Soma Seeds - Official website growtips, cannabis articles, galleries and movies!

Seeds As An Art Form

Appie — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:07:51 +0000

Connoisseur medical grade cannabis seeds are an art. Seeds can travel, far and wide. They have a long shelf life and can change a person’s life forever if used in the right way. Seeds are the beginning. How they end up is up to each individual’s care and enthusiasm.

Seeds are the start of new life, and the combinations that one can come up with are literally endless. You can mix Indica with Sativa and Indica with Indica or Sativa with Sativa and each time it’s done something new in the genetic code has the chance to surface and be enjoyed by us humans. Medical grade cannabis seeds have the potential to heal millions of people who would be helped by the soothing, stress relieving properties of cannabis.

When I start some new seeds the first thing I do is soak them overnight in some pure water. Then I place the seeds on a strong paper towel put some water on it and place it in a warm dark place for the next 12-24 hours. I then open up the paper towel and voila, there is a little white tail on the seed, which then gets planted with the seed casing pointing up. I use a very mild soil to start with because a young seedling can- not handle strong fertilizer until about 2 weeks later. I then transplant the seedling into a strong cannabis soil like All-mix and let it do its thing. Like my friend Adam from T.H.seeds say’s “ Drop Seeds Not Bombs.”

Happy plants

Appie — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:10:29 +0000

In the many years that I am growing Cannabis plants, I have come to know how to recognize the signs of happiness.

Happy plants are a sight to see……..Deep GREEN leaves holding themselves up and open to the light with strong stalks.

When you walk into your grow room what you see is what you get. I always take a deep look at the plants in my room. I look at the color of the leaves to see if they are the right color green. I don’t want them to be pale and dull looking. When a marijuana leaf is healthy it has a shine to it, when it is sick it looks dull.
Just like humans, cannabis plants have body language. A healthy pot plant holds its leaves in a slightly upright manner without bending its tips. It does not have discoloration in any area of the leaves. When a leaf is taken off and the underside examined, no spider mites or eggs are seen. My best friend in accomplishing an insect free garden is Neem oil. When sprayed on your plants every 3 days until the 4th week of flowering, you will have no bug problems. Neem oil is safe, organic and will not harm beneficial insects.
Knowing when to water your plants is an essential part of being a cannabis farmer. Cannabis does not like too much water; it needs soil with air in it. Good aeration and drainage that’s what cannabis roots are looking for. It all depends what kind of growing system you are using to get the feel of when and how much water to use. With my growing beds it is once every 3 days, as it takes about 3 days for the soil to get on the dry side. When I use pots it usually takes only 2 days to get dry.
PH is all-important. Having a good PH meter at your side in the grow room is essential. When I first started growing I thought that PH 7 was the best range for cannabis. I have since found that cannabis likes 6.2 to 6.6 in the soil. When I Ph the water I am going to use, I bring it down with citric acid. In Amsterdam it starts from the tap at PH 8.3, so I add enough to bring it down to PH 6.0. The PH only gets lowered for a brief period of time and starts to go up again within about 8 hours. Starting out at 6.0 when you add it, the PH goes up slowly. As it goes up to different levels the plants get access to different nutrients. As the intake of nutrients varies within the PH range of 6.2 to 6.6, the plant gets a chance to acquire what it needs at the different levels.
Good ventilation and air movement are essential in having happy plants. I have a big exhaust fan attached to a charcoal filter that creates suction on the door when I open it. About half the size of my exhaust fan is my fresh air fan bringing in fresh air, rich with carbon dioxide. I also have 2 circulating fans to move the air around so that there are no stale air pockets.
You can’t let your room get too hot or you will not have happy plants. I try to keep it between 22 and 27 degrees centigrade. It can take temps higher than 35 for very short periods, but I would try and avoid it.
People who smoke my weed tell me it tastes so good. I tell them its because I use Guano. The Guano I use has an NPK of 2-15-2; I mix it in the soil and also add it as a tea. Guano is the food of choice for great tasting cannabis. (www.guanokalong.nl)
I am always repeating this, because it is the most common problem with cannabis growers. Don’t pick it early, when it looks like it’s ready wait a week. That is one of the most important things I can tell you.
My favorite part of growing happy plants is when people smoke the weed that has had a happy life. They notice how great it tastes and smells, and the high is clear and clean, with no pesticide residues, and no chemical taste.
In the cannabis world there are so many chemical formulas, pesticides, super plant foods etc. Read the ingredients and think about whether you want to ingest them or not. Even though we don’t eat the weed, we still consume it, and I for one don’t want to consume any chemical poisons in order to have a bigger bud.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I am including some choice photos of some very happy plants, bursting with energy, getting ready to give me back all the love I have shown them.
When growing indoors, the farmer becomes even more important to the plants. It is the farmer who controls the water, light, fertilizer, timing, and most of all, the loving care.

Happy plants make happy people.

Keep it GREEN and Loving Soma

www.somaseeds.nl

Soma’s Amnesia Haze

Appie — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:24:53 +0000

Amnesia Haze is a very complicated genetic cross. You have the magnificent Southeast Asian genetics, (Thai sticks, Cambodian, Laotian) of which were my all time favorites. Then you have the fine Jamaican Haze varieties with their high THC percentage and sharp flavor. It also has an Afghani-Hawaiian genetic crossed in, speeding up the flowering time and further enhancing the taste. The result is a strain that has won first place in 3 different cannabis contests in the Netherlands in the past 2 years, including The High Times Cannabis Cup 2004. Barney’s Breakfast Bar won first place for the all-around Cannabis Cup with the Amnesia Haze that he got from me. It has continued to be one of his best sellers to this present date. For a grower the Amnesia Haze is a slight challenge, taking up to 13 weeks to finish flowering, but with the excellent yield and amazing high and taste, it is well worth it.

Soma

Rolling Bowl

Appie — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:37:11 +0000

The ripening of the fruit

Appie — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:50:01 +0000

I hope you have been having as much fun as I have with your little seedlings, ( actually not so little now ). I’m now in my favorite stage of the growing , the ripening of the fruit, the flowers. Remember don’t get to excited about your sweet smelling bud so that you pick it before it’s done. The worst thing you can do is pick it early. My motto is “if it looks like it’s ready wait a week “. When your plants are in the 6th week of flowering there is a fine technique of rolling a special type of Spliff . You roll a joint of some of your favorite weed ( preferably some you grew with your own hands and heart ), then you take it and gently roll it on the resin glands of your glistening buds. After a few moments of gentle rolling you will see clear sticky resin sticking to the outside of the rolling paper, coating it with a natural kind of hash oil. When enough resin is on the joint you are ready to light it up. It’s one of my favorite ways of smoking cannabis and can only be done in the 6th week of flowering.
The first clone you take off the top of your seedlings will have double nodes like a seedling, where as clones taken later on will have alternate nodes. These make good mothers.
In the 6th week of flowering, with about 3 or 4 weeks to go there are a few extra precautions you can take to insure a healthy insect free harvest. Assuming that you sprayed neem oil twice a week up to the beginning of the fourth week of flowering, you should have no insect problems. At this point though you can not spray neem oil any longer as you would ruin the taste of the weed. What you can do is put a container of Ladybugs in your grow space as well as a container of predator mites. I like to think of my space as the place where the ladybugs come to dance, these friendly little creatures are great role models for us, never fighting amongst themselves. When it’s the hot time of year spider mites can multiply very quickly as well as thrips and white flies. With the Ladybugs and predator mites getting the stronghold first the possible invaders have no chance.
In the last weeks the plants start to use less water so it is important to keep close contact with your plants, you don’t want to over water them. Over watering can cause the buds to mold from the inside out . From the outside the bud will look perfectly fine but will be ruined on the inside, so be careful not to water to much in the last weeks. I only feed the plants through the 7th week, then for the last three weeks I give them just water to flush the fertilizer from the soil , giving the plants a clean taste.
It’s important to give a lot of thought to where and how you will dry your crop that you have been working so hard on. Drying cannabis has an extremely strong odor and can really grab the attention of your neighbors, so you must prepare for this. Charcoal filters work well, some growers I know already having a filter in there grow room, turn the grow room into the drying room after they turn the lights off.
The filter sucks all of the smell through the charcoal making it undetectable to your neighbors.
I want to remind all of you out there trying this, that the thoughts you think create your reality. It is important to think positive life affirming thoughts when working with the plants. These are Sacred plants you are working with and they are very sensitive to what kind of thoughts are happening around them. They dislike very much thoughts of greed and power, but of course it’s up to you.
The more of us who grow cannabis, the more genetic variety becomes available to us to choose from, the combinations are endless. As the Genetic engineer of Soma Seeds I know that it is quite amazing what you can come up with if you put your heart into it. Check out the “Rock Bud”.
In the next installment of “Grow with Wisdom” I will cover drying , manicuring, curing, storing and of course smoking my favorite part.

Happy gardening Soma

Harvesting with Soma

Appie — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:41:40 +0000

Harvesting the fruit of any crop you have been working your heart and hands with, is a very fulfilling experience. With cannabis it is even more fulfilling. After all you are working with one of the main sacred plants on planet earth, harvesting it is definitely more intense than harvesting apples. In many ways though it is similar to an apple harvest. In harvesting a fair amount of apples, you need a good working team who you can trust and depend on, and you need a few important tools of the trade. You need ladders, apple baskets, a place to wash the apples, containers for storing and packing, and someone to do quality control, making sure that there are no bad apples in the bunch. With a cannabis harvest you need an even better team of people you can trust and depend on, and you need some important tools of the trade. You need some pruning shears, some real sharp sturdy scissors, some type of clothes line type of set-up that you can hang the plants on, a smell proof room that’s dry and cool and if possible a T-55 silkscreen to work over when your doing the manicuring.
The most important factor in a marijuana harvest is that it is not picked too early, I can’t stress this enough, it is one of the main mistakes humans make when harvesting. I’m going to go over some things not to do.
Don’t look in your wallet for the date of the harvest, in your wallet you will only find things that have to do with money. Money should not be a factor for when the harvest should be done. Try to avoid this mistake.
Don’t look at the calendar except for knowing when the full moon and new moon are taking place. Harvesting by the calendar does not work well at all. Some people start seeds that are supposed to take a certain amount of time to finish their cycle, whatever the particular seed package say’s, and as soon as that amount of time passes, they harvest. Harvest with your heart, let your heart guide you. Having let yourself become good friends with your plants, you are always looking at them just like a good human friend. In looking closely at them, that exact point in time when the green tomato turns red, or when the green banana turns yellow is noticed by you, the gardener with the green thumb. When the white hairs on the buds of your cannabis plants are not forming any longer, and all the places where the red hairs are, the calyx’s, are becoming very swollen and many visible THC crystals can be seen it’s time to harvest. To double check, smell the top of the plant, rub it with your fingers, smell your fingers, if it smells like the most wonderful hash perfume you ever smelled, then you are ready to harvest the fruit of your labor.
Taking the pruning shears you cut the plant underneath the bottom branch, then you remove only the large fan leaves, saving them to cook with. Then you hang the plants up.
Hanging the plants upside down on a clothes line is easily done by using the natural crooks of the plant. Select a strong bottom branch, then hang that branch over the clothes line, remember these plants are being hung in a smell proof room with a dry, cool temperature. Keep hanging your plants in a row being careful not to crowd them to much. It usually takes at least 10 days to 14 days to dry before you start the final manicuring. Now comes the part when you really need your trustworthy team of friends. You need a good large table, glass ones work very well, with your T-55 silkscreen placed over the table, making sure that glass is underneath all of the screen. Next arrange a comfortable seating arrangement for you and your friends around the table, with each person having their own sharp sturdy scissors. Have some really fun music on to enhance the mood. To make sure the plants are dry enough I take one of the stems and try to snap it, if it is still rubbery it’s not dry enough to manicure. You have to wait until the stem snaps with a good snapping noise only then you know it is ready to clip.
I only use the scissors for cutting the stems with and I take the extra fine leaf off with my fingers. After a while you adopt quite a fine technique of moving your fingers carefully around the dried buds, making sure not to damage the best part, but also making sure to get every bit of extra leaf off. You keep putting the leaf in a bag as it builds up, and under the silkscreen you get the heaviest resin glands that fall off when the plants are being moved and clipped. On your fingers you start to notice resin building up where you have been constantly touching the plants. When you have a good amount you take it off by first making sure all the leaf sticking to your fingers is gently rubbed off, then over a small bowl you rub all your resined fingers together enough so all the hash comes off into the bowl. Next roll the hash in the bowl together into one piece and voila you have your fresh piece of organically grown charas.
The buds that have been manicured I place on a screen to finish drying out, I double check them for extra leaf, and if there is any I take it off. When the buds are dry enough for the stem to snap when broken in half,
I place the finely manicured buds in a large glass canning jar, and leave them in there closed over night. Being in the closed jar makes the buds re-hydrate from the inside of the stem to the outside of the buds. I then open the jar again, making sure the cannabis is the perfect consistency, texture, smell, and flavor.
I then put my jars away in a cool dark place and they are good for at least 18 months or longer.
Smoking the sacred herb that you grew with your hands and heart, together with your friends and family is one of the most fun and fulfilling actions that can be done by any aspiring hippie. Seeing the medicinal grade weed that you grew truly help someone who is very ill with something like cancer, can bring tears to your eyes. Growing sacred herb is powerful stuff, treat it with integrity and it will help you find it within yourself. Don’t lose your courage, keep it green Soma

Growing with The Heart

Appie — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:24:31 +0000

I am writing this article to share what I feel is the most important ingredient of growing excellent cannabis.
In our modern age we can order all we need right over the Internet without even leaving our homes. All the material items that is. There is still the one ingredient that has to be cultivated. Doing with the Heart. When working with the plants you let your Heart guide you. You think of some of the people either in your own family or outside of it that this medicine will really help. That way as you farm it you visualize the healing nature of the crop.
When humans farm cannabis for medical purposes they give much more thought and care about what they put on it, and in it. I like to use neem oil for insect control. I can easily get it on my skin or mouth without any bad effects. The spider mites can’t stand it though, and many other pests as well. I enjoy growing on soil. Organic soil. When using earth as your growing medium, you get the full chance of using guano’s as your chief fertilizers. The taste and THC quality achieved using guano’s surpasses every other type of food I have ever used. When flushed correctly (a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks) from the time of harvest, nothing tastes better than the guano. It is used at many organic fruit farms to make the fruit taste and grow as good as possible.
When I am growing I like to imagine myself as the plant. I think is there enough fresh air? Enough air movement? Not too hot? Not too cold? Any light leaks when the lights are off? Any bugs crawling on me? PH correct? Now there’s a subject PH. The PH is all-important, without the PH being correct you can never get a great crop. Cannabis likes to take up different nutrients in a whole range of PH. When the PH is between 5.8 and 7.0 cannabis grabs the nutrients it needs. Nitrogen will be absorbed at one level while Zinc will be absorbed at a slightly different level. When the PH of the water you are using is lowered to the desired level it automatically starts to go back up with time. As it goes through the range of between 6.0 and 7.0 it is able to take up all the nutrients that are needed. When that range is incorrect ( below 5.8 or above 7.0) you get whats called fertlizer-lock-up. Although there may be plenty of nutrients present in your growing medium, the plants are unable to take them out of the soil because of the PH imbalance between the molecules of the plant and the soil. There are several ways that the plant will react if the PH is off. Leaves will curl up or down with a cringe, almost looking like a human hand tightening in an uncomfortable position. The color of the leaves will lose its deep green color and become paler. The leaves will also lose their shine and become duller looking. The tips of the leaves will have a slight burning, or the entire leaf may turn yellow and fall off. Calibrate your PH meter at least once a month ( they go off ).
Its important to spend some of your time with your plants, they breathe in your carbon dioxide, and you their oxygen. It is a non-verbal interchange between you and your plants where you exchange life-enhancing elements with each other. It also gives you the time to look closely at the leaves to see if you see anything that should not be there. I am definitely aware of a healing that happens to my being as I gaze at the plants, their leaves moving in the breeze, their green hues entering my eyes, the fresh air, I pour my heart into them, and they pour their heart into me and mine. Try putting the Heart into everything you do.

Love and Light……..Soma

Growing with Guano

Appie — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:56:40 +0000

People I meet and smoke with always ask me, how do you get your pot to taste so good. I am an intense caretaker and lover of plants, when I do it I am fanatical in working with them, making little sacrifices in my own life so that the plants can feel the best they can.
I always think medicine first, bills, money, problems, second.
To get medicinal cannabis I grow on organic soil, rich in worm castings and all the other nutrients and trace minerals needed for a healthy weed plant. I don’t use pots to grow my buds, I use beds, flowering beds. These beds are made of wood put together with metal braces and screws; they are on wheels that rotate 360 degrees. They are 1.25 meters wide by 1.25 meters long and 35 centimeters high, (sorry after being here so long I think in centimeters). They are lined with waterproof plastic. The bottom 5 centimeters is clay pebbles called Hydrocorals. I then take plastic coated chicken wire and place it on top of the hydrocorals. On top of that I put a layer of felt root cloth, the kind most nurseries use under their potted plants. Roots of the Marijuana plant love air so I mix a lot of perlite in with my organic soil mix before filling the beds up. In each corner of the bed, I have a PVC tube 70 MM wide and 35 centimeters long. The tube goes down into the hydrocorals, through the root cloth, up through the 25 centimeters of soil, leaving 5 centimeters above the soils surface. These 4 tubes in each bed help the roots to have a constant air- flow, and the hydrocorals underneath make it almost impossible to over-water your garden.
The plants are spaced out as evenly as possible affording each plant as much light and space as they can get. They are given liberal amounts of black and brown seaweeds, both foliar and in the soil until the end of the 3rd week in flowering. Each plant has at least one stake supporting it as the buds get heavier and heavier. Leading up to the 3rd week in flowering, I have twisted and bent my tops in the tried and true method of super-cropping, giving them that added stress which makes the yield and taste better. In the 4th week, I give the plants some organic flowering food with an NPK of 1.5-13-14. I give it to the plants twice in that week. From the end of the 4th week in 12/12, I start to give the ganja my secret ingredient, Guano tea. The guano I use is a mix of bat and seabird guanos with an NPK of 2-15-2; this particular one comes from Indonesia. I like it because it has no smell. I take 100 grams of the dried guano and mix it with 2 quarts of hot water, stirring it with a plant stake until it is almost all dissolved. I then take an 8-ounce cup of the tea and add it to 10 liters of water with a PH of 6.6. I water the beds twice a week with this tea waiting until they are dry before applying it. I keep doing this until the middle of the 7th week in 12/12. With 10-week plants like the ones I’m growing now, I like to give them a good flush with water for two weeks or more before harvest.
In the 32 years I have been growing this most Sacred of plants, I have tried all kinds of plant foods, from miracle grow, to 10-52-10 with all its heavy metals. I have never found anything that beat the guanos for taste, yield or potency. It is 100% organic besides.
The taste that the cannabis acquires when using this guano is so fruity and clean tasting that the taste lingers on your tongue for at least 5 minutes after finishing the joint. The bud quality and yield that comes from using the beds instead of pots is incomparable. I use nothing but neem oil and ladybugs for insect control, and I only take the large fan leaves off when I first harvest the plants, waiting until the plants are dry before the final manicuring. There are so many Mango farmers out there using guano fertilizers on their crops. If you want, the fruit of your labor to taste like mangos try growing with guano.
Wishing all you farmers out there, bountiful green harvests with the taste and smell of fine fruit.

Keep it GREEN Soma….any questions?……..www.somaseeds.nl

Tips for your summer crop

Appie — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:41:47 +0000

Growing some plants outside in the summer can be a great learning experience. There are a few rules to consider. You must use the correct genetics for your climate. Choosing strains that take too long to finish in a cold environment is something to be avoided. Also you want to have a bud structure that will not mold easily, not too dense.
Another important factor is the right soil mix. A mix that is cannabis friendly is essential. Many soil mixes are the wrong PH and have the wrong combinations of nutrients, so when you get your soil do a thorough check of the NPK and the ingredients. Make sure that the soil has good drainage so it can handle being rained on a lot and coping with it by not becoming too soggy.
Cannabis plants love full sun, so think carefully about where they are placed. I always super-crop my plants, and outside I even do it more.
By super-cropping I mean a structured bending of the branches. This is a handy technique for controlling height and shape. Plants can be bent multiple times to obtain the desired dimensions.
Here is how it is done. I usually wait until a plant is about 10 inches high, then with my thumb and forefinger I roll the stem in-between my fingers gently squeezing them together. I do this at about 3 inches from the tip of the branch. You can feel a crunching sound as the inner pulp of the cannabis plant is pressed together. After your plant has been bent, you must leave it be for a few days, making sure that the bent part does not receive any extra stress.
Within 24 hours you will notice that the tips of the branches are already starting to point upwards again, and within a week have turned directly back to the sky.
What I like to call “elbows” start to form where the bend was made, and with time get stronger and stronger. All of the side branches next to the elbows get much bigger and stronger to make up for the injury and stress.
These bends can be made quite a few times on the same plant through time but only while they are in the vegging phase. You end up with a plant with multiple top colas all of a large size.
Besides getting a larger yield per plant and more tops it also improves the overall health of the plant. This is also a great technique for keeping your plant from getting too tall.
I have compared buds from the same strain that were super-cropped with buds that were left alone, and my feeling is that the super-cropped plants were always better. The main stalks are greatly strengthened by the super-cropping helping them to withstand strong winds and heavy rains.
Even though I am primarily an indoor grower, when it gets to be this time of year, I can’t help but have a few outside, its just so nice to see the natural sun at work.
Growing in a climate like Holland, most cannabis has a hard time finishing up before it gets too wet and cold. One solution to this is to make a lightproof box big enough to place over the entire plant. Start to give it 12 hours of light in the last days of July and it will finish by the end of September, before it gets too cold and wet.
All of these cultivation methods are a little extra work, but are well worth the time and energy.
I don’t know about you, but I sure love having a few sacred cannabis plants around just to look at, even if I never get to smoke them.
Being a medicinal user it has become even more important to me to grow and study this magnificent healing plant, and getting a chance to study it outside in the sunshine is a real treat.

Keep it GREEN……..Peace Soma

Knowing When To Harvest

Appie — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:17:43 +0000

I have a lot of e-mail coming to me these days asking me advice on when to harvest.
I tell people things like “ Don’t follow your calendar too closely”. “When it looks like its ready wait a week”. “Don’t pick it early”.
One of the downfalls of many growers out there is, not knowing the correct time to cut their plants down.

Nothing in the cannabis world is more unsatisfying than a beautiful plant picked early. Anyone out there who has tried a green banana, knows that they don’t taste very good, especially when it is compared to a nice yellow one with some brown spots. With cannabis it is even more drastic. Buds that are not ripe are not fun to smoke, providing you with burning cellulose instead of THC. Only ripe buds have the right kind of THC that carries the medicinal effect.

Cannabis that is picked early has the chlorophyll smell of fresh cut grass from your front lawn. When it is picked on time it has a strong perfume that smells like the finest hash.

Many new growers get some seeds, read the flowering time for the strain, and proceed to pick their plants on an exact calendar date. What they forget is that many factors can stunt a plants growth, making it take much longer to mature.

Another factor is not having anything good to smoke. Your plants get close to finishing and not having anything good to smoke you cut them down before they are finished, missing the best part. Most people don’t realize what they have done until the weed has dried and they taste it.
Paranoia is another cause of picking plants too soon. Trouble with neighbors because of smell often makes people harvest early.

I always tell people to use a good charcoal air filter to eliminate the odor. Not just when you are growing, but when you are drying also.
Having a small microscope for checking out the trichomes on your live plant is a handy tool to have in your gardening room. What you are looking for is slightly amber colored liquid filled balls on top of a stalk. If all the trichomes are clear it is too early to pick. When they start to look a little milky they are getting close. One-third amber colored trichomes is what you are seeking in ripe marijuana.
In the Amsterdam coffeeshops, the buyers of the shops continually turn down marijuana that is picked too early. Growers that count on their crop to feed their families would have to change jobs if they picked their crop early.
Knowing how to dry cannabis is an art in itself. What you don’t want is quick drying. First select an environment that is not too dry or hot. About 55% humidity is good and a temperature of 22 C. What you want is a slow cure that gently let’s the chlorophyll escape from the cells of the plant. If it is dried quickly it will get locked inside the herb, making it harsh and giving it a bad taste.
When I first cut the plants down I only remove the large fan leaves. I then hang them upside down for about 10 days letting them slowly dry into sort of teardrop shaped buds. Next step is manicuring which I like to do with mostly my fingers, using the scissors for cutting the stems. After all the fine leaf has been removed, I place the buds inside a glass jar to re-hydrate for about 8 hours. I save the fine leaf for making water hash, which is one of my favorite medicinal products.
In my 37 years of cannabis cultivation and research, I again point out that the most common problem growers have is picking their plants to early.
Knowing how to judge ripeness in fruits, plants and people is an art worth cultivating.

When cannabis is grown for medicine, when it is grown and cured as the sacred herb that it truly is, every way that it is worked with becomes sacred.
It is easy for this sacredness to spread to other areas of your life. Keep it GREEN and Loving Soma