Dirt and jars: The alpha and omega of your cannabis grow. Everything you use in the process of shepherding your cannababies through the months-long process plays a part, but nothing is more important than these two environments that you will place them in. If you have research to do on soil, start now and be ready to prepare the perfect medium in which to grow next year’s crop. Autumn is the time for glass.
Drying your recently trimmed weed to the point of perfection takes patience and it takes a little time, but the equipment is minimal. As last week’s column discussed, this preparation is a three-step process – stringline, paper sandwich bags, and most importantly, glass jars: This is the place where your buds transition from a beaming green ready(ish) to smoke to golden THC-dazzled perfection. Wide-mouth Ball jars are the standard of excellence for this process due to their air flow capabilities and ease of access to the loveliness contained within by any hand sized above “delicate.” But repurposed spaghetti sauce or olive containers will get you to the Promised Land. I have several honey jars lined up in the corner cabinet right now and I swear that every time I open the door, they sing to me in unison about how badly they yearn to be filled wit dat sticky icky icky.
The basics of the jars are, essentially, the basics of the paper bags: Open about three times a day, maneuver but do not agitate the cannabanoid-laden contents within, close them back up. After that, you may do as you wish. I have wiled away hours staring at the handiwork of my labors. One pretty infallible technique I use is to keep an extra jar handy and to move the contents of each full jar down the line to the next, leaving the last one empty for the next shuffle. This late-stage preparation is as important as what you feed your plant or how much you water it during its life cycle.
It is here, in the quiet solitude of the silicon world, that the fate of your season’s work will take one of three potential alternate paths over the course of a few weeks.
The first leads to disaster and pain. This path is the calamity of underattention to ventilation and the horror that accompanies the dominance of excess moisture and the mold that is its accomplice. I have seen this happen, once, many years ago, and I am still saddened at the thought.
The second path is the path of wasted potential. This one is created by allowing too much air into the equation and leads to brittle buds that break apart and leave you with an approximation of the legendary oregano that has been sold in middle school hallways for the last few decades. Better to get yourself a Mexi dirt weed connect than to allow your hard work to dry out and lose its mouthwatering juiciness.
The third path is the path to marijuana Valhalla – this is the path to follow. Open and transfer the jars three times a day for the first week in order to “burp” the excess moisture from them. Follow the same process twice a day for the next two weeks and once a day for the two weeks following. Once you hit this mark, your have reached the top of Mount Perfectbud – you have removed all that is not the essence of exactly why you chose to take the time and energy to grow your own crop. Sit back, relax, inhale, and enjoy! (But don’t forget to put at least one jar aside to enjoy around the New Year, after it has gone through the long cure.)
And that, DGO, is how to prepare what you have grown. Now, get yourself ready for the harvest to come.
Christopher Gallagher lives with his wife and their four dogs and two horses. Life is pretty darn good. Contact him at [email protected].
