Simplicity in Soil
Growing cannabis synthetically
by Gautama’s Garden
You may distribute this pdf freely to anyone you wish so long as you do so without editing or removing accreditation . If you paid anything for this guide you have been swindled.
Version 1 Distributed September 2022
Section 1: Basic need to knows 4
Section 2: Picking your seeds 6
Autoflowering vs. Photoperiod 6
High CBD or Traditional THC strains 7
Section 3: Building your medium 8
What kind of soil should I buy? 9
Section 4: Integrated Pest Management 9
What to do and when to do it 10
Section 5: Starting your seeds. 10
Section 6: Caring for seedlings 11
Section 7: Caring for vegging plants 12
Section 9: Caring for flowering plants 14
Section 10: Harvesting your plants 15
Do I need a blackout period? 15
Section 11: Caring for your harvest 16
Use latex gloves or you will regret it! Trichomes on fresh buds are very sticky. 16
Don’t toss your sugar leaves aka trim. We will talk using it at the end of this guide. 17
Section 12: Curing your cannabis 17
Wait! What do I do with my trim? 18
Introduction
Science has given us great advances in medicine and food production/preservation However, it has also led to an overwhelming increase in the amount of chemicals present in our food, bodies and environment. With this in mind many persons in the twenty first century seek to rely less on artificial medicines and more on natural remedies where possible.
How do I know this? Well just like many of you reading this now I have suffered for years with chronic pain and debilitating chronic illness. I will expand more on that later but in all honesty, this book isn’t about me, it’s not about you either. It’s about an idea. An idea that people all over the world can get relief from pain and discomfort that has, in many cases, plagued them for years, or even decades.
For thousands of years human beings have recognized the power of cannabis to heal our body and minds. Unfortunately this information has been kept from the masses by many groups and for many reasons. Sometimes it was racial hatred or political machinations, sometimes it was for pure greed by corporations.
Whatever the reason, with the advent of the internet this information is now more accessible than ever and I am so glad that we can go on this journey together. This guide will show you the basics of growing Cannabis, how and when to harvest as well as trimming and curing your buds. One last note, while there are many ways to grow cannabis, the focus of this guide is on growing using synthetic nutrients in a soil medium.
That’s enough preamble, let's get started!
Section 1: Basic need to knows
Stages of Growth
Cannabis has 2 distinct stages of growth that must be explained before we get into a more complex discussion of caring for it. Each of these stages requires different nutrients, training and care.
To begin, the vegetative stage. No, the plants aren’t in a coma. The vegetative stage is the first stage of plant growth and it is when the plant will do most of its growing in vertical size and number of bud sites(spots where the flower grows from). The cannabis plant will not produce much odour in this stage and will not be distinctly aromatic of cannabis.
The second stage is called the flowering stage and it is the stage in which the plant shows sex(cannabis has distinct sexes) and will grow the flower we harvest/dry/cure and enjoy. During this stage the plant will smell heavily and distinctly of cannabis, if you are growing in a location where you must obscure or downplay the smell make sure to plan ahead and don’t go into flowering until you have taken steps to mitigate the cannabis smell.
Light Sensitivity
Next I must explain that cannabis as a plant is photosensitive. What do I mean by that? Aren’t all plants sensitive to the sun? Well yes, but that’s not what I mean. Specifically cannabis is sensitive to the amount of light the plants receive.
Let’s take ourselves back to nature for a minute and imagine cannabis growing in an open field with no interaction from humans. In a natural environment cannabis grows throughout the spring and summer, as the amount of light the plant gets reduces by the progression of the season the plant begins to enter the flowering stage.
Some plants will flower with around 15 hours of light a day but the majority of strains, as well as the widely accepted science says that cannabis flowers best under 12/12 lighting. Not only is this guaranteed to induce flowering in photoperiod strains, but it also will prevent revegging(explained later).
When we grow indoors we have the benefit of manually changing the light schedule and inducing flowering when we want. It is for this reason that many growers, myself included. Choose to grow exclusively indoors in a light sealed room/tent. Because we can control the light schedule we can also pack in grows to grow 365 days a year.
What are terpenes?
In the most complex sense a terpene is defined as;
Any of various unsaturated hydrocarbons, C10H16, found in essential oils and oleoresins of plants such as conifers and used in organic syntheses.
Now, if you are not a scientist(I am certainly not) that definition isn’t very helpful. In a more simplified sense, a terpene is a component of cannabis(and other flowers) that imparts a flavour/aroma and effect of cannabis.
So, how do I get the terpenes(AKA terps) that I want? The answer is genetics. We will discuss this in the next Section(Picking your seeds) but know that there is little you can do to change a plants effects, you can intensify them and there is always variation when you start a plant from seed. However, 95% of the terpene profile is determined from the genetics of the cannabis strain that you are growing.
PH and TDS
Firstly let’s talk about TDS or total dissolved solids. It is often expressed as PPM or parts per million and refers to the nutrients in water that can be absorbed by the roots. As we move through each stage of growth I will discuss what PPM you should be feeding your plants but it is critical that you remember 3 numbers, 600,1200 and 1600. PPM is measured using a TDS meter available cheaply at many stores and online. Get the cheapest one you can find and don’t worry about branding here.
These numbers represent 3 critical PPM levels you should be feeding your plants, as it moves through its life. When it is young and when you first start feeding your grow nutrients in the vegetative stage, you should give it a PPM of around 600, giving it slightly more each feeding until you reach 1200 as you reach the beginning of flowering and switch over to feeding your flowering nutrients. Now you can feed UP to 1600 PPM in flowering nutrients through the flowering stage remembering 2 things. Never give it more than 1600 and watch out for signs of overfeeding.
Next, we note that when we work with cannabis it is important that we remember to ALWAYS, and I cannot emphasise this enough, moderate the PH of water going in.
PH is a measurement of the acidity and alkalinity of water. PH is always measured on a scale with low PH(acid) and high PH(base) both being bad for cannabis plants.
Cannabis requires water to be PH corrected to between 6 and 7 on the scale. This is midrange and you may find your tap water is already within this acceptable range. If it isn’t you must use a product like PH Down to lower it or PH Up to raise it. Both products are available on Amazon and at Canadian Tire in the pool section.
Your water will and should vary a bit within this range, different nutrients are drawn up depending on slight variations within this acceptable range. Once you are within that acceptable range you can water your plants.
It is also worth noting, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this work, when we ph adjust a nutrient solution, the PPM will go down. It is for this reason that we always PH after we have adjusted PPM. While we may lose some nutrient uptake, PH is more critical and adjusting will not make your PPM rise, so you should be able to make a nutrient solution that is PPM of 1650 with high PH as an example, then adjust the ph down for a final ppm of <1600 with an acceptable PH.
When you look for a PH pen there is a lot of opinions out there. I won’t bore you with everyone because I am the one writing this so I will tell you what I think.
As much as you can purchase a PH pen that is several hundred dollars and keep it sitting in liquid ph solution 24/7(as directed), you may find that device a hunk of plastic in a few months, they simply aren’t reliable.
It is for this reason that I recommend you purchase a PH pen that is around 20-50$ and that you also follow the instructions for calibration that come with the pen. You should also buy additional calibration powder. The powder mixes with 500ml of distilled water and goes to a set ph. Don’t worry, your PH pen will come with a sample of the powders as well as instructions on how to calibrate the pen.
Section 2: Picking your seeds
Autoflowering vs. Photoperiod
There is one aspect of cannabis that we have yet to discuss and that is autoflowering cannabis. While most cannabis that is grown is photoperiod cannabis and will only flower when it begins to receive less light, there are also Autoflower strains. These strains are generally known as Autos and they do not flower based on how much light they get.
Autos will flower at a set time no matter the light schedule. You cannot re-induce the vegetative state, autos go full steam ahead no matter the plant’s health or your personal timeline. Most will start showing sex in week 3 from sprouting. When an auto is advertised as “100 day auto” that means it will grow to completion in 100 days from sprouting.
Because autos can’t be stopped or slowed from completing it is advised that for your first grow, you grow photoperiod plants. If you have issues you need to fix like a nutrient deficiency, overfeeding, etc you want to be able to fix those issues before going into flowering.
Regular vs. Feminised
As mentioned above cannabis is Dioecious. This means that it has distinct sexual characteristics and 2 sexes that vary in utility and value to a grower.
Male plants will produce bulbous pollen sacs that grow, swell and burst, spreading microscopic pollen into the air and up to 10KM away on the wind. Neither the plants nor the pollen have any THC or CBD and cannot get you high or provide any benefits.
Female plants will show sex by shooting out thin,wispy white hairs. The female plants will grow buds that contain the psychoactive THC and the other beneficial cannabinoids like pain relieving CBD. If a female plant is exposed to pollen it will focus all its energy on producing seeds instead of large, high potency buds.
Because exposing the females to pollen will reduce our harvest and potency we always take the step of culling all males immediately when identified. Since there is a 50% chance your plants will be male with regular seeds it is best to avoid this by purchasing feminised seeds instead.
There is a complex process that takes time/skill and patience to perform. The process is beyond the scope of this guide so we won’t touch much on it but know that when done properly the feminisation process creates seeds that are near 100% female. This means that we can plan and start as many seeds as we want to have plants, crucial towards staying within the 4 plant limit Canada allows adults over 19 to grow(per household not per person). Long story short, Spend the extra money and you will be much happier.
High CBD or Traditional THC strains
Most modern strains of cannabis that are commercially available have been bred for decades to be as high in THC as possible. However there are many strains available that have high CBD as well. In general these high CBD strains have little to no THC, However it is worth noting that these are not mutually exclusive and some strains have a median amount of both in various levels.
In general you will find that most strains have a THC level of around 20-25% and while there are more potent strains out there you should generally be sceptical of percentages over 25%.
CBD levels generally top out around 6-8% CBD and when you reach the upper levels the chances of also having a high THC level become negligible.
Sativa/Hybrid or Indica
There are two distinctive types of cannabis. While they are related and have similar effects they can genetically be grouped into three categories. Firstly, sativa cannabis has a very mentally uplifting and heady high. Sativa plants will stretch tall and thin and generally descend from strains originating from South-East Asian Countries like Laos.
Indica strains on the other hand have a more “body high”. They will lock you into the couch and are great for pain management. These strains generally are bred from plants taken from the middle east. Indica strains make great hashish and have been known for their hash production for centuries.
Falling in between these two are hybrid strains. Hybrids are made by crossing the two types and will vary widely in effect. Hybrids are often less stable so if you go this route make sure to purchase from trusted vendors.
Terpenes
We have already briefly touched on terps above so I won’t go through it all again but remember to research the strain you are thinking of growing to know what kind of effects/aromas and flavour it might have.
When you grow cannabis you often end up with lots of the same strain so if you don’t take the time to research before beginning you may end up with lots of flower that is not to your liking. A good seed Vendor will always tell you the effects, from there you can deduce what terpenes are present, nonetheless don’t be afraid to ask them.
Section 3: Building your medium
What should I avoid?
To start, let's talk about things that you should avoid. Under no circumstances should you purchase soil that “feeds” that is to say, you don’t want soil that has nutrients already added to the soil. This kind of soil will feed your plants nutrients every time they get watered, even if your plant is suffering from overfeeding.
Miracle-Gro in particular is very bad for cannabis. A lot of novice growers purchase it as it’s widely available and does work well for veggies. Unfortunately the amount of nutrients in Miracle-Gro and other like soils can cause nutrient burn up to even killing the plant, especially seedlings.
In general you also want to avoid soils with lots of heavy wetting agents. Cannabis needs good aeration in the roots so it’s important not to buy soil that intentionally adds lots of these agents.
What kind of soil should I buy?
The soil you should grab for a good synthetic grow is “Pro-Mix HP” AKA “Pro-Mix High Porosity” Canadian tire sells it year round and it comes with perlite mixed in so you can just grab it and plant without adding anything.
What should I add?
When we think about things to add to our soil we must consider two things. Firstly the aeration of the soil. For good aeration you want to make sure your soil is about 30% perlite. Perlite is tiny white pellets that help water pass through the soil. Without perlite your soil will become waterlogged and you will have sad droopy plants.
Section 4: Integrated Pest Management
Insects are a part of nature, when you grow cannabis, especially outdoors you have to accept that some bugs are a part of the deal. However, when we grow indoors we have a much greater control over our environment. It is possible in fact to grow without an insect touching your bud if you have good IPM.
Preventative measures
When creating a strategy for pest management we need to be proactive in assuming that bugs will attempt to enter the grow space. What that means is taking note to check the leaves, including undersides, for insects regularly. Make a habit of doing this when you check your plants each day and you will develop good Pest management skills.
You will also want to hang fly strips, these will catch any egg layers before they can do so. Another great step you can take is to use “Pot Poppers” or similar products. These release a small worm that eats the larvae form of other insects but leaves cannabis and her roots untouched. These must always be deployed in advance and wont do much if anything for a bad infestation.
Identifying warning signs
Often when we have infestations we will not see any flying insects right away but will see evidence of plant damage on our cannabis plants first. Be on the lookout for tiny pinholes, recognizable bite marks and any visible webbing.
Because we took the step earlier of applying traps preemptively we should see signs of insects first on fly traps as the mature flies get snared up. Never assume you got them all and change sticky traps often to make sure you’re on top of what might have shown up.
What to do and when to do it
When you have an infestation of insects in the vegetative stage a good thing to use is a mix of water and insecticidal soap. It is widely available and will kill any insects on contact. Be sure when using it to spray the undersides of leaves. It is in these crevasses and small areas that insects lay eggs and thrive.
If your plants have entered the flowering stage it's important that you do not spray the developing bud with soap as it is not safe to be smoked. You can spray the first week of flowering but beyond that it's a hard no.
Another great step to take for all stages of growth is to use a product called “mosquito dunks” . This product introduces BTI into your soil. BTI is a type of bacteria that destroys insect larvae before they can fly or crawl out of the soil. Diatomaceous Earth can be dusted onto the soil surface to help kill crawling insects, it only works dry but can be used liberally and frequently.
If you have plants with insects crawling on them in the flowering stage you should dispose of any infested bud. Cannabis is so easy to grow and there are few ways to completely remove bugs from developing bud, so you will save yourself time and patience, simply destroying it all, sterilising to remove insects and starting over.
I know this may sound extreme but if you cannot successfully break the cycle of life on the insects you will never fully remove them. They will continue to spawn more and more until you are able to break the cycle.
Section 5: Starting your seeds.
Step 1. Soak
In order to germinate your seeds you should first soak them in room temp water for up to 24 hours, you will know the seeds are ready to go to the next step when they sink to the bottom. A shot glass is a great container to use for this step.
Step 2. Paper Towel
Moisten (Don’t soak) a paper towel and fold it in half, placing the seeds between the layers. Place the moistened paper towel in a plastic bag and put the bag somewhere warm and dark. After 12 hours check the seeds for 2mm taproots, they will be small and white. If there are no taproots at 12 hours, check every 6 hours until they emerge.
Step 3. Plant
Plant the seed (taproot facing down) 1 cm below the surface of moistened soil. Place a humidity dome over the seed, under a light. Wait until the plant emerges before watering or touching it again. You want to keep the humidity high for the first week of growth.
TipsThe best temperature to germinate Cannabis seeds is 25° C / 77°F
The best relative Humidity to germinate Cannabis seeds is 70 / 90%
Section 6: Caring for seedlings
How often should I water?
When your seedling is young be careful not to wash out its roots, pour very slowly and sparingly. If you started your plants in a solo cup , keep the whole cup saturated. If you started your plants in larger pots don’t saturate the whole soil right away. If you do so you will get algae growing on the soil as the water festers before the roots grow into it. Instead water slowly around the base, expanding in a ring into the full pot as the seedling grows into a young vegging plant.
In a general sense the most effective way of knowing when to water is by lifting the pot and feeling its weight. Over time as you learn to care for cannabis you will eventually instinctively know when to water and when not to, based solely on pot weight. When in doubt just wait a day and lift the pot again to check.
Humidity
When you are talking about seedlings you need to remember that fragility is a real concern. Young seedlings should be kept in a humidity dome between 70-90% humidity. At this stage the plant is breathing and absorbing moisture from the air via its leaves. We keep the plant in high humidity to ensure that the plant continues to thrive while its root system develops.
Light and Warmth
Make sure if you are growing a photoperiod strain that you have your timers set correctly to 18/6. You can push autoflowering strains to flower on 24/7 but it's generally not a good idea. The reason for this is that your plant needs rest time during the night cycle to work on developing its root system.
In general you should avoid the use of heat mats beyond the initial sprouting stage. If you can comfortably sit in your grow space then your plants should do fine.
Age
You will often see numbers assigned to a cannabis plant like V30 or F24. What do these numbers mean? Well a plant is considered to be on its first day of veg(V1) when it shows true leaves, that is to say when it shows its first cannabis style leaves. The initial leaves that come out of the plant as the seed opens are called cotyledons and we don't consider them to be true leaves. The day you flip photoperiod plants to flowering is (F1) in this sense a F45 plant has been flowering for 45 days not growing for 45 days total. When working with autoflowers, Day 1 is when true leaves show and the final day will be harvest day.
Section 7: Caring for vegging plants
Topping
As your plant grows it will grow upwards primarily and start to grow “nodes” at these nodes side branching will grow. Once your plant has grown to about 3 or 4 nodes you should consider topping the plant. When we top the plant we pinch off the top 1 or 2 nodes of the plant. While this may seem counterintuitive to growing a large plant it actually helps.
The reason why we do this is simple. Topping forces the plant to grow two new tops instead of one. While the plant won't grow as tall vertically as it would have if it wasn’t topped it will grow significantly bushier with more colas and a more even canopy of cannabis flower. Most modern strains of cannabis will grow much taller than your grow space so plan to top if you are growing photoperiods.
Now you will notice I quantified that statement with, if you’re growing photoperiods. Since autoflowers will continue growing at the same rate regardless of conditions and on a set schedule you generally should avoid topping autoflowers. If you stunt them in anyway you will be losing out on grow time and thus less bud in the end.
LST and SCROG
While your plants are growing you should take time to do low stress training also called LST. LST works by bending down the branches of the plant to open up the lower branches to lights, thus creating a more even canopy and more bud in the end.
LST is best done with something like cooking twine or garden twists from the dollar store. Attaching one end to the rim of the pot and the other on the branch you can be very extreme with your bending. After a few hours the leaves will reorient to face upwards even if you leave it pointing sideways.
A more extreme version of lst is the SCROG method where netting is stretched over a plant that is a few weeks old, generally one that has been topped one or twice. As the branches grow up into the netting you bend the branches back down, once you have an even canopy you can flip to flower and watch your tent fill with dense colas. Some take it a step further with a second net to maximise size and yield. Personally I have found 1 net more than enough.
You can buy expensive products and reusable nets but when in doubt a simply nylon hockey net cut to size will work for sure.
Feeding your plants.
If you went with a basic soil/perlite mixture like pro mix high porosity you will find your plants yellowing and needing food within a week or two. You can obtain cannabis specific nutrients, often called nutes, on amazon or in the gardening section of canadian tire.
You should avoid vegetable nutrients as they will give you a PPM that’s way too strong for cannabis and you will get nute burn from overfeeding. When you start feeding, measure your ppm after adding nutrients and pH balancing the water. You should start feeding around 600ppm and slowly increase to 1200 by the end of the vegetative cycle.
Cannabis nutrients are usually 2 or 3 part solutions with different ratios used for different stages of the plant's growth. You can read the bottle of your cannabis nutes usually for a good idea of what ratio to use if you haven’t grabbed a tds aka ppm metre yet. Just be warned if you get a brand designed for hydroponic cannabis specifically you will need to cut the dose of the bottle by half or you will certainly overfeed the plants.
You don’t need to feed every watering and in fact you really shouldn’t. Never be afraid to just give ph'd water
Preparing for flowering
When your plant has reached roughly ⅓ to ½ of the size of your grow space you are ready to flip your light schedule to 12hrs on and 12 hours off. When you switch to flowering your plants will continue growing upwards and larger for 2-3 weeks,in fact it will grow perhaps even faster then in veg for those 3 weeks, this is often called “the stretch”.
Slowly ramp up your nutrients as your plants get larger and approach the 1200 ppm mark. If you start to see yellow tips on the ends of the leaves then you have nutrient burn. A small amount of nute burn is okay but it’s a good sign you need to lay off and feed only phed water.
Section 9: Caring for flowering plants
Setting your environment
When your plant has reached roughly ⅓ to ½ of the size of your grow space you are ready to flip your light schedule to 12hrs on and 12 hours off. In order to ensure we don’t develop a type of fungus called bud rot we need to flower the humidity and ensure the humidity stays under 50% during flowering. If the humidity is too high the bud will develop bud rot and rot on the stem. Bud rot can also be inside the buds so you will work to dry and cure and then crack a nug to find rot in all your buds. Never ever smoke mouldy bud, it is a dangerous fungus that will taste awful and make you sick.
Identifying sex
Once your plants have been in the 12/12 light cycle for 4-5 days at least you will start to see signs of sex in regular, non feminised plants. If you win the luck of the draw you will find thin white hairs called pistils shoot out of the nodes on the plants.
If you are unlucky you will see small pollen sacs starting to grow in the same place. If you spot pollen sacs, kill the plant immediately to avoid pollinating your other (female) plants in the same space.
If you are very unlucky your female plants will grow pollen sacs some weeks into the flowering cycle after showing female pistils. These hermaphroditic plants will self pollinate and fill your bud with seeds of poor quality.
If your bud is pollinated the plant will spend most of its energy on making seeds and not on making high potency, large buds.
Feeding during flowering
Adjust your nutrients ratio and feed heavy during this phase. Don’t be afraid to push your plants hard and get a little bit of nutrient burn. You can always flush out the soil if you overfeed. You can flush by running phed water through the soil at about 2 or 3 times the volume of the pot, this removes all nutrient salt buildup.
Section 10: Harvesting your plants
When to harvest
There are many ways to know when a plant is done but only 1 way to be certain. You will notice after 60 ish days of flowering the pistils on the bud will start to turn orange and the amount of frost will increase.
However this isn’t the real indicator. In fact the only true tell of whether your plant is ready to harvest is by examining the trichomes with a jeweler's loupe. These cheap magnifiers can be purchased on amazon. You should always examine the trichomes on the bud, not the sugar leaves. The sugar leaves have trichomes that mature faster than on the bud.
You will know a trichome has matured by checking which stage the head of the trichome is. Immature trichomes are clear, trichomes that are milky will produce a high that's heady and sativa like, while fully mature amber colored trichome heads will produce heavier, more sedating effects.
While it is a matter of personal preference I am of the opinion that you should prepare to harvest when you have approximately 20% amber trichomes on the bud trichomes.
Preparing to harvest
If you are growing using synthetic nutrients you should consider flushing out your soil in the week prior to harvesting. About 6-7 days out of harvest pluck all the large fan leaves off and flush the soil with phed water. 2-3 days later, flush the soil again and once the soil has dried out a few days later your plants will be ready to harvest.
Do I need a blackout period?
A lot of growers will tell you that you need to keep the plants in the dark for days before harvest. However in years of growing and researching cannabis I have never seen any conclusive evidence that a blackout period of more than 12 hours is needed.
It is true the plant will pull some nutrients up from the roots in the first few hours of the morning but beyond this you aren’t really making a difference. Even if you don’t give it any darkness you won’t notice a real difference.
How to harvest
When you have followed the above recommendation to check your trichomes,remove large fan leaves and you have let your soil dry out for a few days then you are ready to harvest. Go into your space in the morning and grip your plant at its base,cutting below your hand with hedge clippers to remove the plant’s connection to the root system. What you do next varies depending on personal technique and preference, we will be covering 2 methods in this guide, dry trimming and wet trimming.
Section 11: Caring for your harvest
Use latex gloves or you will regret it! Trichomes on fresh buds are very sticky.
Option 1: Wet Trimming
Clip all the buds from the branches. You can choose to either clip all the small sugar leaves off from one bud at a time or you can collect all the buds in a garbage bag or rubbermaid tote until you are done. Then you can process the buds in a group either by hand or by using a bowl trimmer.
If you have arthritis like me, are bad at trimming, or just don’t want to take the hours to hand trim you can use a bowl trimmer. A bowl trimmer rolls the bud against a grate with a sharp blade. The blade removes the sugar leaves but also mangles the bud a bit compared to hand trimming. It won’t look as pretty but should smoke the same.
Drying wet trimmed bud
If you have wet trimmed your bud you should now have tons of loose, sticky and very wet bud. You want to put bud evenly spaced out on a drying rack for at least 4-7 days in an environment that is below 50% humidity. You don’t want to overdry your bud but make sure the small stems snap when bent. Break up huge nugs too or they can develop mould inside the larger nugs/colas. You can buy specific drying racks from grow stores and online but there is nothing special about them compared to a rack sold for other purposes like laundry or shoes. What you want is a rack with lots of air flow space to store the bud spread out for that crucial drying period.
Option 2: Dry trimming
If you are choosing to dry trim then you should harvest the plant the same way except you should keep the bud on the larger branch to dry. This of course excludes any huge colas/nugs that may mould in a few days drying.
With the bud attached to the branch still, hang the branch to dry for the next 4-7 days, paying close attention to be sure your humidity stays below 50% with lots of air movement in between the branches.
After your stem’s snap, instead of bending you can cut the bud from the branches and trim the sugar leaves from the buds. If you dry like this you can also use a silicone pastry brush to remove the dried leaves.
Don’t toss your sugar leaves aka trim. We will talk using it at the end of this guide.
Section 12: Curing your cannabis
Alright so you have completely trimmed and dried your bud. It’s time to smoke that shit! Wrong, you must cure your cannabis first. Now this isn’t technically true you can smoke dried cannabis just fine and get high sure.
However, and this is a big however you will not enjoy it very much. Freshly dried cannabis has a strong odour and flavour of hay or cut grass. In order to break down the chlorophyll that causes this we must cure the cannabis for at least 2-6 weeks. This will break down much of the awful grassy taste. To cure simply store your bud in glass mason jars for a few months opening them once a day
Once you reach 6 weeks you can smoke your cannabis or let it cure for longer for a second stage of curing. Second stage curing takes between 2-6 months and will fully unlock the flavour potential of your flower. There is no benefit to curing beyond 6 months so just store it at that point.
During the curing process you want to open your mason jars you have your bud stored in and move around the bud to remove humidity from the jar. The outside of cannabis buds should never feel wet; if they feel wet then leave the lid off the jar for an hour or two until they feel dry again, and go back to curing.
Conclusion
Well that's it folks! If you have read through this entire guide then you now know how to grow cannabis! Be proud of yourself as you have learned a new skill. What should you do now? Well get growing!
Make a list of items you think you will need and double check it when planning your grow, don’t forget to buy zipties and join some growing communities online to make friends and meet mentors.
If you want to join such a community you can join the Gautama’s Garden Discord server at this browser link (discord.gg/HMbuj7wd4u)
Wait! What do I do with my trim?
A lot of new cannabis users will try to make edibles by tossing flower and butter in a crock pot and, while I admire the ambition, these edibles always end up very weak, if they work at all. But why?
Cannabis flower needs to be decarboxylated or “decarbed” as most people call it before you cook it with your butter.
What is Decarboxylation?
Let's get our science hats on for a second folks. Cannabis flower contains THCa and CBDa. Many wrongly assume if they just eat flower in some way then they will get high.Well these components are both not psychoactive and not easily absorbed into the body. In order to convert these into the psychoactive variant, THC, and to make it more easily absorbed into the body we need to decarb it.
Simply put, decarbing is a chemical process where a cannabinoid is heated to the point of removing a carboxyl group.
How do you decarb flower?
Step 1: Grind your flower and spread it evenly onto a metal pan or tray.
Step 2: Preheat the oven to 240 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for around 35 minutes.
Step 3: Remove from the oven and it should be a nice toasty brown.
It’s literally that easy. Now when you use it to make edibles the THC is activated and ready to bind to the lipids(fat) in the butter which allows it to be easily absorbed by the digestive system.
Remember THC cannot bind to sugars or water, it must be a fat like oil/butter for this method to work.
Decarbing is the first but most crucial step in the process of making edibles so NEVER skip it, you’re wasting cannabis if you do.