End of Harvest Report with questions

Hello, potheads,

Just a run down of my harvest.

I had 12 10' trees to harvest, pretty much alone. My boyfriend helped trim a few, but I did 95%. It wasn't all of it , but at one point I weighed a Rubbermaid tote full of buds at 20 pounds. I had no idea I'd end up with such a large amount.

I had three drying racks going, take off the dry, put on the fresh. While sitting outside trimming, I was also making bubble hash and in the shop, 4 pounds of cannabutter.

I had nearly 100 mason jars full of pot. I followed everyone's instructions about how to dry and cure it, and when to put it in jars. My buds were only dampish if you squeezed them, the stems on the little ones snapped, the big ones creased, some snapped.

That's a lot of jars to keep track of.

I discovered mold in a couple, against the glass, so I dumped every jar out onto a sheet on the floor and let them dry some more.

Then, they were jarred again. I was careful to air them out, I had them sitting with theory kids OFF when I discovered more mold. (I am in Wyoming, our average humidity is 15%). So everything got dumped again. I threw some pot out, the lightly surfaced molded ones got baked for butter.

One jar was forgotten. My boyfriend found it way in the back. It had never been opened once it was jarred. The buds were still damp, rather damp actually, but there wasn't a speck of mold. Odd. I am watching it carefully, it's just a pint jar, but weird..

And the butter... I made a batch, it wasn't strong enough so I added more weed and redid it, and it was good (killer brownies!).. But the BUTTER molded. It was in Tupperware like containers, in the fridge.. I have never had regular butter mold, and I read it (the cannabutter) would keep like regular butter. I had to throw a few pounds out. Just made four more today, and going to vacuum seal and freeze it in portions.

So, a lot of my buds are very dry, drier than I wanted, but keeping up with nearly 100 jars was killing me. They are all sadly dry, though, and I have cabinets and cabinets full.

It's good stuff, good thing cause I have a LOT of it.

I haven't even smoked a bud yet, I've got a quart jar of just shake from moving the pot into jars and containers.

Any hints on the mold or the moldy butter?

They needed to dry longer pretty much...if you jar them you have to check them within 8 hrs to see if more water pulled out of the bud...if so, then lay them back out to dry. I had many jars to check and pop daily for wks then threw my humidity pak in and now I can pop them less often. Getting mold sucks after doing all that growing and trimming time.

Is that your entire harvest from the 12 plants in that pic?

No, that was just a bucket of trimmed ones, and only one cabinet. I had stashes in buckets still, and jars elsewhere. I don't think I'll be running out.

I used garbage bags full of sugar leaves and popcorn buds, at least 4-5 of them, in hash. A few more for butter.

The first time is most difficult because you don't want to overdry your buds so if you're like me, you jarred the bud too soon (well it sure felt dry), only to find out later that day or the next that it was moist as hell again. Try the paper bag method if the buds in the jars are too moist, just leave them bagged for 8 hours or so, then jar them again.

The good thing is that after that first grow and harvest, you just know by look and feel if your still too moist to jar and you leave out to dry longer. It's much easier once you've had this year's experience behind you.

Also, consider bigger containers if you're going to grow that kind of volume again. You might also want to scale back your garden to say 5 - 6 plants to allow yourself more time to perfect each of the products your trying to make (buds, hash, cannabutter). That's a lot of work for a first-timer and you get too busy with the details that you overlook the most important thing which is loss due to mold. When your an 'expert' after next year's harvest, then you can scale up.

The bottom line is you did a great job and you learned a tremendous amount. Next year will be much easier for you.

I seriously had not planned on reaping much. The plants were like six feet tall when I left, (I was gone six weeks and change) They were twelve foot tall trees when I returned! I wasn't prepared. My boyfriend just happened to have a hundred plus jars. When I am satisfied that they are cured , some stash will be partially vacuum sealed. (mine has pulse vacuum, doesn't have to shrink it to a rock)

The amount was hilarious. We had buds rolling on the floor, stuck to our socks, boxes, brown bags, buckets of it.

Well you certainly got your feet wet. I bet you feel like you learned a tremendous amount this summer which will only help you next season.

You can't turn you back on your buds once they go into the jars, even if you use the Boveda packs. I was opening my jars daily for at least 3 weeks but I never had to empty them out of the jars to dry more because you get a much better feel for when dried is actually dry enough.

You'll know to dry the smaller, lighter, 'sparser' buds (like the Girl Scout Cookies I grew this year) and jar them first, then attack the fat colas because they will need a longer dry time. As others have mentioned, look deep in the fattest buds to make sure mold hasn't started BEFORE you even get to dry.

Good luck next year, you'll enjoy it!

When jarring, and you make sure that they are dry, putting a Humidipak will control the mold from forming. They cost about $1 each. I use Boveda packs in the x-tra large to medium size mason jars. Since using these properly I never had that problem again..as a bonus it prevents humidity up and down.

I had about 80-100 jars , I couldn't afford it. I'm going to try orange peels and such. It's still good weed, it's just crunchy. I figured better too dry, than moldy.