Our state recently legalized growing small amounts of weed for personal use. So we got some seeds and stuck ‘em in the ground to see what would happen. We figured if we were lucky we might get a bit of pot to smoke or make cookies with. Plus, if we grew it, we’d know what was in it. This adventure turned out to be an eye-opening introduction to modern marijuana growing.
Waaay back when I was in school, if you wanted pot seeds your only option was to sift them out of a $35 bag of weed you could buy from a dealer. Today, most weed comes with no seeds, but of course you can buy them, choosing from a large selection of varieties, strains, gender, flowering type, strength, terpenes, up or down feels, head or body high, and the list goes on. Boggling. Anyhow, without being quite sure what to look for, we jumped in. Seeds ordered, arrived, planted, and we were growing. And these plants grew quickly, which makes sense, since it’s weeds!
The plants are quite pretty, with their distinctive frond-like leaves and deep green color. And these plants seemed quite happy, and grew, and grew, all through the Summer. By the end of August the tallest plant was about 11 feet tall! These are massive plants. We were starting to wonder what we were getting into, and if our plants would ever bloom. This is when we learned the difference between “photoperiod” and “auto-flower” plants. Auto-flower plants reliably set buds in about two months. But we had photoperiod plants, which keep growing until they notice the days getting shorter. So our plants were rather large before they decided to flower. We also learned, later, that pot plants can be pruned which can help control their wilder tendencies, and also reduce wind damage and increase yield.
The towering height was only our first clue that growing weed discreetly is not easy. The flowers are nondescript, green fuzzy things, but their odor is distinctive and powerful. We planted in the back yard, but if the wind was right, you could definitely smell them from the street. This might have been more of an issue, but fortunately in our community we have found only acceptance and encouragement.
We don’t drink alcohol; we haven’t for many years. When offered a drink at a party, we might say that we don’t drink alcohol, but enjoy our “gummies.” What we’ve learned is that marijuana is actually quite popular, including with many people you might not have guessed were fans.
Summer burned on toward its end, the buds fattened, and we received a lot of genuinely helpful advice about when and how to harvest. Quite a few growers around, it seems. But growing the plant is actually the easy part. To harvest well, you have to carefully scrutinize the flowers with a powerful loupe, to see if the plant’s trichomes – tiny liquid filled structures – are clear, milky, or amber, and if amber, then in what proportion. Since we want a more “up” buzz, we harvested when the trichomes were just about all milky, with little to no amber.
Let me tell you: harvesting flower is spectacularly messy. The flower is extremely resinous and sticky, thanks to all those potent trichomes. Wearing gloves, we trimmed the buds from the twigs with small pointed scissor-like shears, then trimmed off the, well, “trim” – the small “sugar leaves” that stick out of the buds.
And evicted the occasional worm.
Before long, all your fingers are sticking together and your shears are decidedly gummy. Some of that trim, along with all the twigs and large leaves lands on the floor, of course. And that mess then sticks to your feet, and soon you are walking around with rafts of flattened leaves and stems stuck to your shoes like marijuana snowshoes. Tracking it everywhere you go. Of course your front is covered in it. A laundry disaster? We’ll find out! And I know that porch will never be the same.
Now, there are many strategies for making the weed ready to consume, as you might expect for something people have been consuming for millennia. Generally, you dry the flower, then cure it over time to lose the grassy chlorophyll and bring out the terpenes that give flavor and enhance the result. Processing also depends on how you plan to use it, whether smoking, as a lotion, eating it, or whatever else.
But first, you have to dry it. Fortunately, during these adventures we got to befriend an avid hobbiest grower, who lent us a drying cage. This big cylindrical contraption is made of knit screen on a frame with several levels, like a layer cake made of air with screen icing. We spread buds out in airy layers, and set up a fan to blow gently. We also spread the trim we’d saved from the buds on some paper, so it could dry. Now the entire INSIDE of our house has taken on a peculiar green “weedy” aroma. So discreet! And this goes on for at least a week.
But remember, those plants were on the large size, with a great deal of flower. Much more than the drying cage could handle. We needed to up our game. Fortunately again, our avid grower friend also had available a machine, that looks like a small refrigerator with many shelves, which automatically handles the dry and initial cure. That saved us from hanging branches of drying weed in every room of the house, for which we are grateful.
Funny thing is, we’re not actually much into smoking weed. An occasional puff from a joint is OK, and useful for gauging the weed’s strength, but anything more just hurts, which it should, since smoke is full of nasty gunk made from fire-destroyed hydrocarbons. We do enjoy our edibles though, so we’re learning how to make various kinds of weed candy, cookies and so on. That, it turns out, is a whole other world.
Growing weed has been an interesting experience. The process itself is full of details that are helpful to know — more so if not in hindsight — and there are many ways to do it. Fun. I think we got lucky. We would have been happy with a few modest buds on a small plant, and instead we got a bumper crop, learned a lot, met some very cool and interesting people, and saw many of our old friends in a new light. All good!
So now I’m working on an egg-free peanut butter canna cookie recipe which I’ll share when I’ve got it dialed in.