Equipment
Latex or nitrile gloves should be worn whenever working with cannabis flowers. The resin from the flowers will quickly coat your fingers making it difficult to work. My favorite scissors are long thin florist shears. Perfect for getting into tight spaces between the flowers when harvesting. I use a mechanical trimmer on the flowers after they are removed from the stems. This is a great time saving device.
Cutting and trmming
I have a work table in the basement with space to set up the trimmer and pans for the flowers. The trimmer has rubber fingers that push the flowers around while a sharp blade is spinning just below the grate. I may run the flowers through the trimmer after drying to clean them up a bit more.
After removing the top flowers I will lower the lights a bit. After a couple weeks these flowers will mature and these will be the final harvest. The Gorilla Glue plant in front was first cut about 2 weeks ago and is about ready to harvested. The Golden Tiger v.3 in back just had a second harvest (it is a prolific plant and usually yields three cuttings).
I begin by reducing each flower head into smaller sections and trimming the tips from the small “sugar leaves” before putting in the drying rack. This removes the parts I don’t smoke or vape and speeds up the drying process.
In the post harvest section I cover curing and storage.
The top flowers will be the first to mature 
I can spend several sessions cutting and trimming each plant to spread out the labor 
I pull the colas apart by hand, removing the larger fan leaves 
These are placed in the trimmer 
Trimmed flowers ready for the drier 
Trim 
First day in drier 
Fans to keep the air moving
Growing medical cannabis 