As we start the new year and take a moment to look back at the 2023 growing season, I can attest that we have had a successful year. I'd intended to break this up into multiple mini articles, but it's been super busy and ADHD brain would not allow it. This update is a long one, so here are some links to skip ahead.
Harvest Festival
I half expected our first harvest festival to end in failure. That apart from a handful of friends there wouldn't be any interest, and we would have no attendees. The first few hours of the morning festivities seemed to confirm that assumption to be correct. We already had scheduling conflicts with many of our interested vendors earlier in the week, and lost two confirmed vendors that morning. Almost two hours had passed from our opening hour and there was nary a soul in sight. It seemed the day was going to deliver a dose of reality with a side of dream crushing disappointment. However, all of this changed with our first visitors, that had driven almost two hours from Springfield to attend. We became so busy I gave hourly tours to better accommodate the flow of visitors, with our peak time from 12-4. In total we had approximately 75 people in attendance with many driving up to two hours. Our visitors truly made the day with their enthusiasm in interacting with the hemp field, and their desire to learn about our farming and processing practices. Our first harvest fest was a success, and the few snags we encountered have provided a learning experience we can implement to make future harvest festivals even better. A special thanks goes out to L. Crummy for taking the photos below during her tour.
Harvest
Harvest was completed in two phases this year. Our early harvest strains were removed from the field first directly following the harvest festival at the end of September. Early harvest strains have been bred to accommodate areas with a shorter growing season. These strains initiate the flower period sooner with a greater amount of light hours compared to a standard photoperiod plant. This allows the plant to complete the flowering stage and reach full maturity before harsh weather sets in maximizing yield and cannabinoid content. Our standard photoperiod plants, which I refer to as our late harvest strains, were removed from the field in mid-October. In our growing climate we often have issues with standard photoperiod strains not reaching full maturation due to longer flowering periods or early frost preventing a plant from reaching it's peak maturation. We were fortunate to have cooperative weather this year with the frost holding off until after the first week in October. The late harvest strains this year also had more rapid maturation compared to our late harvest strains last year, which was amazing for us.
Drying, Trimming and Harvest Reports
While harvest marks the end of our planting season work on the farm is far from complete and we shift into the processing stages. Plants are removed from the field, and hung in the shop to begin the drying process. Temperature and humidity is controlled to prevent botrytis from setting in, and the drying area is inspected daily. We ended up overflowing our dying space by 2.5 times this year and were fortunate to have drying completed in two stages as we would not have had space for both early and late harvest strains at once this year. After approximately two weeks (our late harvest strains took 3) plants will be dried and we can begin the first trimming stage.
Once the hemp plants have dried to the proper moisture level the mad dash to complete harvest reports begins. For harvest reports weights must be given separately for CBD material, fiber, and seeds. To give accurate reports we only include flower and leaves in our CBD weights, the stalks would be reported separately in the fiber category if we do eventually have the machinery to process these or find a processor. We start our first trimming stage by removing all flowers and leaves from the hemp stalks by hand to complete the harvest reports. These are due to the state December 1st and we just barely completed the deadline finishing our last plant that morning. Altogether we produced 186 pounds 0.5 ounces for the year. Next the plants need to cure in special bags for at least 1 month, this helps the plants reach optimum moisture levels and provide a better quality. We typically also place these inside of their own individual boxes to help with light depravation when working in the shop, but we ran out this year.
End of year
In December our Early harvest strains completed their minimal one month cure so we could start the second phase of trimming and product packing. This consists of separating leaf material from the flowers, which will be used for making other products (that we complete in the spring). Then the flowers are manicured and packaged for sale. Once again we use specialized packaging that preserves terpenes and cannabinoids, keeps the flowers at optimum humidity, and enhances the cure. No one wants dry tasteless flowers. This process will likely take until planting time in the spring to complete for the entire harvest.
If you have visited the website recently you will have noticed several changes. The final month of the year was spent updating product photos, expanding descriptions of our new strains, correcting differences in the shop display grid, and making optimizations for the websites SEO. Overall the site is looking much better! And that is all for our end of year. Thank you for spending a second year with us and following our journey!