In 2019, I had been Cannabis caregiving for my super senior mom for 2 years. She had been on a Fentanyl patch for treating pain from Scoliosis when Kaiser cut her off for policy reasons instead of medical ones. After trying non-opioid pain medications without success, they told her there was no medical treatment available to treat her pain. She started planning for end of life. I figured Cannabis was our last hope. It wasn’t easy. She could not smoke because of COPD and wanted non-intoxicating doses. Two years in we finally found a tincture formula that worked, but supply was erratic. I needed legalization to be able to make her medicine for her. To get the law changed I need to go to Annapolis.
In 2021 Maryland’s first legalization bill failed to pass (2021). Because I had been working with NORML and attending the bill hearings in person, I knew the reason for failure was political maneuvering and wanted to make a statement. At $10/gram, go ahead and bust me. Any charge would get expunged soon anyway. So why wait for what we should have had?
So I spent a couple of hundred bucks on a privacy fence and some seeds, repurposed a planter and grew an Early Skunk x Northern Lights (beginner genetics from i49.net which is now Seed Supreme) instead of tomatoes. I got 6 ounces of buds. I saved thousands from going to the dispensaries. Winning.
I’m retired. I’ve made cultivation a priority in the routine. The first year it was just daily watering and weekly feeding. NBD. As my grows have grown, the amount of work has grown requiring different tasks to be done at different times of the day at different points during the grow. While the time spent growing is generally not a problem, in 2024 I had health issues preventing me from getting into the garden every day. I lost 75% of my crop due to bud rot from extended rainy weather, but I still set a yield record. Last year I converted over to in ground and was able to get by with less daily TLC. My engineering background drives me to find ways to get more yield with higher quality for the least amount of cost and labor. That said, it was surprising how therapeutic being in the garden and naming your plants is.
Growing has saved me a lot of money. Growing hasn’t changed me, much. I expect to unofficially lose my Brown Thumb status this year. I’ve pretty much run out of huge mistakes to make. People tell me I grow good weed, but the goal is only to get the job done.
Cultivation has changed my mindset about the inherent value of Cannabis. At $10/gram Cannabis was too valuable to let any small spec go to waste. At $2/gram and hundreds of grams on hand, it’s not worth the time to go after scraps and it’s nothing to just give it away by the 8th. Growing my own has given me medicine that better fits my needs. Getting a full year supply at once eliminates the hassle of trying to maintain consistency over the changing menus at dispos.
What I’ve learned about myself is that my system (e.g. aim for good enough, do your home work and manage risks) “works”. I see many people doing what I tried to do and failing. I see even more people not even bothering to try. Last year I convinced a friend to start growing. We both grew the same cultivar from the same seeds. Mentoring him through his first grow was weird because he is a gardener. It was rewarding to help him be successful and interesting to compare results apples to apples.
My strategy for genetics has been all over the map. I’ve purchased seeds from a handful of seed banks (e.g. Seedsman, Homegrown, what is now Seed Supreme). I tried clones from Seedsman 2 years ago. I’ve had starters gifted to me from other growers. I’ve had home made seeds (a self cross of a Cali Sour Diesel) gifted to me. I’ve been trying to grow a Northern Lights and a Sour Diesel every year. Various cultivars I’ve tried have been to purposely hedge my bets to deal with our fall rains, or just random chance depending on what was gifted to me, or choosing something different to learn. 4 plants is limiting even when you bend the rules a little. I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing yet so I’m doing a little of almost everything.
Reliable genetics are not all that important to me because I hedge my bets in so many ways. If I had to strictly observe limits in the starter phase, I’d go with all starters instead of even trying from seed. When I do start from seed, I start more than I need and cull down as they grow. If a couple don’t pop it’s no big deal. To the extent my seedlings don’t make it, I have starters available to take their place. I’ve been trying to find seeds for high yield outdoors, high THC and high mold and pest resistance. Last year I tried an autoflower. Experiments don’t need to be reliable. I’m excited to try out the Cannakan.
I chose Seedsman initially because their catalog was easy to search and their listings had detailed growing information. I found what I was looking for. I appreciate that Seedsman represents in the community (e.g. NECann and sponsoring folks). I respect the people representing Seedsman (no names mentioned Jorge).
Cultivation enriches my life through continuing education and bringing smiles to peoples faces. Giving weed to friends and neighbors was a natural. Giving it as tips and giving away to strangers was the next step. Now I’m donating home grow to my local Veteran’s group (they should not have to pay for their weed). People’s faces light up a certain way when they get free weed and that smell hits them.
It’s weird learning the basics of gardening and riding the wave of technological change at the same time. When I started the main question was: Can an idiot do this on the cheap? After the answer came back yes, the question became: Can we take it to the next level? It was exciting to commit to all Grove bags for curing last year and then I found the CurePuck. Overkill? Tim Allen would be proud. Cannabis is so easy to grow, yet so complex to produce. Between the growing tasks and the support tasks, the opportunities to learn are almost unlimited.
The opportunities to teach are also unlimited. There are plenty of experienced growers who don’t yet know that burping is obsolete. There are plenty of people who could be growing but aren’t. Rookies first need to decide their goals: what they want to grow and how much. Then they need to plan how they will grow, how they will dry and cure and how they will store their stash long term. It’s hard when you don’t know what you don’t know, but it’s easy to know that moving 50 pound pots every day is a choice to be avoided. Learn to listen to your plants. They will tell you when they are happy and when they need help.
My first harvest looks worse than I remember.
The second crop was legal so I was not paranoid about having evidence on my phone.
I had a pro friend work his magic.
This tested at 24%, 2.8% total terps
My first dry room was a bathroom with no HVAC, just an open window, a fan and a hair dryer to dehumidify.
This was Alien OG, a Seedsman clone grown in 2024. The note said this could express ether Indica or Sativa. It was bushy but late flowering and airy buds. Go figure.
This was Moby Dick, another Seedsman clone.
Buds.
More buds!
NFSOT - but I did not smoke all of that.
I did a major garden overhaul and switched from pots to inground in 2025. These are Sour Diesel.
Finally broke down and built a dry room with AC. This was 579 grams of the 976 gram total 2025 harvest (not counting trim and kief).
awesome story 