“It is just like any other farming,” I often tell people when I mention that I was brought up growing marijuana.
Depending on where my listeners are from, that tends to get a mixed reaction. So let me clarify from the jump: I didn’t grow weed by myself, my family wasn’t running a commercial-scale operation, and I never thought there was anything wrong with what we were doing.
The act of growing was also fairly common in my hometown, as half of the parents of my classmates grew weed. Growing up in California, an evening joint was as normal as a glass of wine with dinner. And I don’t just mean the occasional neighbor lighting up. California is home to millions of cannabis consumers. To me, it was no different than growing tomatoes or squash—it was just another plant. My parents never treated growing weed as anything to be ashamed of; it was just like any other farming that we did, only we didn’t talk about it in public. Now, I have more than a decade’s worth of experience in growing marijuana.
Most of the marijuana we planted began with what are called “starts.” A start is a young seedling that comes from a female marijuana plant—what growers often call “ladies.” Only these plants produce buds (also known as “Colas”), which are the flowering parts that people harvest and smoke. Whether a start comes from seed or is purchased from a grower, it doesn’t go straight into the ground. Instead, it’s placed in a small gardening pot inside a greenhouse. This protected the plants from harsh environmental conditions when they were vulnerable. My job growing up was to fill a gallon jug with water, go into the greenhouse, and hand water the plants. I was careful not to add too much water and ruin the starts. I would carefully pour, letting just enough water come out of the jug.
After a few weeks, when the plant’s taproot starts to peek from the bottom of the pot, it’s time to transplant. The taproot is the first root to emerge, later branching into smaller roots to absorb more water and minerals. For us, that meant moving the plant into a 100-gallon pot in early May. Before planting, we prepped the soil with a custom mix of compost, forest duff, bat guano, oyster shells, and neutral store-bought soil. I recall going to our local gardening store with my parents to pick up the additives of oyster shells and bat guano, and I remember my father sending me out with a bucket into the outskirts of the forest to collect the duff. I would slowly pour the additives into the soil mixture, and my parents and I would take turns shoveling and raking it all together till it was properly mixed. My back always ached after this task and my hands always felt more calloused, even though I wore gloves.
The compost that we used was rich with nitrogen, especially from animal manure—chicken, duck, rabbit, and other forms of excrement from the current animals on the farm. Bat guano (yes, bat poop) also has incredibly high levels of nitrogen and was another component of the compost. To combat the high level of nitrogen that would otherwise “burn” the plants, we regularly used some neutral soil. I hated this part, as adding the compost to the soil always left my overalls smelling of muck and wet earth. My muck boots would be covered in the soil mixture, and inevitably, the manure would get on my bare arms. Naturally, this led me to say “ew” quite a bit, followed by my dad handing me the hose and instructing me to wash them off—even though they would be covered again in seconds.
In the beginning, watering was strategic. We started by watering the plants every other day to encourage roots to grow downward. After the first couple of weeks, we switched to daily watering to keep the soil so wet it leaks from the bottom—this signals proper saturation. Around six weeks in, the plants were ready to be “trained,” so we would gently spread the branches to improve airflow and sun exposure. As blooming begins, large leaves develop. This stage, also known as “Big Leafing,” refers to when we remove those leaves to prevent nutrient loss and allow more light to reach the “Colas.” Maintenance continued until late October when Harvest began.
Harvest in our small town always left the coastal highways reeking of weed. Whenever we would drive by plots of land with the windows down, I remember my dad would always say, “You can smell their grow.” I always loved the smell of weed; it reminded me of summer drawing to an end. It was almost time for school to start again, and that made me happy. But I also knew that I was in for weekends and weekends worth of labor, and that was less exciting.
When Harvest came, my family would head down to the garden in our overalls and plastic gloves and get to work. We would cut the big branches of the bud and lay them on trays, with which we would transport them to our shed. It was essential to hang the large branches of buds on a string stretched across the shed from one end to the other. The dryness of the shed and the space between the buds minimized the possibility of mold. The bud would hang in this dry, warm facility for about two weeks.
Harvest was one of my favorite seasons on the farm. Days during Harvest meant that my parents and I would spend days in the sun; my father and I wore our overalls unbuttoned at the top, often exposing our shoulders to the warm sun. My father always wore a large straw hat and would wipe the sweat that beaded on his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. My mother would wear a baseball cap and jean shorts that she had cut herself. The jeans were raggedy ones that once had been bought from JCPenney and had since been covered in dirt and grime. This was not a random occurrence in my family; consistently, my father would turn my school clothes into work clothes as summer came.
It always made me a bit sad to see them cut into shorts. Whether it was the loss of school time or the loss of the jeans I grieved, I do not know. I do know that it was the symbolic prelude to the summer’s worth of work that was coming. I wore overalls often, although I always wished to free my legs and feel the sun on my knees. Many times on the days we worked, we would be in the garden even after the sun had set, and my father always had yacht rock playing on a large speaker beside us.
We frequently didn’t speak, only sang along to the song, and occasionally turned to each other for advice. This wasn’t irregular for the work that we did on the property; there would often be times of silence, unless my father stated, “You can talk and work.” However, mainly it was just the music, which was calming, but I always longed for the day to end. Make no mistake, it was all hard labor and long hours. Most of my memories are of the heat of the afternoon, and my wish for the sun to set, so our work of the day would conclude. Looking back on the time, I wish I had been more content with the silence, but I was often filled with angst to do something else with my weekends. I always looked forward to the end of the growing season.
After two weeks, the curing process begins. We took down the branches, trimmed the buds to single stems, and sealed them tightly in large black turkey bags with twist ties. The bags go into a dark, dry place—like a tote—for over a week. Each day, we would open the bags and turn the buds to prevent stickiness. After a week, we trimmed off all stems and leaves, leaving only the bud, known as “smoke.” Smoke can be stored in Ziploc bags in dark places for years, though I hear it gradually loses potency. Once trimmed, it’s ready to sell.
Back in the early 2000s, the smoke could be sold for $4,000 a pound, hence why so many people cultivated and vended marijuana. My family always grew it for a little extra pocket change, to help with everyday living expenses and school supplies. While growing was illegal, it never seemed wrong or unethical—it was just like any other type of farming. It was illegal when we started growing weed, yet no one in our town ever batted an eye. It was like there was this silent understanding that we were all just attempting to do our best. We were all just trying to survive and keep our families in a place of financial security. For us, and many others, it was a way of making ends meet—affording car payments and buying groceries. There is this stigma around weed and weed growers—that they are all “potheads.” It must be convenient to look from one’s pedestal and cast down people with glares and suspicions of them lacking drive, hard work, and education.
In my experience, this could not be further from the truth. I mean, look at any family, and tell me they wouldn’t do whatever they could to keep food on their tables and give their children moments of luxury. My parents both had full-time jobs and were college-educated, yet they still struggled to keep up with their mortgages. Hell, they even struggle now. With weed being legalized, it cut the middle man out; there really is no more money in growing illegally, and we certainly couldn’t sell a pound for four grand now. Now in California dispensaries, it can go for upwards of a grand. “California cannabis prices can vary greatly, ranging from around $200 to $1,400 per pound of weed in the recreational market, depending on quality,” according to Vibe by California.
Now, instead of your average person having an extra grand in their pocket, the Big Marijuana gets that money. A grand may seem insignificant, but it can make all the difference in someone’s life. I know people who once were known as the well-off families in my town, and now I see them on Facebook advertising dog walking and landscaping. People relied on that money to live, and with it gone, they are picking up odd jobs and trying to live the life they were used to, on a budget that has since been cut short.
I suppose someone could read this article and think poorly of my parents. If so, I would ask them to look at themselves in a place of privilege. Not everyone is always able to make ends meet normally, and there were times when my family needed that money to survive. My parents never let on too much about our financial struggles, but I was always keenly aware of them. I never minded the hard labor of growing weed, just like I never minded any of the other labor we did on our farm. To be able to ease some of the stress on my parents’ shoulders has been something I have always tried to do.
At the end of the day, it was all the same hard work. It taught me how to push my body to do work—work that most grown men don’t do. Whether it was carrying buckets of water from the stream to water the “ladies” when our watering system broke, or the long days in the sun turning pots by hand, the work was taxing. My muscles always ached, but I wouldn’t change it, even now.
This is all to say that, despite some people’s assumptions, I learned no poor habits from my time as a weed farmer. I learned a lot of valuable skills—resilience, grit, and attention to detail. I mean, it all seems to have worked out. I grow marijuana and go to Harvard. That is a cool paradox if you ask me.
Little Miss Weed can be found smoking a joint beside the Charles River.