How To Harvest, Trim and Dry Your Buds

Watch as Pigeons 420 goes through the steps of trimming, bud washing and curing his White Widow crop. Find out which parts to keep for making concentrates and Pigeon 420s methods.

What You Will Need

When you begin the process there are a few basic pieces of equipment you will need, all of which are available at your local hardware store or garden centre. These are to make the process easier on you and to protect the buds you have lovingly grown. For trimming you will need:

A pair of scissors and/or secateurs
A pair of latex gloves
Something to collect your trim (a screen or a bucket)

You can also complete a process called bud washing which we will go over later. For this you will require:

Two buckets
Water
Lemon Juice
Baking Soda

Then finally for the drying process you will need:

A line or clothing hangers
Pegs or crocodile clips

Pre-trimming Your Plant

Remove the branch form the main plant using secateurs

Now you have everything its time to begin the process of harvesting your plant. The place to start is with a pre-trim of your fan leaves. Put your gloves on first as you don’t want the THC sticking to your fingers and going to waste. The gloves will still pick up a small amount but this is greatly reduced as the oils on your fingers make the THC stick more. Take the secateurs and begin by cutting a branch at the base and removing it from the main plant.

Then using your hands slowly remove the larger fan leaves one by one and put these aside in a bucket or on a screen as these can be used later for making cannabutter, infused coconut oil or you can make your own kief using dry ice.

Remove these fan leaves as they can be saved for concentrates

Trimming The Plant

Once the fan leaves have been removed it is time to trim the leaves around the flowers. For this you will need either scissors or a set of secateurs with a finer point. Starting from the top of the branch you work down trimming off any excess leaf material. Be careful not to touch or mistakenly trim the buds as you want to keep as much THC on the flower as possible. Again collect the leaves as these can be used later when making concentrates. After you have repeated this on all the branches you will be left with branches with just buds attached. Keep these as they are as this is how you will hang them to dry.

Bud Washing

Bud washing in action

Much like anything else you grow at home in the garden or the greenhouse it will need a good clean afterwards. When you leave anything in one place for a period of time it collects dust, dead skin cells, bugs and other nasties and so does your cannabis plant. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that this also improves the way you buds look and smoke.

To do this you need your two buckets both of which will have cold water. In the first bucket you add lemon juice and baking powder and the second bucket will just be cold water. Now take your branches with buds still in situ and give it a dunk in bucket one containing the lemon juice and baking powder for just a few seconds and then dunk in bucket two to clean off any excess baking powder and remaining nasties.

Hanging Your Buds To Dry

Hanging your buds to dry

Finally its time to hang those buds to dry. Depending on your chosen method you will be using a line or hangers. You then clip each branch, upside down, to the line using a clip or a peg ensuring that there is space around the plant so that air can get to all of the buds and dry them slowly and evenly. If your buds are too close there is a danger of mould which once it infects your bud could ruin all of that time and effort you have put in.

Once this is done it is time to cure your weed before smoking.