What would you do?

[Seamaiden]

Alright, I have been forced to perform an early harvest on one of my girls, as a BIG gust of wind sent her right off our deck. At least a 30' drop.
(I was standing there and heard it coming, too, wicked scary, didn't think it would take anything off quite like that, whoops!)

I immediately sprang into action and ran down to the plant, thinking that if the main tap root system wasn't damaged too badly I could re-pot, tape and splint her boo-boos and keep her going to the finish line. I was also planning on re-vegging any and all who take to it. Not so with this gal. Root ball is demolished, soil all over the place, broke one of my better pots very well, main stem split ALL the way down to the root ball, or what remained of it. I must harvest early.

My main problem, there is soil stuck in a lot of the buds. We have a compressor, so I tried to carefully blow out loose bits of soil, but the buds are pretty sticky, so there's a good bit of soil stuck in still. What would you do? I tried lightly spraying one of the buds off, no good (I'm not too worried about delayed drying, it's pretty dry up here), not effective.

Would you just leave it? Let the soil fall where it may? Try to further clean? Needless to say I do not want to toss several months'-worth of work away, fortunately she was pretty close to finishing anyway (but I wasn't ready to start trimming and cleaning right now, sheesh). I will begin my trimming while eagerly awaiting your replies.

 

[KushKing949]

i would do a water cure



https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/102641-greenx-how-tos-how-water.html

 

[Seamaiden]

Not at all familiar with this, but thank you! This would resolve my little problem of my ghetto drying rack currently being occupied with bud I don't want to mix with this. Thank you!

 

[onenumcat]

water cure looks sweet, I'll surely try it on some o my weed when I harvest. thanks for the tip. rep+

 

[Seamaiden]

Ok, I just (this sounds weird) bottled up three jars-ful of buds. Some aren't as dirty as I thought, trimming certainly helped. This strain isn't anywhere nearly as sticky as the Bagseed Girl I harvested last night, hardly any scissor hash and my fingers aren't so sticky. What it does have is hundreds and hundreds of amber pistils/threads, it really reminds me of saffron. I still have a few more branches to trim and bottle up. Thanks again, I hope this does the trick AND it will certainly be an interesting experiment in finishing, one I had not planned on adding to my repertoire.

If I could hit you again with the rep, KushKing, I would.

 

[tusseltussel]

 

[Seamaiden]

Thank you, tt. At least the wind was exciting. If it doesn't work I can cook it, the resultant butter would have to be strained through a cheesecloth anyway, right?

 

[tusseltussel]

Thank you, tt. At least the wind was exciting. If it doesn't work I can cook it, the resultant butter would have to be strained through a cheesecloth anyway, right?

oh yea i got like a pound of butter in my freezer for a rainy day always fun ive never water cured but i here it good a lil difrnt but good if i remember correctly the resulting pot has no taste or smell really and gets you super high

 

[veedubkid]

From everything I have read in the past few days, I would have water cured it as well. I love to learn and this site is BRILLIANT. It really sounds like it would solve all your problems. (being early and dirty) Please let us know how it turns out.

 

[Seamaiden]

Will do, and when I'm finished if you like I can put up pix, though they're pretty much what's in that thread (I didn't poke holes in the jar tops, I need them).

While that girl didn't have many branches, she was PACKED with buds. In order to get them into the short jars that I have, I had to break the buds down from the main stem. I've put the rest of the branches in the fridge last night, I hope that it works to keep turgidity. I figure if it works for plants we eat, it should work for plants we smoke, too, right?

So, I just went out and looked at the remains... and.. the leaves that I left are still all upright, like they're growing from a healthy plant, not one that's taken a big fall. I wonder... (still pissed about breaking a good pot), could I? Might give it a try, depending on how the rest of the day goes.

 

[KushKing949]

im water curing my buds right now because there was dust and caterpillar poop and bugs and spider webs and what not so instead of tryin to pick all that shit out decided to do a water cure....oh i do a few things different i dont have any thing covering the buds they are just submerged in the jars and i dont need anything to hold em down and then when i change the water every 12 hours i pull the buds out and put them on a glass plate then drain the water.... y would i want all the crap that dropped to the bottom of the jar going back thru the nugs when im draining it??? that defeats my purpose of tryin to clean my bud haha oh yea and i trimmed up alot of the leaves and kept just mostly nug so i wonder if my nugs are still gonna come out all dark or what but i need to go drain the water..... i think there was something else i was gonna say but i forgot at the moment.

 

[gogrow]

i wouldnt worry about the dirt too much, as i imagine alot of it will work its way out in the drying process, and im sure i've smoked some dirt in my lifetime... but good luck on that water cure if you try it.... i just could never bring myself to soak my buds in water and still smoke them... i see it as abuse

 

[Seamaiden]

Well, I've got... I guess I should just take a picture. KushKing, thanks for sharing how you're doing it. As I was doing my first drain last night I was thinking, "Crap, a lot of this dirt is just gonna end up back on the buds." I didn't punch the holes in the lids, either. and my buds are staying down in the water well enough.

Tuss, you should have seen our friends' faces last night! THE HORROR! They saw all that fresh, green bud in all these jars and said, "(MyName)! It's all gonna go moldy, you can't do that!" I said, "Ah, but wait, there's a story." (With me, there's always a story, and it's usually long. ) Then I told them what had happened with the big wind and explained how the water cure seems to work. I sure hope it works! That girl gave me a hell of a lot of bud.

I am so glad to be finished with the trimming. Whew! Ok, gonna go take a coupla pix.

 

[Seamaiden]

Just a couple of pix, literally (a couple).

 

[GreenphoeniX]

Quick suggestion... If possible (smell not too bad, no risk or tipping over, humidity not guna damage cupboard etc), leave the lids off those jars. It will allow excess chemicals and such to evaporate out of the water rather than being forced to stay in there. Not 100% necessary, but in theory a positive thing... In theory coz it's very hard to actually tell exactly what is happening in practice lol, but the theory is definitely there! hahaha

P.S - The holes in lid are definitely not necessary, but can be helpful (with clean bud hahaha). Usually with jars the bud does stay submerged by itself, in bigger containers (such as buckets, chili-bins etc) you need to weigh them down for awhile (till they absorb enough water to sink by themselves), as more water mass means more floating ability haha.

P.S.S.s ;p - If you're worried about mold and such, remember, mold CANNOT grow underwater, also, keeping in the dark mean algae won't grow (as it requires light to grow), and changing the water daily doesn't give algae the chance to grow... When DRYING there is you're possibility of mold, BUT, it should dry too fast for mold to grow, and if you're worried about it excessively, just make sure you have an oscillating fan or two directly blowing on them, and/or a dehumidifier to keep the RH low (not necessary but surely would help lol). If you've got an area where you can normally hang dry/air cure bud without getting mold, than that same area will dry water cured bud without getting mold!

Cheers all. Thanks for trying the Water Cure method Seamaiden and KushKing, good to see people willing to give it a go! I'm sure you won't be disappointed... Except maybe by the smell and taste loss if you really love the smell and taste of your bud lol, no big deal though, better than tossing it or smoking soil in my opinion

 

[Seamaiden]

Thanks for posting, Green. I thought about that, but two things have brought me to do differently at this point; 1) Smell and; 2) These girls have been grown organically and have been being flushed for the past two and a half weeks, so there shouldn't be much else besides the soil. And a LOT of soil is coming out of the buds. As a matter of fact, I may increase frequency of draining.

I will definitely be keeping a very close eye on things and keeping your advice in mind. There is no one else who really goes into that cupboard, and I can set the jars into plastic containers that would contain any accidents.

I am using cold, filtered water from the refrigerator, also, as I'm treating them as I would any other cut flower otherwise. I can see how not changing the water frequently enough could lead to a lovely bacterial bloom and make the water nice and slimy.

 

[GreenphoeniX]

Nice to hear you're growing organically! I'm a big fan of it unless I'm using my Aero system lol, organic + aero = nozzle blockage!

Yea I can see how the smell would be motivation to keep the lids on haha.

That is the key to preventing algae/bacteria! Frequent water change (dark conditions help prevent it too).

How often you changing the water? Every 12 or 24 hours is the 'norm' I guess you could say.
Increase frequency if you want, especially if you think soil will still be coming out after 7 days of water curing!

 

[Seamaiden]

That's what I'm thinking. I've begun doing it every 24 hours, but last night the water in all the jars was pretty cloudy, and oh MAN all the soil that came out! So, I may up it to every 12 hours to keep things fresh.

I was talking to my good friend about how that wind came about, and she suggested wind shear. Because it ROARED down upon me, it was amazing. I'm guessing that the mountains are a great place to get wind shear, yeah?

Based on what I was reading of your two threads on air versus water curing, I may be keeping most of this stash for myself. I owe someone (that same friend) a real debt and at least 1.5oz of mid-grade, and yeah, it's a bit selfish to give her the weed that's been air-dried, but.. hey. One other consideration is that she gets pot hangovers and can't smoke much at all, whereas I am a bit of a head and can toke all day long.

 

[veedubkid]

Just my 2 cents Seamaiden, I remember someone saying you should use room temperature water when water curing because the cold water might shock the trichs and break more off. I don't know if it is really true nor can I remember who said it. I am going to be using Brita filtered water from the fridge then warmed to room temp. I just want to be safe. This is my first grow after smoking for almost 20 years off and on.
Have I mentioned that I love this site?

 

[KushKing949]

im using distilled water and changing the water every 12 hrs i have the lids off and my whole room smells like dank haha today is day 4. i trimmed most of the leaves as i think that would add more a grassy smell and taste haha i just want bud no leaves hehe