I have been waiting for this day all summer and now that we are going into winter and reaching 50-degrees lows at night time, it's time to harvest.
I am thinking that we can just go to one branch and get all the buds off of it and line them up. I will try to get as many done as possible, but I have not done this before.
This is the smaller of the two plants, the one that used to look like this at the beginning of the year.
It was just a stick with some wilted leaves. I was surprised to see one green leave full of life and I posted about it. The in mid-summer, I posted this update - the whole plant was the size of a football.
Let's start with the tallest branch, which probably has the most buds.
I will cut it right about here. This will ensure that the 'tree' if you can call it that, will grow more like a bush that a tree next year.
Look at all those juicy buds. I mean, it doesn't look like an Amazon Forest plant but it did this with an hour of sunlight per day (summer) and none now that it is winter.
There are plenty of them on this part of the plant - see the summary at the bottom for the bud-count.
And here are the buds that came off that lower portion of the largest branch.
Each bud is kind of fluffy goes up from the lower part, past protruding leaves in between. It is not that easy to pick them from the plant. The sizes vary depending on where on the plant they were picked from.
Above are a couple of them up close. There were lots of small buds on the part that still remains attached to the plant.
The littlest buds, like the ones on the right, they bring a few leaves with them when you pick them. But the one on the left is a larger bud and it goes through about one centimeter of the main shaft, therefore you get a lot of leaves with it when you pick it.
If you look at the following picture, it's hard to imagine being able to just get the buds out from among the leaves.
I did not harvest the whole plant last year. My sons came and took buds from the plant until it didn't have any buds left, so it was a slow process. I am not sure what to do with the top portion that I cut off. I'm thinking, at this point, that it would be better just to take the larger leaves off of it and leave the buds on the main stem until it's dry.
It was definitely better to pull the leaves off, although I'm leaving the smaller ones that are closest to the bud because they may have some of the stickiness or the pollen from the bud stuck to them.
I am open to tips and tricks from those of you who have the experience that I lack.
I was surprised to find how sticky my fingers got trying to clean just this one branch. I think I'm going to have to put off the others for another day. But I will try to bring you the quantity I get from those when I do.
I still have a long way to go and cannot get it all done before dark.
More to come!
I counted the buds, small and great and there were 42 on the lower half (still connected to the plant) and 21 buds, much larger ones, on the top half that I cut off of the plant. It may be better to harvest in 3 to 5 tries. That way you don't leave the plant healing so may injuries.
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