First Grow - Indoor Now - Outside & Inside Later

Well friends looks like I will busy for the next few days with full on harvest. The gnomes visited in force last night, in the form of strong gusty wind and heavy rain. The excess weight of the rain and the gusting has left my girls pretty much laid over and considering that we are only going to have one day of the next 7 that's its not raining, I decided I am better off harvesting the girls rather than trying to prop them up.

I have to run to the city today to get some washing and trimming supplies but will take and post some pictures of last nights damage when I get home.

Oh well, c'est la vie, they were close anyway :)

Rain storms, strong winds, high humidity, broken branches, PM, bud rot, pest and animal damage.......the joys of outdoor growing. :)

Sorry to hear that you're having to harvest early but I think you've made the right decision mate.
:goodjob:
 
Hey guys, plan had been to chop some more, prep and wash it for trimming tomorrow but just now getting back from taking my son back to the city. I am bagged so mixing a drink, packing the pipe and gonna vegetate for a bit and then dream land LOL

The young fella bought some iso, used some of the frozen trim from the indoor harvest and made himself a gram of oil/wax. Total cost: $2.50 for the iso and about 20 mins , one burner on low on the BBQ. He was quite pleased :)

And yes UncleC, the joys of outdoor gardening LOL there's never a dull moment and I have decided its very much like hunting, its all fun and games until you pull the trigger, then the "work" starts LOL
 
I have decided its very much like hunting, its all fun and games until you pull the trigger, then the "work" starts LOL

The hunting analogy is 100% accurate!! LOL!!
You hit that nail on the head buddy!!
 
Nail guns
 
The hunting analogy is 100% accurate!! LOL!!
You hit that nail on the head buddy!!

Oh this is soooo true.

What is your temperature and humidity range if you done mind me asking, TC? This time of year where I live the climate is best for growing moss,slime,mold,and mushrooms. We get a lot of wind and rain too. Are those strains especially hardy- or is it still tolerably warm and nice there?
 
Morning WeaselCracker

I am in a part of the province famous for its apple orchards and we generally have an extended growing season compared to the rest of the province, extra 20+ days without frost. Not that frost concerns me, a couple mild frosts with sunny warm days after would bring out some nice colors and would likely put the girls in over drive to fatten up.

The temperatures here are generally in the mid teens (55-68F) through the day and 10-15 degrees cooler at night with humidity below 70 on clear days and into the 90s on wet days. Clear vs wet days is hit and miss this time of year. We often get foul weather coming out of the northeast, off the north atlantic, from now until spring. When those storms collide with weather systems coming from the west, they tend to stall over the province for days and dump a lot of rain. The one last week dumped about 6 inches of rain here over 3 days, the first 4 inches came in the 1st 18 hours. That's more rain then we had from July to Sept this year, we had a really dry summer.

The other weather that is of concern here for Sept-Nov is the tail end and remnants of hurricanes coming up the eastern seaboard. So even though we have a longer grow season here, the tail end of it can be very hit or miss and down right unforgiving if you are not prepared.

As for the strains, they are all Bomb strains which are supposedly bred for northern climate (UK etc) and I am as close to the 45th parallel as you can get so they do well here. They are also considered mold resistant which I would agree with, there has been some bud rot but not a lot and it doesn't seem to spread easily :)
 
Good evening friends

I have decided I have had enough for one day and thought I would go over my bud washing procedure as I do it somewhat differently than posted elsewhere.

First off I use 4 buckets of water: 1st=> hottest tap water with about 2 cups of lemon juice
2nd=> coldest tap water with about a cup of baking soda
3rd=> coldest tap water with 2 cups hydrogen peroxide
4th=> coldest clear tap water

Many mix the lemon juice and baking soda in the same bucket. I'll now explain my reasoning for separating them into 2 buckets. Firstly, lemon juice is an acid which in and of itself is good at killing many nasties and some molds. Baking soda is a base also good at killing some types of molds. Hydrogen peroxide will kill most if not all molds as well as any other unwanted hitchhikers.

Now for the reason I separate the lemon and soda, and the order I use them. Mixing an acid and a base releases a gas as they react and neutralize one another, acting as a foaming agent. This is a good thing in many cleaning operations, but for our use in washing bud, the reaction is often over before we even start, leaving either an acidic solution or a basic solution depending on which was in excess prior to mixing.

I separate the two and use the lemon in the hot water because a hot acidic solution is more efficient than a cold solution. After dunking the bud into the hot bucket a number of times, I then dunk the now wet with acid bud into the cold soda bucket where the acid on the wet bud reacts with the soda solution creating some foaming action while the lemon juice is neutralized. These 2 solutions will kill most molds and their spores as well as float off much of the loose foreign matter. Next they get to soak in the peroxide solution for about 30 seconds which will kill anything the first 2 buckets didn't. They then go into the clear water to soak for another 30 secs or so before being laid out on the screens to drain over night prior to being trimmed.

The buckets, 1 to 4 from above, top to bottom
IMG_20151004_210654.jpg


Bud soaking in the last 2 buckets

IMG_20151004_213337.jpg


The last of Big Mamma washed and laid out to drain

IMG_20151004_212730.jpg


The buckets after washing Big Mamma and the remainder of the Cherry Bomb from the garden

IMG_20151004_214153.jpg


You can see a noticeable difference in the colors of the water after washing the bud. I left the buckets where they are and tomorrow I will take another picture for you to see how the water darkens over night. The darkening is cause by the stuff washed off the bud being oxidized by the different solutions.
 
Have you passed your hand along the bottom of the buckets after draining them? If so, do you notice any rough film or residue on the bottom or walls of the buckets after draining that would be indicative of trichomes or trichome pieces and parts that are stuck to the bucket walls?

I've been reluctant to try the bud washing thing out of concern that trichomes could be damaged or lost during the wash process.
What I've done to date is give my plants a good freshwater rinse with a garden sprayer (simulated rain) a day or 2 before harvest then dry the plants off with a fan immediately afterward.
I realize that I'm walking on the wild side doing this but it seems that the wind from the fans are able to dry the buds off before any type of mold or mildew is able to set in. Maybe I've just been lucky. :)

Anyways, I know that what I've been doing is not achieving the same level of clean as the method that you've mentioned. It would be good to hear your thoughts on possible trich damage or loss with either method.
 
Good morning UncleC

Join me in a bowl of Cluster Bomb and I will share my thoughts and conclusions :bongrip:

I, like you, was leary about what damage bud washing might do. Then the engineer in me said "OK lets step back and look at it from another angle. Lets analyze and compare it to making bubble hash or ISO oil". In making these 2 concentrates, we try to get all our materials below the freezing point so that the trichomes become brittle and fall off, as we agitate the hell out of the bud, so we can collect them.

In bud washing, our water temps are higher with the coldest water being about 4C(40*F). The warmer temps coupled with minimal agitation (about 20 secs) should keep the trichomes from becoming brittle and falling off.

Seeing what came off my bud the first time I washed it, and the smoother smoke that resulted from the washing, convinced me that I would always wash regardless of any minor damage I might be doing.

Then about a week ago, MassMedMan posted something to further reinforce my decision and convince me that washing, not only produced a nicer/cleaner smoke, but that the end product was actually MORE potent rather than less potent (damaged).

MassMedMan took 2 buds off the same plant, one washed and the other not, and sent them for analysis. The washed bud had almost a 3% higher THC level than the unwashed.

Here is a copy of the report:
test_sized.jpg
 
As you can see, the washed bud tested higher. I see 2 possible reasons for this:

1: the washed away contaminates causes a weight difference in the bud giving the washed bud a higher percentage-by-weight ratio than the unwashed bud.

2: the washing may produce a similar effect to "water curing" in which not only contaminates are washed away but there may be some chlorophyll leaching as well reducing the overall weight and again increasing the THC%-to-weight ratio.

Either way, this is enough to convince me that whatever minimal trichome loss I may be causing, in the end I am left with a cleaner, more potent product :)

OH and as a side note, washed and drained bud is a breeze to trim. The leaves seem "crisper" and easier to cut, and the scissors don't gum up like unwashed bud :)

At some point, when I buy some bubble bags, I will run my wash water through them, just out of curiosity, to see what if anything I may be losing off the bud.
 
I'm in two minds about bud washing. The stuff I've been buying for years has probably never seen a wash ever but I've read so much that I'm interested in trying it on my next batch, with one caveat...I'd like to see the results of your wash going through the bubble bags :)

Come on TheCelt, this is an experiment for the good of mankind, do it for the team :)
 
Thanks for the feedback Celt. Much appreciated.

I think another possible reason for the THC difference could be just a simple case of THC variation. There will always be some level of THC variation amongst different buds of the same plant. It may just be a coincidence that the washed bud tested higher. It would take more than just one test with a couple of bud specimens to confirm higher THC levels with washed buds.

The test results do seem to confirm that if there is any THC degradation as a result of washing it would be very minimal if at all.

I find that the current basic and "must do" task list that is involved with harvest, trim, dry, and cure is already plenty enough to keep me busy w/o adding yet another activity and even more time to the whole ordeal.
I may do the bud wash thing someday if I feel that it's really needed for whatever reason. For now I'll probably keep on playing Russian roulette and tempting the bud rot gods with my lazy gardener's imitation rain storm method. LOL!

Anyways, it's reassuring to know that if ever I do decide to do a bud wash session trichome damage shouldn't be a concern as long as the washing is done correctly.

Thanks again for taking the time to give me your 2 cents on the matter.
:peace::high-five:
 
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