Penny Barthel - The Cannabis Gardener

Text copyright 2021 by Penny Barthel

Photographs copyright 2021 by Erin Scott

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Barthel, Penny, 1965 author.

Title: The cannabis gardener : a beginners guide to growing vibrant, healthy plants in every region / Penny Barthel.

Description: First edition. | [Emeryville], California : Ten Speed Press, [2121] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020020080 (print) | LCCN 2020020081 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984858849 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984858856 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cannabis. | Gardening. | CannabisSeedlingsGrowth.

Classification: LCC SB295.C35 B37 2021 (print) | LCC SB295.C35 (ebook) | DDC 633.7/9dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020080

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020081

Hardcover ISBN9781984858849

Ebook ISBN9781984858856

Editor: Kim Keller

Designer: Lisa Schneller Bieser

Art director: Emma Campion

Production designer: Mari Gill

Production manager: Dan Myers

Food & botanicals stylist: Lillian Kang

Prop stylist: Erin Scott

Photo assistant and model: Nicola Parisi

Copyeditor: Dolores York

Proofreader: Kathy Brock

Indexer: Ken DellaPenta

Publicist: Natalie Yera

Marketer: Andrea Portanova

rhid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

Contents

Introduction

Cannabis is one of humanitys most useful plants. It is also one of the most notorious and misunderstood plants of all time. It is at once a durable fiber, nourishing food, a health aid, a euphoriant, a social lubricant. It is alsoaccording to US federal lawa schedule 1 drug, meaning that it is considered to be a substance of the highest danger and lowest value to humanity. Is cannabis really all of these things at once? Yes, it is. But we are in a new era, both in the United States and globally.

State by state, cannabis is being legalized, and the pressure is building to de-schedule this gift of nature and create a sane and wholesome appreciation for the potential that this plant can bring to the world. And best of all? Its really fun to grow in the garden. With a planter, some soil, a cannabis seed, and a spot in the sun, anyone can grow healthy cannabis. I believe that everyone should have access to the gifts of physical, emotional, and spiritual health that cannabis offers to humanity.

I live in California, where cannabis possession and consumption is legal statewide and cultivation is broadly permitted for personal use. Cannabis regulation is constantly changing, making it important for citizens to stay up to date with the latest information. (NORML.org is an excellent resource for remaining informed.) This recent freedom for weed enthusiasts is not by chance, though. It is the outcome of many hard-won victories by cannabis growers and activists. We owe a debt to people like Dennis Peron and Mary Jane Rathbun, who fought and sacrificed to bring this healing plant out of the prohibition era and into the legal postprohibition era. Northern California has been the literal seedbed of cannabis innovation and hybridization for the past several decades. I am so grateful for the work of the cannabis warriors who paid dearly for my gardening freedom. But there is still work to be done. Lets be clear: The war on drugs is rooted in racism and white supremacy. Too many people linger in prison from minor cannabis convictions, and these people are disproportionately people of color. Even after they have served their time, their convictions linger over them, making it difficult to obtain employment or regain the right to vote. I encourage each of us to put our voices and votes toward record expungement and cannabis de-scheduling and legalization on a national level. Lets all support our local BIPOC and equity cannabis businesses and give those whove paid an unfair price some space to grow in the new cannabis economy.

To celebrate the new postprohibition era, consider planting your own cannabis victory garden. There is so much great weed to enjoy, grow, and learn from. Its resins contain unique molecules that are active in just about every cell in the human bodyindeed in every mammals body. Thankfully, cannabis is an undemanding plant in the garden. It grows just about anywhere and completes its entire life in under a year. The cannabis gardener is free to explore the abundance that this plant offers without the constraints of needing to turn a profitthats the work of the cannabis farmer. We gardeners have freedom to experiment with different cultivars and growing techniques because were our own clients. We can make mistakes without the fear of financial ruin. I think the best part of growing my own weed is how much joy it brings me. From a small green-gray seed firmly rooted in my own soil comes a magnificent 10-foot-tall beauty, covered with richly scented, sparkly flower buds. And from these flower buds, sticky with resins, I get to craft tinctures, salves, and edibles that keep me feeling great throughout the year. I invite you to join me in an adventure of connection and become a cannabis gardener.

CHAPTER 1

Choosing the Right Cannabis for You and Your Garden

Cannabis is one of the worlds most useful plant groups. It has been a part of human culture for thousands of years beginning in Eurasia, and today it is associated with people in almost all parts of the world.

ROBERT C. CLARKE AND MARK D. MERLIN , Cannabis Evolution and Ethnobotany

CANNABISTHE PLANT

Growing up in suburban California, I first heard about cannabis while I was in junior high. Televised antidrug ads blasted, This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs, while showing an egg frying in a hot pan (and that image will forever linger in my psyche). Cheech and Chong provided my main information on cannabis, since I was raised smack-dab in the middle of the war on drugs. Currently the word weed has surfaced, and Ive also heard it called many different names, some of them reflective of the form that the harvested plant product takes, such as, hashish. Other names come from local slang, such as pakall in Hawaii. Ganja, grass, maryjane, doobiethere are all sorts of slang terms for cannabis and the things made from it. Some of these terms are enduring and ancient; others have popped up quite recently.

While this plant has many nicknames, its commonly used scientific name is Cannabis sativafor now, at least. The influential Swedish taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus provided this name for the scientific community in his book