How to Harvest Weed Step by Step

Growing or cultivating cannabis can be a long wait before you can finally harvest your flower. It takes about eight weeks for indoor cannabis to finally finish the flowering stage. For outdoors, it takes longer than that. It takes more days or even weeks to reach the level of maturity, and then it’s time to do the harvest. Although harvesting sounds so easy however you also have to consider the proper harvest of your plant. There are ways on how to properly harvest your plants. You do not need a lot of equipment to do this. It is not like you are going to pick the buds with your bare hands, it is not easy to wait and nurse your cannabis and just harvest it without proper precautions. Be gentle and careful in doing it, we don’t want to put on a waste our effort for how many weeks of labor and earn nothing.

For beginners, I will give you a heads up to know when to harvest the cannabis. The types of high that you may get from your buds are depending on the harvest time variety and of course the strain type. Here are some tips to know when is the right time to finally reap off your labor.

By looking at their cloudiness and color, you will know it is the right time or not. Now, immature trichomes are clear and close to translucent while on the flip side, over riped trichomes are cloudy and are amber. It is hard to see the physical appearance using your naked eye, I would suggest using a magnifier to literally see the features of your trichomes.

Take note of the following:

  1. Clear Trichome – insufficient potency but decreased yield
  2. Cloudy Trichome – High in energetic
  3. Amber Trichome – can make you couchlock high
  4. Mixed Trichome – the Combined high effect of head and body

Now let us proceed to the harvesting in step by step process.

Things you will need:

  • Powder-free hand gloves
  • Sharp trimming scissors
  • Clear container jars
  • 99 % isopropyl alcohol

For the Powder-free hand gloves, it is necessary when harvesting. The buds can be sticky when you harvest them using with bare hands. The THC is responsible for the sticky substance of the cannabis, if you let the THC stuck with your hands then there is a tendency that you are smoking less potent bud. Use sharp scissors to avoid further cutting, in just one snip, buds will not be damaged. Plastic containers as your holder for the buds. Alcohol is optional, but you can use this to get the resin off the scissors.


Now let us proceed to the proper procedure. Here is the step by step process on how to harvest the weed:

Step 1: Carefully tug the fan leaves in a downward direction.

Slowly pluck the fan leaves in a downward position. You do not need a tool for this, only the hand gloves that you are wearing is necessary. Since the leaves do not contain cannabinoids, at this point you do not need this.

Step 2: Trim the branches with colas or buds.

Grab the scissors then trim the buds off the stems. This is to manipulate the buds easier. To keep you organized, you can trim the cannabis plants branch by branch, because there are plants that are bushy and big, this process is faster and easier. You can start from the top then downwards.

Step 3: Cure the buds by trimming the leaves and areas around the buds.

Cure the buds to improve the quality of the flowers. You have to consider the proper handling using these three parameters, the temperature, humidity, and light. After you have worked on trimming, starting from the top then downward, you can now put it in a clear container jar.

Note that you also need the excess leaves that you have trimmed off, you need that for your hash later on. Do not waste every leaves that you have cut off.  After you have done this, you may now proceed to wash.

Step 4:  The three-bucket-method washing.

Now, this can be optional, however, this has become an internet sensation over the 420 crowds. This method makes your buds more creamy for washing all the contamination. Since some of us are using the fertilizers, hence we want to shake it off to avoid residual fertilizers that might affect the taste of the smoke. This makes sniffing the buds harsh and could be unpleasant too. Why I consider this an optional? Because if you cultivate your buds in an organic way, no fertilizers added, you can skip this step or you do not need to wash it heavily.

What you need to do the washing method:

Prepare three with five gallons of buckets each. For the first bucket, it should be room temperature added with one cup of baking soda and one cup of lemon juice. For the second bucket, warm tap water. And lastly, one bucket of cold tap water.

What you should do:

Immerse the entire bud or the branch into the bucket one then take out and let the water fall off. Next, do the same method for the second bucket, dip and drip off. Then do the same thing with the third bucket, dip, and drop off process.

After you have done the whole process, hang the branch or bud for one day so that it will be totally dried. Then you may proceed to the curing process. When drying out your buds, it is normal that it will lose about 75% of its weight.

For the curing, it is necessary to increase the potency level and it will make the buds tastier. This process will be tackled separately.

To sort this whole process, we can summarize it:

  • The removal of the fan leaf
  • Dry the buds
  • De-stemming process
  • Sorting by sizes
  • Trimming the buds
  • Washing the buds
  • Curing the buds

The whole process is easy, it takes time, effort and patience to successfully finish the whole procedure. For us cannabis cultivators, harvesting is the most exciting part, this is the time that we tend to be more high, not by the effect of the buds but rather the harvesting itself. By following the given ways on how to harvest your cannabis, you can never go wrong. You do not need to be a professional cultivator to successfully manage the harvesting process. How about trying this now? Take it slowly but surely, and the rest will follow. Everything will set in place as long as you religiously do the same drill as mentioned. Happy harvesting!

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