After 79 days of flowering, the buds are ready to be cut, dried and cured. I get some pictures before I start cutting the flowers off the plants and enjoy the last moments of these plants before I harvest and turn it into hundreds of buds. I think this yield will be greater than my previous Blue Dream harvest, but time will tell when it comes to weighing them all. The amount of colas formed in this grow is staggering, over 30 total this grow tent and they all look amazing.

Growing Sour Diesel has been fun, its a very stinky plant. Even has a sour smell to it. I guess where it got its name. I do not mind the smell, its part of the fun of growing for me as I do not have any neighbors that would ever notice.

Opening the tent near the end was intense with the amount of smells coming off, I am really curious how much it transfers into what I vape with the terpenes produced.

Using the netting to grow these plants has been quite beneficial. It is known as SCROG in the cannabis growing community.

The netting produces support when the buds get top heavy and helps me form a dense canopy by spreading out the branches. Giving the tent a large fill of four plants taking up all the light space.

Winter is soon to show up around here and its already been quite cold. Dipping into the teens I think two of my four plants started to turn purple. For a 90/10 Sativa to Indica strain this is unusual.

Its funny seeing the buds of two different plants growing next to each other. One turning purple the other staying that classic cannabis green.

This plant put all its energy into the buds, the leaves were all withering near the end. So I think I got the most out of the flowering period for these plants.

Macro shots:

Getting up close to a few buds we can see all of the crystals forming. I check these with a microscope to tell when its time to harvest.

So many buds, they are filling just about every square in the netting.

Hah I love the purple.. curious to see if I find some purple buds.

The twisty shape of some of the buds was cool to see.

Happy frosty plants... Sativa dominant plants tend to look less impressive but I still love them.

Cutting up the plants:

Now its time to put down the camera, put on my gloves and get to work handling many sticky buds. I collect the big leaves I pull and cut off the buds and throw those out.

One of the colas got too close to the light and the tip got all washed out. If my plants get closer than 15 inches to the light they are unhappy. Since my grow tent is only 6 feet tall its a challenge dialing in their height just right.

I get a selfie with one of my best buds, so many colas to pick from but this is my favorite.

Since I use an auto trimmer, I rough cut the buds and get them ready to put them through a machine that trims them very well.

I loosely place them on the cutting machine.

Feels weird to leave them this bushy but its fine, it will cut them all and make some excellent food grade trim for cannabutter. So nothing goes to waste.

I put the lid on, sorry its so dirty its covered in trichomes and needs a good cleaning. Good problems to have I guess.. lol

Cut cannabis buds:

And here is what we get after turning the rotary trimmer twenty times in each direction.

After they dry in a few days the leaves curl and it looks even better.

We can see it does indeed cut the buds a little, but all of that drops down below and I collect so I do not mind.

All of these buds look so tasty, I cannot wait to try them.

I can see all the orange hairs on them, glad the cutter leaves much of that.

A super close up of one of the buds.

Four hours spent trimming these with the machine, it may have taken an entire day by doing it by hand.

Drying the buds:

All of the cut buds go in a basket to dry for two days. I wait until the wet smell has left and just the cannabis scent remains. The wet smell is from all the leaves and its gone usually within 48 hours.

I do my best to make sure no buds touch as that can encourage mold.

Placing all these buds in these is hard, if you bump it all of the buds move and then you have to fix a bunch.. grrr

Its okay, this system of drying them seems the best. I just have to be careful placing all the buds inside.

I filled up two of these drying bags, glad I unpacked both. I have another two when my yields increase. Hopefully I can grow some really tall plants when I build a proper room for them. That should increase the bud yield and I will need all four at that point.

I pull out the cannabis plants that are all cut up now. I throw them root and trunk away, rework the soil to break up an remaining roots. And then start new seeds in the seven gallon smart pots.

The trash can is filled with stems, leaves and the roots of the plants.

So what's next?

I have started four new seeds. Growing a strain called "Zebra Stripe" A cross of three strains, Blueberry Muffin, Blackwater and Alien OG. This plant should turn purple and black if I can get the temperatures low enough. Being winter is on the way I am planning on trying to get some more purple and black buds. They say the strain has a fruit like taste to it, so really curious how much that is true. Its always fun growing new strains to enjoy different properties of the buds.

https://irvineseeds.com/isc-zebra-stripe-fem/

Also once I have jarred up all of my Sour Diesel buds I am going to weigh them and do another "guess the weight" contest for 10 Hive. It was great to see so many people put in guesses for the total gram weight of my harvest. So it will be fun to do that again.