As September has drawn to a close, many outdoor growers are seeing some plants ready to harvest, and others blooming like crazy as well. It’s a wonderful time of year. Even when it’s rainy and cloudy, it is easy to appreciate the cool air and good tidings. Hopefully for all the farms out there growing marijuana outdoors that the weather will be perfect for this year harvest for America’s biggest cash crop: marijuana.

Thick resin attracts the macro lens in Washington, California and Colorado where outdoor growing is happening at on a large scale. For some, this is the third harvest of the year using autoflowering seeds like the ones Arjan and Franco have created at Green House Seed Co. Growing in areas where it is illegal is not advised, and is at the risk of the grower. Patience is a virtue in the marijuana movement.

Crops Being Cut Down

What follows is still a lot of work, it seems. Drying, curing, trimming the bud can take time. Large scale operations will often employ an automatic trimmer, or hire people close to them to do it. Marijuana is still illegal in all places under federal law, but many states have taken actions into their own hands and allowed for the licensed growth and sale of marijuana.

As seen in the Strain Hunter series, many of the world’s largest grows are illegal. See their visit to Columbia, the Lazarat 900 ton bust in Albania, and the U.S. And Italian Plans to start growing more marijuana. Growers experience theft even in legal areas, some disguised as gun wielding police officers but with real guns.

A Flower Whose Time is now

All in the name of the world’s most valuable flower: marijuana. The variety of aromas, from skunky, spicy, earthy like smells to sweet, fruity, or citrus smells are filling gardens and grow house. Then promptly blown away by ventilation or through an o-zoned space. For all of their varieties, they have one thing in common: harvest times between late September and mid-october. Latitudes and ruderalis may vary.

With any luck, more of these buds will be ending up in dispensaries instead of being sold onto the black market, which remains a large problem in many parts of the country. The complete reduction of the black market might never be possible, but if more states were to allow for the safe, legally guarded trade of marijuana, criminal organizations will no longer have the black market funding.