About
In 1992 I spent 10 days in jail for a gram of Mexican weed. I was a teenager at the time, but that still makes me pretty old. I took a very important lesson from that experience.
Don’t buy weed. It’s better to grow your own.
For the next ten years or so, I hoboed (Is that a word?) around the world, hitchhiking, working as a deckhand, and riding the rails.
I missed a few meals but got to check out some awesome places like Colombia, Thailand, and Morocco. After a few years working as a commercial fisherman, I married my best friend and settled down in Vancouver, British Columbia. We spent some time in the city, and I made a living by breaking stones, and attaching them to fancy houses.
About fifteen years ago we moved to a rural acreage in Robert’s Creek, BC.
I continued to work in the construction industry, and grow vegetables, along with copious amounts of fragrant cannabis in my organic gardens.
Robert’s Creek is a ferry access community on the Sunshine Coast, and has always been a refuge for draft dodgers, hippies, and weirdos like me. The illicit cannabis industry was the biggest employer in this area for many years.
Most of my neighbors had cannabis gardens, and harvest time was a community celebration, with BBQ’s and live music.
Although I didn’t use many products from the grow store, I would go there sometimes and witness all of the growers lined up to spend thousands of dollars on bottled nutrients.
I tried to explain to my friends that they did not need “Big Boom Bud Buster” or “Triple Awesome Express” to grow high quality cannabis. They laughed at me. “Growing in organic soil is too complicated” they would tell me, as they were hitting me up for another oz. of my finest weed.
I got my first medical license in 2010 which allowed me to grow cannabis legally.
I really like this plant, and I am kind of a geek, so I spent the next eight years obsessively researching, cultivating, and breeding organic cannabis.
In 2018 recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada, and I joined Xylem Horticulture to work as a crop consultant within the regulated cannabis industry.
I am grateful to be well-connected with the cannabis and commercial horticulture communities, and I have stayed very busy for the last few years.
I have served as the founding Cultivation Manager for Rubicon Organics, where I managed up to 60 hardworking folks in a 3-acre greenhouse.
I have provided facility design and documentation to launch several craft-scale cultivators into the regulated market in Canada.
I have worked remotely with growers in Portugal, Australia, and the US to optimize their facilities, and their organic fertility programs.
I have published many articles on cannabis physiology in journals and trade magazines.
I have had the good fortune to work with some of the top scientists in the world in the fields of soil science, photo biology, and plant breeding.
I have worked with many brilliant growers, and I have learned from all of them.
My daughter is in high school now, my boy loves soccer, and my beautiful wife is a talented chef.
The best crab fishing on the coast is right behind my house, and I row out in my little plastic boat to pull traps in the evening.
But still... there is something that bothers me.
It is the reason that I am here, and maybe the same for you.
What bothers me is all of those growers that I saw lined up to spend their hard-earned money on bottled nutrients. They are buying on the internet now, and soon Amazon will be dropping this expensive crap on them from drones.
What bothers me is all of the bad information and bro science that makes the peaceful act of growing a plant seem like a complicated chore.
I am here to tell you that you don’t need any of that stuff to grow great weed.
You can grow your own at home that is better than the cannabis you buy at the store.
Success is not guaranteed, my first grow was a disaster, but yours does not need to be.
I am here to help, and to provide reliable information about cultivating cannabis that you can actually use.
Enough about me. What’s going on in your world?
Please drop me an email so we can connect.
If you have a question about cultivation, anything at all, I will do my best to answer.
Cheers, Stew