Trim Trim Cher-ee: My Week at the Purple Pot Farm

CelebStoner publisher Steve Bloom at the purple pot farm. (All photos by CelebStoner)

Now's the time to harvest your outdoor marijuana plants that have been growing since April and trim those beautiful buds.

I spent the last week at an undisclosed New England location getting my hands sticky.

Ripe and ready for harvest

A friend has a modest grow, about 15 plants, a mixed bag of Jack Herer, Grape Punch, Skunk Hero, Haze, Blueberry Bubba Kush and 10th Planet.

Since it's a northern climate, many of the plants turned various shades of purple; hence I called it the purple pot farm.

Majestic 10th Planet shimmers with purple.

Trimming is pretty simple. All you need is pointed scissors (known as pruning shears), a diligent approach and plenty of spare time.

There's wet trimming and dry trimming. Both techniques were employed at the farm. Wet trimming is what you do right after harvesting. Cut the leaves back as much as posssible. Then hang the branches in a dark room or closet and several days later the buds will start feeling crispy. Trim some more. Then place the buds in jars and check them regularly for mold.

Freshly trimmed, ready to hang.

The key to harvesting is knowing when the flowers are ripe. Use a loupe to close up on the flowers. You'll see hundreds of tiny trichomes (resin glands). They look like mini mushrooms with heads on top. At first they'll be clear, then milky and finally a touch of amber. That's when to clip your plants.

Hang ’em high in a low-humidity room.

Don't harvest all the plants at once. Stagger them. Then you'll have fresh buds to smoke while you're happily snipping away.

Fresh flower stashed in Mason jars.

(From left to right) Jack Herer and Grape Punch are ready to smoke.

Thanks to my friend, I returned home with some of the fruits of our labor. I'll be smoking organic, homegrown cannabis for the foreseeable future.

Steve Bloom at the purple pot farm. Please contribute to the CelebStoner Patreon account. Click the link below.

 

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Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.