Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

As a cannabis grower, there are few feelings more satisfying than when all the plants I just spent six months growing are dried and in the house. They’ve been trimmed and now fill 52 half-gallon mason jars. We’ve had much bigger harvests than this, but this year the only cultivar we grew that could potentially grow large was Rainbow Kush. She was our largest yielding plant, though still rather modest at 1.3 pounds (20.8 ounces), compared to other years.

That said, this year some cultivars  grew to yield more than we expected. We got 1.2 pounds (19.2 ounces) from Hindu Kush. Our two previous Hindu Kush clones only yielded a little over 0.4 pounds (6.4 ounces) per plant. We were not expecting Hindu Kush to grow like she did, and it was a delightful surprise.

Currently, our dining room table is the burping station. The jars will remain here through the curing process. The dining room table is more convenient for my back, and after weighing boxes of jars, it is easy to stack the boxes so that they don’t take up the entire table. Twelve of the jars are already in the closet, having been cured.

Curing is something I do for the enjoyment of others. The only time I smoke cannabis is right now, just after harvest. I’m curing so others will enjoy these flowers when they smoke them. Consequently, I am not an expert at curing. But I do it. I start by opening the jars and leaving them that way for 30 minutes. Each day, I reduce the amount of time I leave them open. In about three weeks, I’m finished.

The main thing about curing is simply to be consistent. It works. Other folks do it their way. Whatever works, but it is important to do because the process really does help the odor and taste. 

Because I don’t smoke much, I’m not as disciplined in my curing as I am in other parts of the process. I try to cure as I described above, but there have been many times when fifteen minutes of curing became an hour, because I got busy.

I enjoy opening every jar and smelling that release. Only a few minutes after opening the jars, the house smells of cannabis. Even after closing them back up the odor will linger through the day. 

I contacted SC Labs and set up my courier pick-up for October 30. It will take them 72 hours to do the tests, so I expect to have all of my results by no later than November 4. I don’t know if the test results will be released over the weekend. They need five grams of each strain to do the tests.

Five grams are in each sample.

We’ve used this same scale for every harvest so far. It has different units of measurement. Here, it is set to grams.

I will also save a nice nug for the courier. That person is driving all the way to my house and then to the lab. It’s not a casual drive. I want them to know what they do is appreciated.

I have managed to sweep up and remove most of the debris in the beds. I’ve also removed most of the vegetables. Despite their appearance, the tomatoes are not dying. In fact, the tomatoes are behaving rather miraculously. These plants have not received water since the end of June, yet they continue to produce fruit. But the truly astonishing thing is that the plants are still vegetatively producing flowers. If we could keep them warm all winter, they would keep producing fruit. 

They are still flowering, though that will change soon. It was 38 degrees (3.3 celsius) this morning. Insects are almost all gone, and chipmunks have already retreated for winter. When I think that I could still have a plant or two in the ground, I’m grateful to have harvested.

But because we’re not fertilizing and solarizing until next week, Bee and I decided to cover two of the remaining tomato plants and allow their final fruit to ripen. Before pulling the plant, we will remove all the fruit and allow it to ripen inside.

This is the same shear material I use to wrap cannabis plants to prevent attacks from swarms of Western Cucumber Beetles. I also have used it to cover recently foliar sprayed plants when the sun suddenly comes out during or just after a spray. It is the same material I tell others to cover their plants with if they ever have to spray Pyganic anywhere in the garden. And I hope you never have to do that.

Squirrels are currently in prime mode, with their brains larger now than at any time of year, so they can remember where they stored their winter nuts. Because the birds and other competitors have retreated, they currently have the run of the place.

They better be careful. There have been bobcats on the property this week.

Spoke with my butcher friend and it’s looking like I’ll be picking up fish parts on November 6. They open at 6:00 am and I’ll be there. I’ll be home before the sun rises, and Bee and I will proceed with the fertilization and solarization of our beds.

Ordinarily, I’d have pulled the plant carcasses and tap roots by now, but instead of disturbing our growing mediums multiple times, we’re going to do all our work at once. I don’t like disturbing the soil that I’ve just spent months building the microbiology, but it’s the only way we can fertilize.

So, we’ll do it all in a day. We’ll remove the cages first, along with the plant carcass and tap roots. We are curious as to how exactly each plant interacted with the gopher cages. Were the cages limiting factors at all? Was there any damage or stress to roots as they passed through the cage?

We need to know, because we’re going to have to use them again, until we rebuild the raised beds. Given that it will cost close to $20,000 for wood and labor, we’d like to get a couple more grows out of these beds before they are replaced.

First remove the cages with the tap roots. Next, we’ll plant the fish and cover it with dirt and cayenne pepper, because gophers don’t like the pepper. The stuff works. Last year we didn’t see a gopher within twenty feet of our beds.. After covering that with a layer of soil, we’ll put in the gopher cage. You can see that we left about 4 inches of cage above soil level. Next year, we’ll try to keep it at two inches. The slight metal lip acts as further slug and snail protection. They won’t crawl on metal because it rips their flesh. 

Of course, I make sure the beer traps are full and that usually draws the slugs away from plants. But next year, I’m going to grow at least seven feminized plants directly into beds. That means they will be very young and vulnerable for weeks. I’ll keep a net over them to prevent birds from plucking the sprouts, and I’ll keep the gopher cage lip above the soil to stop slugs and snails.

After the cage is in place, we’ll fill in the dirt. Over the winter I’ll make compost teas filled with guano to reestablish the microbiotic life that is so central to my grows. We’ll also wait until the first week of January to plant fava seeds. 

Speaking of guano, this year’s haul was double that of every previous year. I had always managed to fill a half gallon mason jar in the past. This year, I filled two of them,  a whopping one gallon of dried guano to use in future grows. 

Over a full gallon of dried bat guano. That’s alotta scat.

After I get my test results back, and can analyze them for a few days, I will write a new blog about them.

In addition to discussing the meaning of the test results, I will also soon blog about how we turn all our plants into ingestible medicine. This is the essence of the home dispensary. I’ll write about how we turn all our popcorn into pills and tinctures. These take up a lot less space than jars of flowers, and as oil, the medicine keeps a lot longer.

Finally–if you have not yet voted, please do so. America needs your vote. 

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