These blooms were fashionably late—like any proper showgirl. Cue Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” on heavy rotation here for the month of October. Croptober, is when things got Actually Romantic in the hemp bed.
I’m an old hand at growing female-only cannabis outdoors, but this mixed-gender field was a whole new kind of show. With traditional cannabis, the males are culled early to keep those beautiful smokeable buds from seeding. But with hemp, we want the seeds—tiny nutritional powerhouses packed with all nine essential amino acids. Some of these gorgeous seeding buds were a rich purple hue, and finally seeing these girls in their glory was enough to make me cry my eyes violet.
The wind was also toppling a few of my now top-heavy beauties, but honestly, they just kept growing sideways—true stars, finding their light no matter the angle.
And my boys? These tall redwood trees were working overtime—dusting pollen like opalite confetti. With a little help from the foothills wind, I knew their magic wand’s dust was drifting straight down to The Showgirls. It is not uncommon for a single plant to express both male and female parts, and that is honestly lovely, but I didn’t see it in my bed this season.
The real surprise? The bees! These males were covered in them—an absolute buzz fest. I’d go out just to watch them dancing through the lightning strikes. As I watched them roll up big balls of pollen so late in the season, I thought, I guess you're starving till you’re not. Female cannabis flowers never draw bees like this, so it hit me: hemp is a brilliant late-season bloomer, giving pollinators one last reason to say, “thank you for the lovely bouquet.” All I could think to say was, “You can call me honey if you want.”
By the end of the month, I could see the seeds starting to form, but they were not ready to pull yet. It was a bit of a gamble to leave them growing into November, but seeds were on my wish list, so we are gonna ride it out.
Normally, Croptober means trimming, drying, curing my cannabis buds—but not this time. Cue my Halloween jump scare: I had no plan whatsoever for what to do with all of these mature hemp plants. As their Father Figure, I had to sort it out fast, so I whispered to myself, “I protect the family.”
