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A few months ago, one of the trees came down along the southern hill line above our property, creating a window for the sun to shine through the canopy. At this point in the grow, a full blast of sun when it’s not expected, is very much appreciated.

This coming Friday will be 50 days since plants began flowering, and the window to harvest officially opens. As I’ve previously written, once the trichomes on my plants fill, the best time to harvest is a subjective matter of opinion. I prefer waiting to cut down a plant until as close as possible to the projected harvest date, but all my test results have proven that once the trichomes are full, the medicine is valid and available. Harvesting early is definitely not a bad thing. For some, it is preferable, and I may be one of those people. Of the two, I prefer plants harvested early over plants harvested late.

I am routinely pulling organic plant material, like shown above, from flowers. This is the sort of debris blown in by wind that can cause mold if it’s not removed after getting wet.

We actually removed six tiny pieces of mold yesterday. Five of the six were what we call Stargus mold. It’s mold that can be mostly if not entirely removed by tweezers. Another was deeper inside the flower, probably caused by worm scat, and the top had to be removed. I hate removing tops, but I’ll do it to rid us of mold, and to save the rest of the flower.

By the way, this is what systemic rot looks like inside a stem. If you see this, you’ll need to toss the plant immediately.

It is hand to hand combat time out there right now. Flowering plants are targets for white moths laying their eggs. Sometimes, I get lucky, and spot a folded together leaf, with worms inside, but moths are determined, and at this point in the fall, they become desperate to procreate. They tend to land low on the plant, into some of the deeper places inside, hoping their babies will go undetected. Yesterday, we found many eggs, all of them below and hidden from a simple walk by inspection. We had to bend over to find these. Thankfully, we recognize what we’re looking for, and once you know, they are relatively easy to see with the naked eye.

Those circles show the eggs. They are sticking to the leaves, due to trichome expansion. We photographed about six different examples of eggs, deep into flowers, not yet open. But if they were allowed to live, these would be next to trichomes and the damage would have been significant. Worse, they would have left their scat, and if it was not detected early, that scat would turn to mold. This is how you lose entire tops.

Cultivars like all the Kush plants I’m growing are more susceptible to egg laying moths late in the season, because their leaves are still wide enough to support the activity. The ACDC plants are not as likely to be targets, because their leaves become more narrow through the flowering process and are difficult landing spots for moths. Though it’s getting so sticky, all the moths need to do is just let an egg land on a sugar leaf, and it’s stuck.

Yesterday, I broke out the BT. It’s a risky week, because we only get a couple of days with variable humidity, and then it goes back to high humidity. We are removing a few leaves with powdery mildew. Nothing major, but it’s there and lurking. So I get to do the BT/Regalia dance this week. The next few days, we’re on BT. By next weekend, I’ll need to use Regalia. But with all those visible eggs, we know from experience there are dozens more that we don’t see. This was cautionary, and I sprayed immediately. In a couple of days, I’ll do an insecticide spray, but not so much for insect protection. It will mostly be for washing eggs off the plants via the pressure provided by the foliar sprayer.

My preference is to eliminate (or significantly reduce) the foliar sprays I use as we get closer to harvest. But the beauty of the organic sprays is that any of them can be done as late as harvest day, with no detriment to the plant. How much or how little I do at this point has varied significantly from year to year. As an outdoor grower, it is pointless and counterproductive to make assumptions about what’s going to happen during the last few weeks before harvest. It is helpful to be adaptable during this final period of weeks. I have never had a harvest go exactly as planned. I can count on one hand the number of plants that made it to their scheduled harvest date. The reason for so many early harvested plants are the rampant pathogens at this time of year. But as I have written in previous blogs, early harvesting is not a detriment. In fact, early harvesting might be the best strategy for most harvests outdoors. We have had plants taken down early, and we’ve had plants that we battled until as close as possible to harvest day. With each passing year, we discover that our preference is harvesting early, and fighting less.

Soon, it will be trimming time. Btw, if you see a bud with tape still on it, or one with a clothes pin, that’s probably a bud that had some mold on it. Though completely washed, we still identify flowers that had any mold for extra inspection.

At this point in the grow, for just a moment, I would like to acknowledge one of our most helpful guests, the crab spider:

We love when a crab spider takes up residency in one of our plants. These arachnids will protect your plant from all sorts of insects. In fact, we have intentionally moved crab spiders from one plant to another, should we find that one plant to be more vulnerable. This forced moving is rare, however, as the spiders seem to know where they are needed most. In our opinion, of course, they are needed on every plant. They eat well the entire grow.

Fall is arriving. Temperatures are dropping in the early mornings, and my plants are starting to show the changes. With approximately two weeks remaining before harvest, Rainbow Kush is beginning to reveal herself:  

Of course, California cannot compete with the Eastern US, or huge parts of Canada, when it comes to fall colors. I will never, ever forget driving the Trans Canadian Highway through the entire province of Ontario early October of 1981. I have never seen such color.

But in California, we have our subtle treasures. If you spend a lot of time outside like I do, you will see color, and you will see and feel the sights and sounds of fall. 

Right now, nut hatches are taking seeds from wherever they can and hiding them in both our buckeye tree and within the giant redwoods. The brains of squirrels expand during autumn, in order for them to remember where they’ve buried all their nuts for winter.

The entire Corvid family of birds have had their births and have fledged. Certain locals born here will stop by over winter, but many will remain away until March, when they begin building nests and they come home to our place. Due to the extensive canopy over our property, they feel more safe. 

One of the truest sounds of autumn is the mating call of the Golden Crowned sparrow, looking for their true love to cuddle, just before winter.

Our 400 plus years old buckeye.

The Japanese Maple and the Buckeye, combined.

Czech Stupice tomatoes.

As you can see, we are having a nice harvest.

Our first ever eggplants. 

The cucumbers really took to the flowering formula. We are currently enjoying sandwiches stuffed with our tomatoes and Bee’s homemade pickles. I will also make my first attempt at the classic Thai cucumber salad.

Fall is definitely arriving and harvest is on the horizon. 

Next week, harvest will either have begun, or be about to begin. We’ll do a deep dive into why we wash our plants.

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