iN PHOTOS: Cannabis harvest approaching in Kamloops, Okanagan gardens
Some gardeners in Kamloops and the Okanagan are getting ready to harvest their cannabis plants, and knowing exactly when to do so can yield the biggest, most potent buds.
Amber Jones from Kelowna doesn’t smoke cannabis but enjoys growing a few plants every year, and knows the signs its time for harvesting.
“You know it’s ready when the plant stops drinking when you water, when the fan leaves start to yellow or fall off, and when the tiny hairs on the buds start to turn a golden brown,” Jones said.
Cannabis buds are the dried flowering part of the plant and prior to harvest will be covered in tiny hair-like structures called trichomes. The buds and trichomes are where the plant concentrates its cannabinoids, the compounds that give a therapeutic affect when smoked or ingested.
The fan leaves are the largest leaves on the plant that take in carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen and are essential for the plant’s growth.
“We’re getting very close now (to harvest), maybe another week at the most,” Kelowna resident Spencer Brooks said in a message to iNFOnews.ca.
The best time to harvest pot plants is during the fall season but harvesting too early reduces yields and harvesting too late will result in impotent buds, according to MJ Seeds Canada. The plant is ready for harvesting when its leaves turn yellow and brown and the buds’ bright green colour starts to fade.
“The trichomes go from a pale white colour to an amber colour so you check with a jewellers' loop for what essentially is ripeness and the hairs will also change from white to orange and when you see about 85% orange hairs you know you’re getting close," Brooks said.
Some growers use pruning shears to remove individual branches from the plant while others chop the plant down at its base. The leaves are then removed from the plants and the plants are hung upside down in dark room where they slowly dry out for a couple of weeks.
This the first year Kamloops gardener Floriane Fleming isn’t growing a pot plant in her yard but in the past she's enjoyed using parts of her harvested cannabis buds in her kitchen.
“We didn’t plant any this year, we don’t smoke it,” she said. “I used to chop the branches off, hang them to dry and then snip the buds and enjoy cooking and baking with them. The climate is perfect here for growing weed outdoors.”
Harvested buds can be put in airtight containers to keep fresh, away from sun and contamination.
In BC, adults ages 19 and up can legally grow up to four non-medical cannabis plants per household, they just can’t be grown in spaces visible from public places or in homes used for licensed child care, and in rentals and stratas that restrict it.
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