hemp plant hanging upside down
| | | | | |

It’s Hemp Flower Harvest Time!

The 2025 hemp flower harvest is in! Although the plants were smaller this year, most likely due to weather, the flowers look and smell fabulous. Couldn’t have asked for better weather during the final crucial weeks of flowering, with warm sunny days and cool nights.

While it’s been exceedingly dry, the positive aspect of that is we haven’t had the fall fog, drizzle, or extended rain that favors mold. Have seen almost none this year, just a handful of tiny isolated spots which were immediately removed during daily field inspections.

Also pleased to report that no pests or disease were able to get a foothold–I chalk that up to having healthy, resilient plants with strong natural defenses. But certainly the weather this fall has helped. Organic and regenerative farming methods and rotating the crop to a different field each year also help avoid those sorts of issues.

hemp flower ripening in the field
Flowers are inspected daily during the harvest season and the ones that are fully ripe get designated for cutting the next morning.

Harvesting Before Sunrise

As always, the flowers are harvested just before dawn when the terpenes are strongest. Ever notice how plants outside seem especially fragrant in the early morning? That’s because they’ve spent the night replenishing their terpenes, which fade as the day progresses.

Although it’s not always easy rising before the sun, harvesting hemp under the starlight just as darkness begins to fade on the eastern horizon is not a bad way to start your day. It’s an extraordinarily peaceful, quiet time.

dog by hemp plant with sun rays
Toby is an indispensable part of the harvest as you can see. Here’s he’s supervising as I inspect the hemp plants in the late afternoon. Any plants with flowers at peak ripeness get marked for harvesting the next morning.

Dry and Cure

The plants are hand cut at the base and immediately hung upside down in the cool morning air. We separate individual branches, remove the leaves, rinse the flowers in fresh water, then hang to dry outside in the shade for the day. In the late afternoon the branches are brought into the drying shed, where they hang for roughly 1 week. Then the flowers are removed from the branches, trimmed, and stored in airtight glass containers for curing.

As the hemp cures, we’ll send a sample to the lab for a full analysis: cannabinoid content, terpene profile, and screening for contaminants. After a month of curing, the flower will be ready (2024 flower is currently 40% off, this year’s flower will be available later in October).

hemp flowers hanging
After removing most of the leaves and gently rinsing the flowers to remove any pollen, dust, or anything else that may have settled on the flowers in the field, the individual branches are hung in the shade for the rest of the day. Then they get moved into the drying shed before the flowers are removed and placed into airtight glass containers for curing.

Giving Thanks

The full moon next Monday (10/6) will be the “Harvest Moon,” traditionally an occasion for celebrating Nature’s bounty. We’ll certainly be giving thanks here for another successful hemp flower harvest–an immeasurable gift from the land.

Similar Posts

  • | |

    Why All Our CBD Products Are Tested

    Why do we have all our products tested by a lab for potency and purity? Maine doesn’t require CBD testing and it’s expensive but we do it anyway. The CBD market is largely unregulated so there are poor quality and even potentially dangerous products out there. Label Accuracy Take potency. Researchers have found that CBD…

  • | |

    Outdoor Sungrown Flower: What the Science Says

    Why do we grow our hemp flower outdoors rather than in the more controlled environment of an indoor space? Two main reasons we prefer outdoor sungrown flower: In our subjective experience–and we’re certainly not alone here–flower grown outside in living soil is better than flower grown indoors. Better in the sense that it has superior…

  • | | |

    Is Organic CBD Oil Better?

    As an organic hemp grower and processor, I’m sometimes asked: why bother doing everything organically? Is organic CBD oil better than conventional? That’s a fair question. After all, it’s not always clear what “organic” means or how it really makes a difference. And because there’s so much marketing hype around CBD, it’s tempting to dismiss…

  • |

    Harvest Report

    It’s hemp harvest time at Bald Mountain Botanicals! We had a great year in 2022 all in all and the plants are looking just fantastic. Big plump flowers ripening in the autumn sun–the highlight of the year when all the hard work pays off. Other than about 6 weeks of drought in the second half…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *