Flower( Post-Harvest) Stage— Part 3 by Gerry Donovan, contributing writer
Home Growers Corner
Life Stages: Post-Harvest
What Now?
Flower( Post-Harvest) Stage— Part 3 by Gerry Donovan, contributing writer
The first and most important thing I must reiterate here is— there is no one single correct way to Grow Cannabis. I have tried many ways to grow, harvest, and cure. You can achieve great cannabis by many means; my information should be a foundation upon which you develop your own methods. I know growers who use different cutting, curing, and drying techniques, all with great results. The following are my preferred methods.
Be Aware: The way that you pruned your plant during Veg and Early Flower will severely affect your harvest. If you let the plant grow naturally, you will have a large main bud, a handful of medium buds, and bunches of super-hard, annoying-to-trim popcorn buds. Pruning for a canopy with minimal lower sites will generate more uniform finishing and drying buds.( See photo below.)
My past two articles covered the Plant’ s Life Stages: Adolescence and Adulthood, and concluded with Harvest Time. I covered Harvesting in a previous article( October 2025 issue. You an review that issue at www. TheEvolutionMag. com).
This month, I would like to elaborate a bit on the post-harvest process:
● What to do with your buds.
● How to handle, store, and dry them.
● What is trash material versus keeper material in reference to trimmings; and what to do with that material.
Harvest recap: Wet-trim one branch at a time while the plant is still alive— do not cut the entire plant at the stem as your first step. Defoliate all stemmed leaves, then cut off and trim one( or a couple) of the branches. This allows you to trim what you can as you can. If you get interrupted or need to stop and cannot finish trimming / harvesting the entire plant, the rest of the plant is still alive and ready for you to finish trimming tomorrow.
One plant canopy: No lowers, All Tops!
Keeper Material: Buds, obviously, but also keep all the sugar leaves and bud-leaf trimmings. They are full of trichomes( see photos below) and can be made into hash at home. Unless you know someone who works with plants and might want cannabis leaves, branches, or roots, all of that is your waste material and can just be tossed.
Pre-Defoliation
22 JULY 2026
Post Defoliation ready for final trim.
Buds surrounded by sugar leaves.