It's nice to see that someone is harvesting early. I'm assuming that the poster is growing outdoors. I'll be cutting my four plants down before dawn this morning. I took these photos yesterday. Today rain comes in at about dawn, so I'm getting into the yard to cut them down and hang them up. Yeah, it's early, but I'm not going to get them soaked and hope that, on the other side of the rain, I won't be dealing with moldy buds. The trichomes are doing well, from clear to milky. I don't want amber trichomes for that couch potato effect. A few years ago, I had a major branch snap during a rain shower on September 7. I dried the buds and I really couldn't tell the difference between the potency of those buds and those I harvested weeks later. Depends on the strain, I guess. That time, it was Blue Dream. Yummy. Observers are telling me to expect about a pound out of each plant. My usual routine is to hang them, finish with trimming (a lot of work), then let them slow-dry in ziplock gallon bags, then transfer them to quart canning jars for their final curing. (One year, I didn't air them out enough and had to toss a few jars of bud because of mold. I guess that's how some of us learn.) If they arrive at their cured "destination" as they did last year, they'll be ready for vaping and smoking in December. This has been an unusual year for harvesting because we've had early rains, which sends me and, no doubt, others, into a tizzy, finding ways to shelter the flowers from water droplets. I did get a spot of bud rot here and there, but not a big deal. Anyway. off to the back yard for some major harvesting. I might leave parts of a sativa dominant plant for further maturing, since that plant is a slower developer and the buds aren't that thick. It likely can withstand more rain than the plants with thicker buds. We'll see.
...Okay. Done. The take was about one-third larger than last year, when I filled around 34 quart canning jars with buds. It's a puzzling but somewhat pleasant dilemma, having so much. Last harvest was especially interesting because I had so much surplus from the year before, I began giving the stuff away to acquaintances like it was candy. As the year went on, I had to give more away for fear that the potency would decrease as time passed, and because I knew that this year's harvest would bring even more surplus. I still have a large amount of surplus from the 2018 harvest and will have to dump the surplus onto happy friends and acquaintances. I won't sell the stuff because of state laws, so it's a win-win for everyone. I had thoughts about giving my surplus to chronically ill vets, for example, but groups of vets may be wary that the weed I have isn't inspected or certified, etc. If anyone has ideas, please reply.
