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I know that some of you are looking at the above flower, and you’re thinking there is no way you would dunk that beautiful flower into water, or hydrogen peroxide or lemon juice, or anything, other than your bong.

The weather gods are giving us a tremendous break this week, with hot days and chilly nights. There will be a 40-50 degree spread between dawn and the hottest part of the day. This solves the foliar spray dilemma of BT or Regalia. No need for Regalia with humidity dropping well below 50%. And honestly, the crop was being swarmed by white moths yesterday. BT will get the entire week to work.

Harvest is knocking on the door. Royal Kush in bed 18 will come down Thursday. Purple Hindu Kush comes down Friday. Both plants will be cut down, get a fan leaf trim, be completely washed, and then go into the drying cottage for at least ten days. We’ve only had two plants that stayed in the cottage longer than ten days. Other cultivars will follow shortly, but only those two have full trichomes as of right now. 

THC plants will get at least one half gallon jar, and probably two, of “A” trim for those who still smoke. We’ve had plants where there were 6-8 half gallon jars filled with “A” trim. We’ve also had cultivars with no “A” trim, where we turn everything into popcorn and as long as it has medicine (trichomes) on it, we keep it. The plants we do that to are CBD or CBG plants, not THC plants.

Though, we do keep a lot of popcorn from THC plants, too. That’s what we use for our pills. 

But before the trimming and drying, there is the washing of each and every flower harvested.

First, before we get into the recipe and methodology for washing, allow me to answer some of the obvious questions on many of your minds…

 Does washing harm or remove trichomes? 

The answer is YES, you will lose some (weak) trichomes in the wash. You will not lose many, but you will lose a few. I used to say that you don’t lose any, but I have seen that isn’t true.

Will this impact the potency of the plant?

No, it won’t. I’ve been washing my plants since 2018, and my test results have not been impacted by trichome loss. If it did, it would show in those tests. But my test results have been routinely excellent. In fact, the scores have been improving. When you grow outdoors and you can consistently get somewhere between 20% and 30% THC, you’re not losing many trichomes. 

What is the purpose for washing?

My wife has two forms of autoimmune arthritis. It is absolutely imperative that we are not putting anything harmful into her body. The most harmful thing that could be on cannabis is mold. We will not allow mold. 

In addition to spraying Stargus to prevent mold, we wash every flower we harvest. After an entire summer of foliar sprays, sometimes five days out of seven, it is amazing what plants look like after they are washed. All the foliar sprays; especially the darker Regalia, are removed. The washed plant is the brightest green you’ve seen since spring.

Bright green again.

Something else to come off in the wash are all the insects that are starting to stick to my leaves and die.

If you are growing for someone sick, like I have, you must wash your plants. It’s the only way you can be  certain that you got everything bad removed from the plant. It washes away mold, as well as other pathogens, returning each stalk to an almost vegetative state of green.

How much we believe in the washing process is best summed up this way: When I get my plants tested, I don’t test for mold. That’s a significant savings when it comes to testing. 

The very first year that we washed, we had the plants tested for mold, just to be certain. There was no mold. As mold tests are pretty expensive, this has been a nice subsequent savings. But beyond that, we knew that by washing, we could be certain that we had no mold on any flower.

In the previous blog, I indicated that despite washing, we still flag buds that had mold on them. We either attach a clothespin to the bud, or some plant tape, so that when we’re either trimming the flower or stripping her from the stalk for popcorn, we pay special attention and make certain that we washed off all the mold.

Ok, here’s the recipe. I’m going to give two different sets of figures on the recipe. One is for washing in five gallon buckets (for smaller flowers), and the other is for the larger, 20 gallon buckets.

Trust me, if you grow outdoors, there’s a good chance you’ll need the bigger buckets.

Here is the recipe:

5 gallon bucket bud washing recipe

(Be careful not to touch the corrosive 34% peroxide when measuring and pouring. Wear gloves)

1. Bucket 1 – 2 cups 34% hydrogen peroxide in luke water.
2. Bucket 2 – 1/4c lemon juice + 1/4c baking soda in luke water.
3. Bucket 3 – Warm water rinse. If it feels too hot from the tub, you can add cold water. But make it very warm.
4. Bucket 4 – Cold water rinse.

20 gallon trash can bud washing recipe

1. Bucket 1 – 6 cups 34% hydrogen peroxide in luke water.
2. Bucket 2 – 1 cup lemon juice + 1 cup baking soda in luke water.
3. Bucket 3 – Warm water rinse.
4. Bucket 4 – Cold water rinse.

Submerge stems for 60 seconds in each bucket. Swirl and agitate gently. Allow to dry in the sun before taking to the drying shed.

Full disclosure here:  This recipe was lifted directly from Doc Bud, and the good Doctor has it exactly right. Tip of the hat, Doc.

Take your time. A minute in each bucket is not absolute. It can linger longer, it won’t impact the drying time whether they’ve been in a minute or only a few seconds. The order is important. Go from 1 to 4. 

The peroxide, lemon juice and baking soda all help remove stuck on bugs and particulate matter. I am personally thankful that none of that debris goes into our tinctures and pills, or is otherwise attached to buds in our A trim jars. I like clean medicine.

Note the versatile little red tomato cages. Worthless for tomatoes, but perfect for transporting cannabis from point A to point B to point C, etc.

After the entire process, we leave the flowers hanging from the cages on the deck and in the sun all day. They will continue to photosynthesize, before I take them for ten days of mostly darkness in the cottage.

As you can see, you can have flowers in all the buckets at the same time. You can do the assembly line in any time frame that you’re comfortable with. Having them in all the buckets probably means they’re spending more than a minute in each wash and that’s ok. Make certain that you stir the plants in every bucket. The more agitation in the water, the better chance for debris to loosen and leave the sticky flowers. We try to harvest early in the morning, and get the washing done as soon as possible, for the plants to spend the day in the sun.

Don’t be shocked by what you see in the water after washing. Insect remains, plant debris, five months of foliar sprays, it can get pretty dirty. Btw, the brown color primarily comes from Regalia. Also, if you notice an oily looking substance floating on top of the hydrogen peroxide wash, that is what remains of the powdery mildew the peroxide just washed off that plant. The film on top is visual evidence that it’s been removed.

The filmy stuff in the top bucket is the powdery mildew that had been on the plant.

When my wife became ill, it was my mission to try and help her. As I discovered very quickly, one of the best ways I could help her was to not make anything worse.

Stress is the constant enemy of autoimmune illnesses. Anything that stresses the afflicted makes the pain worse. I’ve seen this. It’s one of the reasons we limit the amount of news we watch. This Presidential race is brutal on everyone, but especially for the autoimmune afflicted.

By washing our plants, we have no stress about the medicine we use for ourselves, or that which we give others whom we care for. My wife does not use as much cannabis as I thought she would. The biologics she is prescribed from Stanford are far more effective against her two illnesses. What I grow can help, but for her illnesses, cannabis does not have to do the heavy lifting. Ever since the biologics were found, cannabis has more of a path. When Karen was first ill, the best cannabis could do was stop her spasms, which it did, and possibly make her stoned enough to simply not care about her pains for a few hours. 

That was not a sustainable strategy. She doesn’t enjoy THC, so she mostly takes CBD and CBG, in order to better enable herself to play penny whistle for traditional Irish music. 

I cannot adequately express my gratitude for this wash. This has taken the fear out of my grows. I have a method of ensuring that what I grow is safe for consumption by a sick person. And my wife is not the only sick person that I grow for.

I wrote it before and I will write it again: You have to be certain if you are growing for someone sick. 

I want my family and friends safe. And for all the sick friends for whom I supply cannabis, I must be positive that what I’m giving them is safe for them. This is not a casual thing. Personally, I think everyone should wash their plants, but especially if you’re growing for anyone who is sick. 

One last note–I was correct when I predicted that our CBG yield this year would be larger than last year, even though this year’s plants flowered early and last year’s plants grew the entire season. Last year, we got .84 of a pound. This year, we got 1.42 pounds, over half a pound more. These are not huge totals, but will comfortably keep us in CBG for years.

A smiley face flower–Plants start coming down this week, and away we go.

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