Ben Owens | Hobby Grower

4 months—and $400—into my first grow, I got powdery mildew—just 10 days before my first harvest!

Here's the story:

Until that first grow, I had only ever bought weed. Which meant that my perception of problems in the grow was that they were basically the end of the world.

But the truth is, growers of all skill levels deal with issues in their gardens on a regular basis, they just don't brag about it online.

And, although I'd made it nearly 4 months without problems, those last 10 days taught me 3 timeliness life lessons:

#1: Shit happens. To everyone.

Even when you think you're in the clear, if you get cocky and complacent, expect a curveball. What you see online is only the highlight reel; everyone has room to improve.

#2: We learn faster when we face our fears.

Intensity adds fuel to the fire. If you're panicked about losing your crop, that urgency forces you to learn and retain differently than proactively reading a textbook on pests. The more issues we face, the more we learn about where to go to find solutions.

#3: Nothing is unfixable.

Even as a beginner, I knew there had to be a solution for PM—which, at the time was using alkaline water with a high pH to make the environment less conducive—to limp my way to the finish line before a Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) dunk. While not ideal, it's better than killing the whole crop or smoking mildew spores. Most problems have solutions.

What was the first issue you had in the grow? What lessons did it teach you?

Let me know in the replies!

There are a lot of things most people don't understand about legal cannabis in the U.S.

For example, did you know...

• Weed's Still Not "Really" Legal: While 38 states have some sort of medical or recreational access, federally, it's a controlled substance, and everyone in the industry commits felonies daily.

• Payment Processors Hate Us: Cannabis companies want to take your credit card payment, they just have no (easy) way to do so. Most cannabis entrepreneurs are forced to use cash or peer-to-peer payments instead of merchant services like Stripe and Square because cannabis is still "high risk" for financial institutions.

• Adults Want To Have Fun, Too: Many markets prohibit designs that could appear "fun" as they might attract children. This ignores the obvious inner child in every adult, and has created a grey area of interpretation on "adult" cartoons and graphics whose enforcement varies. (It's also what off-market brands capitalize on as they aren't subject to licensing agencies)

• Plant Counts Make No Sense: To many, limiting the size of a garden seems like a good way to minimize unregulated supply. In reality, 1 plant can net you pounds of weed under the right conditions. (Most smaller plants do not yield this much, but arbitrary plant limits do not inherently limit supply).

For anyone in and around the legal industry, this stuff is common knowledge.

But to those who haven't lived "a day in the life" in cannabis, some of these might come as a shock.

But it gets worse:

Legal weed doesn't mean "legal to grow your own".

Markets like New Jersey paved the way for legal-to-buy-not-to-grow laws. In fact, only 21 of the states with legal access allow you to grow your own cannabis.

Crazy, right?

One of the skills that many writers struggle with is marketing their work.

For some, that translates to the Creator's Bias—believing that, because you took the time to create it, that people will take the time to appreciate it.

For others, it means most people never hear about what you're working on, because you suck at promoting it.

Creating a program that taught others to start their first hobby grow forced me to level-up my marketing tactics as a writer to draw more future growers into the mix.

8 Non-Growing Skills Teaching Growing Taught Me

1. Email Journey Automation

2. Landing Page Creation

3. Cohort Development

4. Community Management

5. Email Course Creation

6. Digital Asset Sales Funnels

7. Supply Chain Management

8. Ai Prompt Engineering

Teaching others to do what you do will undoubtedly force you to level up in other aspects of your life that will help you personally and professionally for years to come.

I highly recommend it (pun intended).

1. Pathogens - Undiagnosed pathogens can spread rapidly through your garden, demolishing a genetic stable. Certain threats exist everywhere, but growing from seed means less potential pressure.

2. Pests - The worst (and most common) tag-along on a clone. Gnats, Aphids, Thrips, Mites, and more. Growing from seed makes it all but impossible to introduce a foreign pest into your space.

3. Viroids - Contentious due to a large gap in the research, but growing from seed reduces the chances of introducing a viroid into your grow.

4. Labor/Time - It takes time to maintain healthy moms, take cuttings, and get root. Clones require healthy moms, and a clean, reliable propagation process. Seeds do not require additional plants, and can be germinated as needed.

5. Space - Those moms and propagation processes require space. Yes, you can clone from your veg, but you still need to propagate. This space could be used for harvest, rather than moms & clones. Seeds don't require any additional space; germinate and go.

6. Storage - Seeds are less susceptible to environmental changes than a living, rooted plant, and can be stored for extended periods of time. Clones must be kept in a conducive environment and maintained through periodic propagation, training, and culling in order to preserve the genetic.

7. Shipping - Seeds can be shipped to most places without worrying about the above storage conditions. A clone's susceptibility to environmental changes as well as their need to be kept alive can pose a risk factor if unforeseen shipping delays or climate changes occur.

Some markets are better than others, but growing from seed eliminates most of the risks of adding new flavors to your stable

Most successful people share the same handful of things in common:

• They are disciplined with their time

• They know how to stay focused on one goal at a time

• They have mentors and other influential people they can turn to for advice

• They have mastered one (or multiple) valuable skills

• Etc.

But one thing that's often overlooked is how similar the least and most successful people are when it comes to stereotyping others.

Stereotypes are the "self-drive mode" for processing information, and the most and least successful rely heavily on this mode.

Least successful: They like drama and lack the ability to dig deeper.

Most successful: Quick recognition is more valuable than the occasional misinterpretation. They can't afford the time to dig deeper unless it matters.

And if you spend your time challenging stereotypes? You're in the middle of this bell curve.

Where do you fall?

I started growing in 2019 and learned soon after that small, hobby grows don't produce enough to have someone process for you.

If you get 100 grams of material, and it yields 3-5 grams of final product, to then pay a 30-50% toll means you went to all that hard word for a couple grams.

So, I decided to try making hash myself.

5 Methods For Making Solventless Extracts at Home:

• Dry Sift Dry process using dried buds and various screens to sift and collect trichome heads.

• Dry Ice Uses dried buds and dry ice (solid CO2) to flash freeze and filter trichome heads.

• Bubble Hash Ice and water are used to agitate and chill plant material (fresh frozen or dry) to encourage separation of trichomes. These are then air or freeze dried.

• Hash Rosin Applying heat and pressure to bubble hash or dry sift using filtration (micron bags) to extract resin and remove plant material (like gland cuticles) for a more refined experience

• Flower Rosin Applying heat and pressure to dry flower, using a filtration bag or not, to extract resins from the material.

While I started with dry methods and flower rosin, I now process all of my material as Bubble Hash and Hash Rosin.

It's easier than you might think to turn the fruits of your Hobby Grow into a batch of Hobby Hash.