Poor Man's Harvest Instructions needed

[Prodaytrader]

So I think I'm about done on these suckers. Since it's my first harvest I'm not exactly sure what I need to do. I have a aeroponics setup in a single tub. They have been in flower for about 9+ weeks and for the last 3 days I have had nothing but water in the res. I will probably harvest this weekend. How should I do it? They are easily 5+ feet tall. I ended up with a hermie in there so I will have a lot of growth that is worthless. I saw a drying tent in my local hydro shop but it doesn't look like it does anything that I cant do elsewhere. Ideas?

[redtails]

You can use a closet or wardrobe with a circulation fan...I really just pull fan leaves, cut, trim, hang until just crispy, then into jars for curing.

[martyrprojekt]

whoaaaa there...Hermie that flowered fully? You have pollen in your flowers and that makes seeds...that sucks for your smokes quality. On the bright side though...YOU GOT SEEDS!

My advice is to use any seeds you got...they will be feminized!!! Congrats! :thumbsup: I would give them another week and then harvest!

I actually did a thread on harvesting/dry and cure in one of my grows...go there for info!

Any others questions...hit me up...time to rip the bong again!:jointsmile:

[oldhaole]

Depending on what your middle and bottoms look like. If there are lots of small light starved flowers in the middle you may consider stage harvesting the big tops and lowering your lights for two or three weeks. Once the main top is taken the this enables the small nuggets get big quickly.

If there is little or no growth on the bottoms, or you want to turn the room around fast, Just take them all.

If by this time the hermie has not knocked up and caused seeds anywhere it is probably sterile. If it has caused a seed outbreak I would take them all. When you take the hermie just moving it will cause a pollen storm. Many of your unfertilized flowers will get hit. So take them all at one time if your hermie is fertile.

[redtails]

On the bright side though...YOU GOT SEEDS!

My advice is to use any seeds you got...they will be feminized!!! Congrats!

Completely depends on whether or not the hermie was caused by stress or genetics...

[LOC NAR on probation]

On the Hermie thing ?

Do they have balls hanging that you can see ?

Or are they little banana's in the buds ?

The dif is fem seed or regular seed.

Either way I would keep them, they are long term storage of the strain.

[redtails]

I like your avatar btw! I saw two 100+lb torts doin it a few years ago and it's so damn funny how the males grunt like cavemen!

[Prodaytrader]

I'm really bummed about my first harvest. I am seriously debating on throwing everything thing out. Tonight I got to looking at them and started to cut it all down. It's just too damn over whelming too see all that growth and none of it looks like anything I would want to smoke.

I had three plants that grew respectfully well but all the stress I caused them, learning how to control my environment, caused the middle plant to hermie on me. One day I started too see powder on the leaves and it took me too long to figure out it was coming from tiny little flowers that were different then anything else that was growing. I had killed many a male because none of them had the pistols and each had little balls on them, so I thought I knew what I was looking for. These three had lots of pistols and no balls, anywhere. Except one day the middle plant started to flower these banana clusters and powder would pour out everywhere. Little did I know that was pollen. So obviously it didn't take long for the other two plants to get their rocks off on that and pretty soon balls started to show up everywhere. By this time the plants had become too big for their environment I think. The light was getting blocked by too much vegetation which I should have pruned back. I was talked into keeping the vegetation but all that freaking growth prevented the light from getting to the growth that I did want to keep. I'm serious, I don't know what I was thinking, I knew my light was being crowded out by all that damn growth. Additionally, the plant spent soo much energy in my opinion growing new vegetation that I did not get the clustering for flowering that I had expected. I got no major kola which was probably because they were pollinated I guess.

Whatever, SO I chopped everything down thinking I would sort through all the vegetation and cherry pick. The problem is that none of it looks all that good. There is no real stickyness although I can definitely tell one of them is a lemon something or another. My hands are definitely sticky having cut it all down, but again I say it doesn't look like its worth smoking. There appear to be no intensive sections of thc if you know what I mean. Am I just retarded in that I don't realize that the thc is on the inside or something? lol It's not like I really want a ton of vegetation here, right? I dont really know what to do with this stuff. I don't really have the space to hang it and I seriously doubt that it's going to turn into something special overnight.

Maybe I should just chalk this one up to learning and start again. I know a lot more now then I did when I started. I have ideas and tricks that I can try next time around. I just think that even if this stuff is smokable, it's only going to piss me off in how much I have to smoke to even realizing I'm smoking it. I seriously cant stand standing around smoking pot all day long, not usually anyway. I only smoke the stuff that I can pass out on the first hit. Catch my drift?

What should I do with what I have? Should I boil it up in a crock pot with a couple cups of vegetable oil? Or figure out a way to hang it all up? Chunk it? Flush it?

[redtails]

You can make some oil, butter, or even try to make some hash if you want...might as well at least try to save it.

[LOC NAR on probation]

It's all good for edibles.

Not many of us have beginners luck. It got better each time I learned something.

Next time they should go into flower about 12 to 16 inches tall. Doesn't seem like much but you know what they look like in the end now.

Much more than 2 feet of canopy and the lights we use don't penetrate.

Remeber this is not a loss be any means. Seeds and edibles. And the chance to do it again better.

[Prodaytrader]

ok to make things perfectly clear, you guys are on board with my assessment that the harvest is likely unusable for anything other then edibles right? I mean, it doesn't take a genius to realize it's not worth smoking, huh?

As for the other comments, all very true. My biggest hurdle was with cold this time around but that was fixed just prior to these guys going into flowering. Unfortunately it was too cold for them not to get stressed. There were other gaffs too on my part.

Next time I will definitely start flowering these suckers at around 12 to 18" tall. I knew they were too big even when I started flowering this time around.

Hopefully I can get this mess cleaned up soon enough and get started on round 2. I am a bit concerned about all the damn pollen in my garage now. I suppose it's too much to ask that pollen dies after a week or two, isn't it? A majority of my grow space can be vacuumed and wiped clean but what can I do about any remaining floating pollen specks? I'm afraid that since I did this in my garage, I am never going to be able to get rid of 100% of the pollen. I suppose I could blow out a good portion of it with an air compressor or something, but how could I possible wipe down all my tools, cars, and what all that normally occupies ones garage? Any chance Lysol works?

[Prodaytrader]

LOC NAR -

On that canopy comment, can you expand? I was thinking, that next time I would indeed start flowering at 18" but I was also thinking that once I started flowering, I would also prune back any new growth at that point as well. In fact, I might even prune back all vegetation other then perhaps fan leaves that don't look like they will produce bud. I was talked into not pruning anything back but obviously I let them get too big. Would I have been better off clipping the tops and lower vegetation to ensure the plants don't outgrow their space? I believe my grow space is slightly smaller then most at 2x3x7. Obviously that space only allows plants of so big a height so next time I should aggressively prune to make sure the plant doesn't waste energy or block the light.

My wife thinks I should take a pair of scissors and clip everything into a giant crock pot with 2 cups veg oil. I tried this once before with 4 sticks of butter and a 1/2 an Oz, that really turned out bad. The green and seriously nasty butter made me gag so hopefully using veg oil will come out better. Any other thoughts on how I should covert this?

[warlord98]

I just went through the same thing from bag seed and lack of knowledge.Always look ahead and remember all the little mistakes. I chopped everything and made cannabutter. It wasn't bad at all. Rice krispy treats!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Prodaytrader]

I'm off to the races with Doc Grannies method of olive oil and a pressure cooker. There is a ton of thc on there, it's just spread across a bunch of seed and stem. I'm pretty much just cooking the hell out of everything and will then freeze off the olive oil. I suspect it will be plenty potent.

[LOC NAR on probation]

In good spacing of the plants the canopy at about 2 feet blocks all light from the floor. Any more than that is wasted.

Now side lighting and mylar can help with this problem but only so much can be done.

The biggest thing is to know your strain. Know how much the stretch will be so you know when to put them in.

As far as trimming. Trim away in veg but stop about a week before flower. With enough time I have seen one plant in veg 3 months and no more than 36 inches tall container and all produce 5 pounds of bud.

Look into the trimming method of the Phototrons. Not that you can get that from a tron. Just the method is sound.