Hi I'm new here

[Jlass]

This - Bud Washing link I posted doesn't work for you ?

I found it! I couldn't find it earlier but I typed it in the search box and it brouht me right to it. I'm waiting to hear back from Doc Bud about my specific questions. Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help! You've been very "attentive" as I ask all of these random questions. You're awesome! I'll keep ya posted on how this whole thing works out!

 

[Weaselcracker]

The words 'bud washing' was a link to the thread. Happy to help ya anytime!

 

[Jlass]

Yeah I noticed that accidentally when I hovered over it. Otherwise on my screen over here, it isn't a different color or underlined, or otherwise indicate it's a link. As said in an earlier post I will become to be known as the girl who keeps getting the tech all wrong, or something along those lines. LOL

 

[art fog]

Bad Effing news!!! For the love of All things, how could I miss this???!!! Advice please... Just now while trimming I decided to take another gander at a plant to compare to another, with the loop. Low and behold, guess what I saw?!! I saw a spider mite! I am about to cry I swear!

I went back and scoured all the buds I've trimmed and I could only find three or four total on all of the plants from each strain. I know for sure now that I will be completely halting any new anything until this situation is resolved. I already know now that I will take my stuff out of the flowering room that I just put in for my next cycle tonight and back into veg until I can resolve this issue! I don't want to take any chances.

I am going to completely tear down my room now and freaking sterilize my entire basement. But in the meantime, WTH do I do about these few mites on my drying buds? Is it ruined? We were so careful, I don't know how this happened and to be truthful, I was giddy and happy five minutes ago as I was showing off my unknown strain that I nicknamed and was reveling in my supposed success and now this!

I'm so freaking upset right now. As I said, I could only find four mites on all of my buds that are drying, is there anything I can do? Can I smoke this stuff? I cannot see these things with the naked eye. There are NO webs or castings that I can see anywhere to be found, no nothing, except the four mites, well, five, including the one I saw on the bud I was trimming in my hand.

Someone, anyone, please tell me what to do! Right now as I type this, my helper is moving plants out of flowering room (new clones I just put in today) and back into veg room! We will disassemble the whole room tonight and throw it away (the materials - no chances) Just praying someone tells me that these few mites aren't going to ruin what I have drying. Please, someone, give me some good news!!! PS...Furthermore, I have more plants that I need to harvest as it's done, but hasn't been cut down or trimmed yet, I'm going to assume they have them too if the stuff already drying does (haven't checked yet). It was all in the same room. So I guess I need to know what I should do to the stuff drying already (if anything) and what I should do about the stuff still in the pots and ready to go but not cut down yet...??? TIA

Put some lady bugs in there they will eat the mites

 

[Jlass]

Put some lady bugs in there they will eat the mites

You know I thought about that, I still may do that. However I have watched a few videos of people talking about how sometimes the lady bugs imbed themselves in the buds and go unnoticed until someone smokes a bug or finds it in there dead. Have you tried lady bugs before? I was going to try doing a bud wash when I harvest the rest of it, and I'm waiting for an answer back from someone to see if that will even kill or remove the bugs with the recipe listed on here. I've never dealt with this before so I have no anticipation of any result because it's all new to me. I am curious what your or anyone's thoughts are o doing a bud wash and if that has shown results for the spider mites. Or have you personally used ladybugs before, and if so, how did that work out? Thanks for your reply

 

[Jlass]

So new question... as I have never dried a harvest before. I have read all the best ways to do it and am doing what most people are doing nowadays. However, to be sure of myself I am just wondering if when hanging to dry before curing, just how dry do you want it to be before putting it into jars to cure? Right now they are dry on the outside to the touch, if I squeeze them a little you can tell they are not dry "to the bone" or anything, but I am thinking they are okay to put in the jars. When I feel the stems they feel pretty dry but don't quite snap if I bend them. Should I wait a little more? I have heard that waiting too long to put it in the jars could affect the curing process. Any opinions on this??

 

[Weaselcracker]

Remind me how long they've been drying so far?
Dry till the stems do that 90 degree 'snap' thing. Then when you put them in jars throw a hygrometer in there with the buds and after the humidity in the jar stabilizes- up to 8 hours or so- it should be not much more than 70% RH. There's a curing/drying process after that but under 70% RH I haven't got mold before.

 

[Jlass]

Remind me how long they've been drying so far?
Dry till the stems do that 90 degree 'snap' thing. Then when you put them in jars throw a hygrometer in there with the buds and after the humidity in the jar stabilizes- up to 8 hours or so- it should be not much more than 70% RH. There's a curing/drying process after that but under 70% RH I haven't got mold before.

It took a few days to trim, but the first batch went in late and into the morning of 17th and 18th of August. The next batch went in from 18th-19th. That stuff doesnt seem ready. I'ts just a few sections (plants) seem pretty dry to the touch but if I squeeze them slightly I can tell the inside of the buds aren't like totally dry, but ever so slightly. 90 degree snap, so if I bend them 90 degrees they should snap, right? As in snap and break? Does this include the thicker stems or just the smaller ones? I have four different strains and they are all drying differently, which I expected. Just one strain seems to be the one close to ready. I will have to get a smaller hygrometer to fit in the jars. No problem though, whatever it takes. Thanks, as always, for your response

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sounds like they need more time before going to a jar.
No- not a breaking snap- just a 90 degree hinge/fold in the stem with a bit of a cracking feel to it if that makes any sense at all. You'll never break it- hemp makes great rope for a reason.

 

[Jlass]

Sounds like they need more time before going to a jar.
No- not a breaking snap- just a 90 degree hinge/fold in the stem with a bit of a cracking feel to it if that makes any sense at all. You'll never break it- hemp makes great rope for a reason.

Good point! Thanks a lot!

 

[Jlass]

So it's been awhile. I've been toiling away at harvesting. Holy big job! So right now I have some stuff that's been in a jar, curing for about seven days. Two days ago when I burped it and felt it a bit it felt almost ready to go. The past two days here have been extremely humid and hard to keep anything dry. I opened my jars and my buds are super wet to the touch, well not dripping, but wet enough to be a bit alarming since they just felt pretty dry two days ago. I tried a little somethign to see how it worked out, but am looking for some advice. I made a little satchel with some baking soda in a coffee filter. Just a small one and put it in just one of the jars with the bud in it. Today it seemed slightly more dry but not anythign remarkable. I'm just a little nervous as I went through the painstaking process of washing and being so careful, now mold is a serious concern with the buds being this wet this far into curing, again, after feeling almost ready two days ago. Any ideas to get some of this excess moisture out so I can continue curing w/out worries of mold? I almost considered silica, but really no way. LOL I just don't want like 100% humidity and that's what we got going on right now. Nothing I can do to control the RH even with the dehumidifier going right now the lowest I can get it is like 62% and it only stays that way for awhile before it spikes again.

 

[Jlass]

Also, by the way, I have done the bud washing on several plants now. I think it looks beautiful afterwards, except I have noticed a lot of the trichomes on the red hairs are washed away. There is a noticable difference between washed and unwashed. I haven't tried smoking anything washed yet as it's not ready to do so yet. I'll let you know. The leaves have slightly less trichs on them also. So I am going to try this again with my remaining plants, except I'm going to omit the lemon juice and baking soda and basically just give them a gentle swishing in luke warm water and see if there is a difference. I do like the idea of washing away the dust and anything else. Just not sure how I feel about the added ingredients in the water yet. I'm also 100% organic and I wasn't liking using bottled lemon juice and squeezing lemons seemed anti productive as I'd have to squeeze a few bushels full! LOL

 

[Pigeons420]

Ok to address the first post. Are you taking the buds right out of the jar? And laying them out on a table for an hour or so. Until outside is a bit crisp again. Then jar it for another 24 hours. Take them out and repeat. Until they are remaining crisp when you open them the next day. Then it's open them once a week. For about 2 weeks the. Seal those suckers up for a couple months. Or how ever long you make it.

To address your second post. I highly recommend bud washing. Using the recommending ingredients. You're not looking for crazy changes to the bud. It's going to happen. You're cleaning it. But let me assure you, the smoke is remarkable. There will be NO negative affect because of the wash. Unless it's done incorrectly. Check out my signature for proper method and measurement. I believe it's the page before the one my sig takes you too.

All the best,Holmes!

 

[Jlass]

Ok to address the first post. Are you taking the buds right out of the jar? And laying them out on a table for an hour or so. Until outside is a bit crisp again. Then jar it for another 24 hours. Take them out and repeat. Until they are remaining crisp when you open them the next day. Then it's open them once a week. For about 2 weeks the. Seal those suckers up for a couple months. Or how ever long you make it.

To address your second post. I highly recommend bud washing. Using the recommending ingredients. You're not looking for crazy changes to the bud. It's going to happen. You're cleaning it. But let me assure you, the smoke is remarkable. There will be NO negative affect because of the wash. Unless it's done incorrectly. Check out my signature for proper method and measurement. I believe it's the page before the one my sig takes you too.

All the best,Holmes!

Hey Pigeon
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I am doing all of the above. I think those few days of extremely high humidity just was making it impossible to achieve any kind of drying what so ever. It's moving along much better now. I was just panicking slightly as I was concerned about mold creeping in when I was unable to find one square inch of space that wasn't 90% humidity anywhere to get any relief.

About the bud washing. I agree, I will never not wash again. However I did have a couple of concerns. We did do a pretty thorough examination of the buds prior to washing and after. I wondered if the abrasiveness of baking soda may have sort of scrubbed off some of the trichs from the buds. One major thing I noticed was the red hairs no longer were covered in trichs. The other thing that concerned me a bit was using the lemon juice and baking soda in the first bucket. I am a gardener of many other things aside from MM. One thing I know is if you snip any plant and place the stem into water, the stem will soak up water through the veins and plump up the plant, no matter what it is. So my concern about using the ingredients in the first bucket is it's it's first exposure to being fully submerged in the water and I started to wonder if the stems were soaking up water wiht lemon and baking soda into the veins. So last night as I washed my last few plants, finally (victory dance!!) I switched bucket one and two. I first rinsed the bud in a bucket with clear pure water and allowed the veins to soak up pure water before putting them into the second bucket which contained the lemon and baking soday. Also I switched from store bought lemon juice to straight up freshly squeezed organic lemons. I was unable to find any other "Pure" form of lemon juice without a bunch of crap added to it.
So all in all I wasn't overly concerned about the red hairs missing trichs, but more concerned about the veins taking in the water with the ingredients. Although I did notice a difference. I haven't had the pleasure of smoking any washed bud yet, but I will say I did about 1/8 of my harvest w/out washing before I discovered and got on the band wagon and washed. Now the rest of my crop is all washed and, wow, I am in for some serious trimming!!!

So do you have any thoughts on my thoughts - lol? Thanks again for your reply! I'll get some more pics up here soon. I've literally just been living in the twighlight zone of harvesting for a few weeks now, so I've been taking some pics along the way and hopefully I'll find the time to sit and post some pretty soon. I've got two new bad-ass boxes my husband designed, they are all three connected with the exhaust fan running and it's working out quite nicely! I was lucky enough to get a refridgerator box and that can hold a much larger amount, obviously so this has helped out. Thanks as always

 

[art fog]

I I bought lady bugs over the internet from some southern co. I was living in NYC at the time when I noticed that the house plant my sister gave me was infested which in turn would infest all the other flowers and plants I had growing indoors. When the lady bugs arrived I opened the package near the plant in concern. They immediately flew out and converged on my plants. They were only in my studio less than an hour I remember looking at the Empire State Building watching the lady bugs fly out the window into the NYC jungle. I thought what a waste but upon further scrutiny I noticed the thousand villain bugs had been gone. They came, they saw and they devoured. It was truly amazing. Good luck.