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Over the last nine years, I’ve spent a solid portion of each October in my favorite chair, trimming cannabis. Just like many of you who also grow at home.

Trimming is the finale to every grow. For outdoor growers, it is the coda to six months of work. The process is a real time evaluation, examination, and celebration. Indoor growers go through this far more often than I, and I envy them. Because it’s only an annual thing for me, there is much more bitter and sweet at the end of the season. I also tend to grow larger than indoor growers, so while it’s only one season out of the year, it’s labor intensive. One October, I trimmed 17 pounds.

I am a dry trimmer, not a wet trimmer. It’s a personal preference and not a judgment. I’ve watched wet trimmers work and respect them. They are mind blowing. But I prefer dry. I also enjoy capturing the kief through the screen at the bottom of the TrimBin. If I have dried the plant properly, trimming is relatively easy. The kief makes for interesting additions to bong rips the year around. It’s fun to mix and match different cultivars with different kief.

Trimming is tedious, yet should not be hurried. I have had plants where trimming lasted a couple of days. To be inundated with the odors of bruised cannabis is to savor each and every breath in proximity. Some folks don’t enjoy the smell of cannabis, but I embrace walking into a room of freshly cut flowers. There are few things that smell better to me. I’ve only discovered this since becoming a grower nine years ago. So the satisfaction of harvest is still relatively new to me.

Trimming is where we can finally weigh our harvest totals. Did you know that every mason jar has a different weight? The first couple of years we grew, we assumed all half-gallon jars weighed the same and we were dramatically wrong. We started weighing each of the empty mason jars and discovered that they can vary in weight by more than 100 grams. We have a sticker on each mason jar with its weight written on it, so we’ll know exactly how much of each plant is in each jar. Another tip–you have to weigh the jars every year. Some jars will be a gram or two different from one year to the next. Can’t explain this, just notice every year that it’s true. Not all the jars will be different, just a few. So, we weigh the jars every year before stuffing them with flowers and popcorn.

I keep a small jar filled with rubbing alcohol next to me while I trim. That’s where I store the scissors that I’m using. When blades get sticky, I drop them in the alcohol, remove another, wipe the alcohol from the blades, and resume trimming. Make sure to wipe the alcohol off completely or trichomes will be damaged. We use the same alcohol to clean the scissors at the end of harvest.

Some folks like to trim one stem at a time. They will trim every flower from that stem until they are finished and then they discard the stem into a container that will eventually be dumped into a compost bin, along with all discarded leaves.

From watching one of my children, I adopted the approach to strip every flower from every stem in my tray, getting all the potential flowers in the tray at the same time, and then methodically picking out the ones I want to trim. Moving all these flowers around the tray encourages loose or weak trichomes to fall, which I then capture in the Trim Bin. It also allows for a clear visual delineation of “A” trim versus popcorn. My general rule for selecting buds is to trim the ones that are hard to the touch, with a hard core. If the flower is soft, it goes straight to popcorn. 

Even after all the inspections, thorough washing, and drying in a temperature and humidity controlled room, trimming is my final opportunity to make certain there is no mold, so I  always have a  magnifying lens with a built-in light handy for close ups.

Trimming is a time for reflection and planning. You have hours ahead of snipping and cutting. The evidence of your work lies naked in front of you. If there are points of praise, you can fill yourself with satisfaction. If there is work to criticize, there is the opportunity to recognize the problem and consider how to do better. Trimming is an ongoing examination, linked from year to year and grow to grow.

Trimming with a community of growers is an excellent time to brainstorm common problems while you work. I have worked in a room of trimmers, each of us honing our skills while filling mason jars. This experience runs the gamut–from the recently imbibed, who are both chatty and giggly, sometimes bordering on too loud, to the almost singularly focused and determined, quietly trimming each bud to its most tempting. It’s a family activity and it’s a true friend activity. I emphasize true friends, because in my experience, only true friends actually follow through on trimming. Getting people to trim reminds me of the children’s story, The Little Red Hen. Everyone told the hen that they wanted to help bake a loaf of bread, but what they really meant was they wanted to eat a fresh loaf of bread, once it was ready. It is strikingly similar to cannabis. 

“Oh yeah, I’d love to help, let me know when it’s ready (to smoke).”

There is a strong sense of community when multiple people are trimming together. If someone passes around the bong, or a well rolled joint, the bond deepens, even if the trimming suffers just a bit. I have felt deep satisfaction, down to a cellular level, when I can look up from my tray and see others completely absorbed with their respective buds. It feels a little like rampant idealism in real time. It’s a challenge not to feel giddy and full of hope while trimming and stoned. Whether it’s a community or by myself. It’s a joyful plant.

My college friend, Mr. D, came over yesterday and dusted off some impressive trimming skills that he had not displayed in decades. His contribution was as appreciated as his company. We trimmed Night Nurse in a couple of hours.

But some years, in truth, most years, are spent in solitude, trimming plant after plant by myself. I’ve spent as much as fifteen hours in a day, just trimming. I’m certain there are others out there who have done, and are doing, the same thing right now. Because you cannot assume that anyone is going to help, or join you. Ultimately, it’s up to the grower to do the work. No excuses.

It’s during those long hours, the seemingly endless hours, with a mountain of buds that only gets smaller gradually, when the zen kicks in.

Trimming is change, trimming is loss, trimming is inevitable. Trimming is something we do all the time, whether we’re aware of it or not. Trimming is literally the cutting away of that which is not useful. It’s also separating the preferred from the not preferred. Trimming is the uncovering of new sources of joy, while at the same time, the swift removal of that which is not only not needed, but unwanted. The sick parts of the plants are not rehabilitated, they are summarily tossed. Trimming is harsh. Trimming is dismissal. Trimming is life.

I’m grateful for the act of trimming and everything it represents. I’m thankful for the times I’ve been ‘trimmed’ in my own life, as each experience has brought me to where I am now—doing work that I truly enjoy, that nourishes my soul, and inspires me to help others.

Filthy gloved finger tips tell the tale.

Putting rampant idealism to the side for a moment, the blunt reality of trimming is far more mundane. 

The fact is that most trimming is done alone, by the grower, accompanied mostly by memories of other times, and by the hopes that the cannabis grower generates from every grow.

I get peaceful when I trim. I try to go to a calm place in my heart. Trimming is long and gratifying, if done mindfully. Sometimes, trimming is too long, but that is an entirely subjective criticism. I’ve seen trimmers labor over a single bud for what seems an eternity. In my early years, I might inquire if there was a problem, or gently tease them, but I don’t do that anymore.

Trimming is an individual process. The relationship between flower and trimmer is a key moment in the life of that plant. What’s going to go into the “A” trim jars, and what’s being designated as popcorn? There are disputes between trimmers as to what constitutes a viable bud for trimming and what is simply popcorn, to be separated from the stalk and tossed in a jar without any trimming.

Of course, some of this depends on the particular cultivar and how much medicine (trichomes) spread over the sugar and fan leaves. If there are trichomes on something, I want to save it.

There are many justifications for how we trim, and every one of them is legitimate. Whatever it takes to finish the work.

I am currently snipping my way through the second week of trimming. I should be finished before this blog is published.

I am currently planning a day within the next 2-3 weeks when Bee and I can spend the day winterizing, fertilizing and solarizing our beds. About the time we’re doing that, test samples will be getting the courier treatment to the lab. I look forward to getting those results and sharing them with all of you.

This is how much that big bud shrunk from a couple of weeks ago.

PS–I just finished trimming the last plant–10/22.

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