White Widow..ready?

still see lots of white hairs. prob another week or 2 optimally. im not too fimiliar with cfl grows and how big the buds should be. i def wouldnt try to wait around for your buds to look like VVs. cause you wont see buds like that with cfls or floros unless youre using t5s.

you can just let the popcorn buds sit around a few days and normally they will dry out and be very smokable. i had a harvest on 12/13 and smoked a few tiny nugs on 12/17. granted it had a pretty substantial planty aftertaste, but it still does the trick. and if youre super hard up for weed and want to smoke the day of, try moistening a paper towel and putting a layer on the bottom of a tupperware. then put a moistened layer of paper town on top of the tupperware. put the lid on top but dont shut completely, just enough to hold the top paper towel in place. put in microwave for 15 seconds. remove and check the buds. if still not crispy make sure the towels are moist and do another 15. repeat until buds are dry. thats prob the best way youre going to dry them quickly, but again, it will still taste planty.

Thanks weediscool. When i first started this thread (like two weeks ago), some were telling me a few days, others said dont chop. my instincts are siding with u although i was contemplating the idea of harvesting the fastest-maturing plant this week. (x-mas) oh well...

Id also agree with VV in that white widow is a slow-flowering strain, in this case is taking longer than the estimated 7-9 weeks (what the seed bank said). i wont ahve the patience to wait 12 weeks and i think (hope) 10 may be about right./

The stems are bending quite a bit from the weight of the bigger buds. to the untrained eye they look ready. about 80% brown hairs on the plant i posted photos of.

and yes this is not a hps grow. 4 t-8 (switched from cool white to soft white for flowering) floro tubes + a few 60w cfl scattered here and there.

I tried the microwave thing for a sample bud i picked last week. High was just ok.
Heres to hoping that good things come to those who.....
wait. (And for anyone who took the time to read through this long thread, thank you.)

Ive also noticed that when you smoke your fresh harvest to test the buds, and you rush the drying process to just get a taste of your crop, the high is never at the full potential. I always notice that I hardly even get high when I taste my harvest, and of course after you properly dry and cure it, you get really really high.

Also, if you want a quick drying method, I found that an old-school (or even new) dehumidifer works real well. If you dry in a closet, stick the dehumidifier in the closet, and it makes the air REALLY dry, so the buds dried in about half the time, but since there was no light or heat involved, this rapid drying process preserved the bud, and didn't make it harsh from drying too quickly.