From the Valley of the Giants...HoHoHo GREEN GIANTS!!
Sept 30th
Thats the song that popped into my head as I walked down to the garden this week. The smells have intensified and as usual the progress in just a week is stunning. Buds are swelling up and some of the Kush’s are getting very close. I think next Tuesday you will see some serious action shots as we start taking down the Indica’s that are swollen and starting to really look close to finishing.
Lets look at what the Lord made With lots and lots of work by KA and team ODC.
As I enter the tent covering its hard not to pause and take in both the sites and the smells of this little piece of heaven. The Kush varieties are giving off a heavy musty smell that is combining with the Orange funk of California Orange and the strong Lemon Haze smell of JTR to create a very strong but pleasant odor. I take a huge breath and can almost taste Cannabis resin on my tongue. As we walk down into the center of the garden the sun is blocked out by towering colas forming. It’s hot in the garden today and Dave has been busy all week removing lower branches to allow air flow under the plants. Heat and moisture can create some really bad problems like bud rot and mold so Dave and a few helpers spend many hours each day in the garden removing sagging branches, supporting upper branches that have fallen from the weight of the buds they support and general garden maintenance. I am amazed that I don’t see a single yellow leaf in this entire area and even the lower fan leaves are a brilliant green. Dave tells me that much of this is due to his constant foliar feeding with the Fulvic and Humic acids as well. I contribute much of their health to the amazing bed he prepares each season and the fact it was a horse coral for about a century before it became Weedens sure footing. These factors and the excellent care they receive combine to create the healthiest garden I have ever seen.
I have been itching to bring my 50MM and my 105 MM Macro lens down but I was waiting for a nice coating of resin to make it worthwhile. The Indica’s look like they’re getting very close to harvest so you will now get to see some close ups of buds!
In the back of the garden the Purple Kush has completely changed color and is now a vivid Purple almost red grape color and should reach maturity sometimes next week.
Another plant that is showing some Purpling is of course Purple Urkle but it is also building up some nice trichomes and looking really thick.
Dave’s patients could really use some meds about now so we inspected the Snow Dawg and dave made the call to take her down. You can see in the Macro shots about half the pistils have turned orange and while indoors we wait as long as possible no one is going to complain about early harvested medication. Dave carefully removes some of the lower branches until he can open up the wire cage and dig down into the dirt and clear the stem. My jaw dropped as Dave came walking back from the hill with a chainsaw and fired that bad boy up. He cut the entire plant down with one quick stroke just after instructing us where and how to hold the plant. Dioxide420 helped Dave carry the plant up and I was shocked how heavy it looked, by the time we got up the small hill side thier arms were tired and they were breathing hard. We had a wood trailer near the gate and we quickly decided to use it and the 4-wheeler to carry it to the harvest barn. I followed along snapping pictures the whole way, this was so much fun to be involved with.
Oct 2nd
The Rains Came…Bubba K Harvest
I arrived early and after helping get the heater running in the drying barn we started thinning some of the plants to allow more airflow into the garden, and supply meds to others waiting and take down the most mature plant in the garden.
This is when the fun part stops and the hard work and tough choices begin, just a few days ago the garden was clear of botris and only a few signs of mold but Dave tells me it will come on fast and that is time to harvest the garden as soon as possible. Some seasons the rains hold off and some they don’t. It’s warm and wet in that tent and a lazy grower can loose his whole crop to bud rot so we decided to get to work on the double. The Bubba Kush came down the same way as the SnowDawg did but it was a smaller plant and we didn’t have to use the trailer. You can see the spots of Bud Rot or Botris and every piece is painstakingly removed and tossed onto the floor of the trim room and smashed under foot. Everyone is instructed to leave the “Floor Bud” alone and it is just considered part of growing outdoors here, some years as much as 50% of the crop can be lost if a grower doesn’t stay on top of his work.
Each day more people travel to the garden to lend a hand and take part in the harvest and I met many interesting people, some in wheel chairs and some on ventilators and even one person was there on a gurney so please don’t think this is some stoner party, while many of us enjoy herb for many reasons make no mistake that the majority of these meds are given to those that really need them absolutely free of charge. There is one catch though, if you are fit enough to trim you help out and at the end of the day your welcome to a cooler of Un-trimmed branches not the ones you trimmed that wouldn’t be much help to Dave.
Oct 7th
TGA genetics shine!
The fun didn’t stop when the camera wasn’t clicking and they took down several plants and made Bubble hash before I could get back out and do some more documentation. I was greeted by a drying room of completely different strains drying and it was great to know that many people were now medication on buds, hash, tincture and medibles made from the harvest bounty. We took time to enjoy some of the lemon tasting hash that was made using the Chocolate Chunk plant and it was divine let me tell you. Dave told me next year he plans to do half his garden with this strain and just make lots of concentrates like the bubble shown. It would cut down on the trimming time significantly. When we went down to the hill I was happy to see many of the TGA strains still growing and I completely tripped out seeing strains I created and grow indoors towering over my head with branches as big as an entire indoor plant. The Memorial day mix the only plant from seed was now over 15 feet tall and almost touching the top of the tent!
The TGA plants left in the garden, Dannyboy, Jack the Ripper, The Flav, and the memorial Day mix which turned out to be Jacks Cleaner 2 just dripped with resin and looked like sky scrapers to me. Dave and one of his crew came down and started taking down the massive Proud Mary plant. I was surprised how much work these huge plants were. Unlike the short Indica bushes there is no way to cut one of these down so branches are chopped off and placed in buckets to be carried up to the trimmers that are working fast and furious feeding the hash makers it was quite an amazing production. In the drying room every string was at capacity and even sagging under the weight of all the branches hanging.
In the final chapter we will see the holdouts like Romulan, JC2 and The Flav as well as an in depth look at what the Hash makers were up to along with some final harvest shots.
Don’t miss the End Game.
Subcool
Originally Published in Weed World Magazine Issue 100