First time growing a full allotment and I have five plants which I started early May in Ohio. They received full sun from sun up to sun set. I’m including this picture
All of my plants have these large flowers at the end of branches and main stems. Seem to look good. I am noticing many Fan leaves beginning to yellow and I have been removing them to prevent them from draining the stems of nutrients.
When should I start thinking about cutting and drying these ?
Welcome to the club!!! Firstly, nice lookin chubby lean on that bud!!! Second, for a more precisely timed harvest, you want to get a good magnified look at the trichomes (crystals) on the buds. These are going to give you a much better indication of when to chop.
Clear, sparkly trichomes. Tooo early. Racey, nervous high, maybe a headache. Come back later. General consensus is 2wks if little to no…
Cloudy, pearl-like crystals. Mostly all cloudy is peak THC percentage. A few clear left won’t hurt nothing. Chop if you want, or wait until…
Cloudy, with some having turned amber, maybe 20ish%. This is when ya get stoned. Amber trichomes have begun to degrade into CBN which is night night juice. The more amber, the more likely you are to kind of skip the high and go right to sleepy.
Here’s a good pic to help, just remember to look at the buds, and not the little sugar leaves. The leaves ripen and degrade way quicker than the flowers…
@Parkerchandler geetings fellow ohioian. Agree with everything above. Most strains in Northeast Ohio are in the harvest window now (lots of friends growing around here)
Hanks for the response! I just don’t wanna be hasty pudding. The weathers gonna really cool off this week and it’s raining all day into tomorrow. I’m guessing I’ll hold out unless they call for a frost but these plants are all over 5’ and the pic was of one the lower branches off the main stem. I just don’t wanna fuck this up. 
I harvested all my top Colas Sunday morning…but I still have the three plants growing with lots of buds still on them. I have them covered for this rain and I will harvest them mid/late next week.
Good luck with your harvest!
I didn’t cover my plants but I probably should have with the rain today and tonight. I have a multitude of smaller flowers below the second and third spurs. I’m thinking I may take big flowers off move the plants indoors to the sauna and try that for another few weeks(?) I have good grow lights in there and I have good temperature control. Whaddya think
This a shot prior to today’s rain. I’m wondering if the rain washed the trichomes(?) crystals away? How might that affect the flowers? I’m not a real grower by experience. Just a simple gardener trying to grow a nice crop
No worries about the rain washing trichomes away…they are not water soluble. Many outdorr growers actually wash their buds before hanging to dry.
Rain increases the chances of bud rot so stay vigailant and harvest if things go south fast.
No signs of rot… yet. I’ll probably start cutting the big stuff after the rain stops in the early hours. Do what I can to let the wind dry them and bring them in to hang. I’m new at this so I’m just kinda wingin things.
There is a full moon tonight. Don’t know how that might affect things by morning.
Hey… I appreciate all of your input and encouragement. Can I send you a picture regarding a question I have on (re) propagating my marijuana in the same way I plant and reproduce tomato plants without re-seeding and growing over winter? I covet your thoughts while I also trust my own instincts.
I’ve just never grown marijuana as a crop but I’m thinking my thoughts would work.
You can post pictures here, but this isn’t a way to person to person message on here unless with a moderator
Wanted to ask you what your opinion is on cloning some of my branches. Can I send you a pic ? I’m thinking if I apply my instincts to marijuana that I have applied to tomato planting, I may be able to produce some strong Roland very vigorous stock?
You can post the question and pictures here and tag me…but I am watching this thread anyway so I will see it. Some others may chime in…but that is a good thing. More opinions and ideas.
@Parkerchandler Cloning a flowering plant is possible, but problematic. It is also possible to harvest buds and re-veg a plant. I had a small indoor grow in the 80s where I harvested the same plant every 90 or 100 days for 2 and a half years. If you re-veg…then you can take clones and also reflower the mother plant.
My two cents
Okay. Sounds good. What’s the difference between cutting a branch to clone and re-vegging?
I have always taken tomato branches and regardless of stage, I dug a trench, laid the cutting in the trench, watered well, covered all but the top leaf and wait for it to begin growing.
I did take a top this afternoon. Boy was it a sticky girl. The wife was telling me how I smelled like weed. I’ve never been told that.
Anyway, I have some very large 5-6’ female plants and I don’t want to screw this up.
I have many branches with long colas at the ends with many smaller buds/leaves trailing from the end cola back 3-5 nodes/spurs to the main. These are low branches which are thin but have some heavy growth at their end. Like the previous photo.
I’m not trying to be an extreme anal questioner just trying to learn how to manage a new crop
Re-vegging is where you take a flowering plant…or a mostly harvested plant and give it more than 15 hours of light. it will slowly start to stop budding and begin to grow new leaves and branches…once it is grown out the light can go back to 12/12 and it will flower again.
Cloning is taking a branch and starting a new plant. If you do this after it has started to bud…and the light cycle is below 15 hours…it will continue to bud and not grow. would likely get more yield leaving it on the plant. If you keep the light cycle long…18 or 24 hours…it will slowly re-veg…and then you can grow to a full sized plants. Really the only reason to do this is to save a particular phenotype. I have seen people clone flowering plants…but with a high failure rate.
The good news is it sounds like you have some big bushy plants so go ahead and give it a try on some branches. You will hardly miss a few clone sized cuttings. It is how we learn.
Pots some pics
Okay… so, I removed all of the largest buds from what I hadn’t harvested. There’s a frost coming tonight so I cut the most mature.
Been awhile…but you should now have it on an 18 to 24 hour a day light schedule. Revegging is slow on mature plants, but you should see new growth in a few weeks. They have been in that pot for awhile so if using synthetic nutes give it a good flush…if organic…amend the soil and even up-pot one size. Been almost 40 yesrs since I did this.
I intend to repot them. Flush the root balls and replace the soil with fresh. I expect to see some retardation but as most repots, that’s a normal response.
