured enough to give you a flavorful, aromatic experience. Some people prefer to cure for 4 to 8 weeks, and some strains even benefit from 6 months or more of curing. This is another detail to note in your journal.
