Speaker 1: Greatly.
Speaker 2: What's that scraggly stuff going over there.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's posty, wild posty, and it's sprung up by itself.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Amusing Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and
Speaker 1: contributions to American popular culture. I'm Jonathan Friedman and I'm
Speaker 1: Joey Angelfield producer engineer Mike Tomran is working somewhere behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. Amusing Jews is a project of a Dot
Speaker 1: Havareine Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, the Jewish Museum of the
Speaker 1: American West, and Atheist United Studios. Hey, Joey, plants are
Speaker 1: meant to grow outdoors, and as our guests will tell us,
Speaker 1: this includes cannabis.
Speaker 3: We're delighted to chat with Joanna Silver, a garden writer
Speaker 3: and author of the book Growing Weed in the Garden,
Speaker 3: a no fuss seed to stash guide to outdoor cannabis cultivation. Joanna,
Speaker 3: Welcome to Amusing Jews.
Speaker 4: Thank you, I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't call yourself a stoner, and yet you wrote
Speaker 3: this book. How did this project come about?
Speaker 5: Well, high school, Joanna would have told you that this
Speaker 5: book was meant to be. It was beshers but actually
Speaker 5: I am a longtime garden writer, and I got my
Speaker 5: start at a magazine out here called Sunset, and I
Speaker 5: started designing and building small gardens for the editorial test garden.
Speaker 5: So I come about my cultivation skills honestly. And I
Speaker 5: lost my job in twenty seventeen and was desperate to
Speaker 5: keep writing, so I reached out to every editor I'd
Speaker 5: ever worked with, and one of them had landed at
Speaker 5: the San Francisco Chronicle. And this was just on the
Speaker 5: cusp of recreational cultivation and us going into effect, and
Speaker 5: everyone was curious how to talk about it and how
Speaker 5: to handle it. And she said she had this idea
Speaker 5: that a seasoned gardener would grow it in their backyard
Speaker 5: and tell people how to do it. And I told her,
Speaker 5: I don't even know where to get seeds, and she said,
Speaker 5: that's your opening line.
Speaker 4: And that's how this came to be.
Speaker 5: I did a ten part series for the Chronicle, and
Speaker 5: all the information I found was written for dudes by
Speaker 5: dudes in basements with equipment and tents and all sorts
Speaker 5: of scary filters.
Speaker 2: I grow sticky, fat, dank nugs. I love growing marijuana outdoors,
Speaker 2: but I find so many advantages to grow in marijuana indoors,
Speaker 2: and that's what this show is about.
Speaker 5: And none of it was just like growing it outdoors
Speaker 5: in your garden.
Speaker 4: So it was basically a book waiting to happen.
Speaker 1: You're reminding me of the house that I live in now.
Speaker 1: Before we moved in, the previous residents here they turned
Speaker 1: the whole house into a potform an indoor thing quite illegal.
Speaker 1: They changed all the plumbing and electricity and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, So I mean benefit for us, The
Speaker 1: house was completely new when we moved in because they
Speaker 1: had to redo everything. I just learned, because I'm not
Speaker 1: an aficionado in this, that you're only allowed to grow
Speaker 1: like six plants. Is that true?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's six per had six per person in your households,
Speaker 5: so you can get up to quite a few going.
Speaker 5: But it is in California at six per person, and
Speaker 5: people have been busted.
Speaker 1: You described cannabis as one of the oldest cultivated plants
Speaker 1: in the world. Could you take us through some of
Speaker 1: that history.
Speaker 5: So, along with plants like barley and wheat and rice
Speaker 5: and flax, these old ancient plants were cultivated, which just
Speaker 5: means they were bred by humans. To get more desirable
Speaker 5: traits because of how useful they were, And indeed, weed
Speaker 5: is one of the most useful plants. It's fibers, the
Speaker 5: hemp fiber was spun intopes and woven into textiles and
Speaker 5: made into sales, and eventually paper and seeds were pressed
Speaker 5: for oil, and also eaten and flowers were smoked or
Speaker 5: incensed for ceremony or perhaps medicinal purposes.
Speaker 1: In the archaeological record, we do know that like in
Speaker 1: ancient Israel, for instance, weed does appear, and Joey was saying,
Speaker 1: maybe it has something to do with incense in the
Speaker 1: temple as well. There's certain theories about that. Do we
Speaker 1: know that the ancients were smoking it and getting high
Speaker 1: or were they using it for all this other stuff
Speaker 1: or both.
Speaker 5: What I've read about fossils found is that it suggests
Speaker 5: more it was incensed in areas and not like smoked
Speaker 5: out of pipes or things like that.
Speaker 3: Why do we call it weed? Is it technically a weed?
Speaker 3: What is a weed? Anyway?
Speaker 5: Well, it's a great question. There are indeed a lot
Speaker 5: of names for this plant. You may have noticed the
Speaker 5: ice deeer clear of marijuana, and that is because that
Speaker 5: word has roots in racism and xenophobia. Comes from Mexican Spanish,
Speaker 5: and it was really pegged on immigrants in the coming
Speaker 5: from Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century and
Speaker 5: used to stigmatize the plant, stigmatize the people the immigration,
Speaker 5: and painted as a dangerous vice. So I really steer
Speaker 5: clear of marijuana.
Speaker 4: Cannabis.
Speaker 5: Latin term and weed has also been around since at
Speaker 5: least the beginning of the twentieth century, but really fell
Speaker 5: into popularity in the nineties, which is probably why I
Speaker 5: am so comfortable using it as that was my weed era.
Speaker 5: Weed is a word that just means anything growing where
Speaker 5: you don't want.
Speaker 4: It to grow.
Speaker 5: So weed does grow pretty adaptably all around the world,
Speaker 5: and so I know that in the Midwest it's called
Speaker 5: ditch weed. These like not very pungent more hemp varieties grow.
Speaker 4: Just like in roads and stuff.
Speaker 5: But it's weeds are Weed is just plant that you
Speaker 5: don't want growing where it's growing.
Speaker 3: That was what I learned back in my environmentalist days
Speaker 3: in Long Beach, when I was, you know, an environmental steward.
Speaker 3: That was what they taught me. A weed was was
Speaker 3: just any plant you didn't want growing there.
Speaker 4: Exactly like a dandy lyon.
Speaker 3: Right right, And when you say ditch weed, I'm also thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, I think I've heard that there's a lot
Speaker 3: of weed growing in Pyongyang in other parts of North Korea,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I don't think it's like high
Speaker 3: quality cinsama, but I think that they are, you know,
Speaker 3: there there's like you say, yeah, it kind of grows everywhere.
Speaker 1: Absolutely speaking of high quality weed. When I was in
Speaker 1: high school, I was on a ski trip in Idaho
Speaker 1: and my cousin who was working there, was into this stuff,
Speaker 1: and he gave me some Alaskan thunder fuck, which apparently
Speaker 1: is like one of the better, like more like potent versions,
Speaker 1: and it totally floored me. I was not used to it,
Speaker 1: even in its mild form, and it it knocked me
Speaker 1: out pretty good.
Speaker 4: What did Stone Jonathan look like?
Speaker 1: I think I was probably wearing a tied I shirt
Speaker 1: with very long hair and quite a bit of acne,
Speaker 1: I think at that time as well.
Speaker 3: I also remember when my aunt came over to my
Speaker 3: house when I was living in Long Beach and she
Speaker 3: brought skittles, and that was the one that floored me.
Speaker 3: And I've sort of been on a quest ever since
Speaker 3: then to see if it still exists. But I don't think.
Speaker 3: I mean, as you go into in the book, these
Speaker 3: cultivars are pretty ephemeral and a little bit sketchy, and
Speaker 3: I think you do a good job of also describing
Speaker 3: how it's a wild West out there because it's been
Speaker 3: underground and it's been prohibited for so long that they
Speaker 3: haven't had the opportunity to really get scientific with it
Speaker 3: and find out what all these cultivars are. I really
Speaker 3: appreciated that aspect of your book.
Speaker 5: Absolutely nobody was taking good notes or records of what
Speaker 5: they were breeding, because that could have just added to
Speaker 5: your jail sentence.
Speaker 3: Enjoying the show, click like and subscribe.
Speaker 1: You note that growing weed is perfect for people knew gardening.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 4: It's true?
Speaker 5: It's a perfect starter plant. First of all, it's not
Speaker 5: a big commitment. It's one growing season, so think tomato
Speaker 5: late spring to early fall, or you can get even
Speaker 5: shorter breeds than that, shorter varieties than that, so not
Speaker 5: a long term commitment. Grows super fast, super quickly, super big,
Speaker 5: depending on variety. It's really a dramatic plant. It grows,
Speaker 5: it does all this leafy growth and then switches to flowering,
Speaker 5: and that's just a really dramatic effect to watch happen.
Speaker 5: The smells are hilarious. If you have any weed in
Speaker 5: your past and suddenly you're growing in your garden, it's
Speaker 5: just completely amusing. And they're super funky smells, mango or
Speaker 5: you know, people are selling them based on like gasoline smells,
Speaker 5: all sorts of weird smells.
Speaker 4: The flowers are unworldly. It's not like.
Speaker 5: Your typical flower garden, but they're beautiful. It's also a
Speaker 5: really fussy plant. It's drought tolerant, as we've said, it
Speaker 5: grows everywhere. It's really adaptable, so it doesn't need a
Speaker 5: ton of water, it doesn't need a lot of fertilizer,
Speaker 5: it doesn't need a lot of stuff, and it's just
Speaker 5: a great fun crop to try out for the first time.
Speaker 3: I also really appreciate it. In your book. You know,
Speaker 3: there's beautiful pictures of people's gardens where they're going next
Speaker 3: to lantana and Dahlia's, you know, some of my wife's
Speaker 3: and her aunt's favorite plants. And I thought, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: my wife would really appreciate this book, even though she's
Speaker 3: really not a stoner, but Another thing I really appreciated
Speaker 3: about your book In This Realm was the way you
Speaker 3: described a gardener as somebody who I can't remember, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna misquote you on it, but you know, somebody who
Speaker 3: kills plants and then learns how to do it better
Speaker 3: the next time. And it was so empowering and liberating
Speaker 3: for me to think, oh, Okay, I'm a gardener too.
Speaker 3: I can get there, I can experiment and get better
Speaker 3: at this.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. And I wrote it with two readers in mind.
Speaker 5: One was my sister in law, who's a total stoner
Speaker 5: but never touched the soil, and I thought if anything
Speaker 5: could get her to touch soil, it would be weed.
Speaker 5: So I wanted her to be able to walk her
Speaker 5: through it that simply. And then the other is like
Speaker 5: somebody I used to work with who's a gardener, but,
Speaker 5: like your wife, no interest in weed, and why not
Speaker 5: expand her horizons to include this into her garden as well.
Speaker 3: You write that there is nothing else in the world
Speaker 3: so widely grown but so little understood and yet to
Speaker 3: be studied. What do you make of all the excitement
Speaker 3: around weed?
Speaker 5: Well, every other plant has had generations of scientific research
Speaker 5: that's gone into it at that at this point, and
Speaker 5: because of prohibition, weed has really missed out, so be
Speaker 5: it agricultural reasons like disease resistance or better yield, or
Speaker 5: tracing varieties like we're talking about tracing cultivars and knowing
Speaker 5: their histories to medicinal potential, We've just really it's just
Speaker 5: all untapped potential at this point. And I think that's
Speaker 5: what a lot of the excitement is about.
Speaker 1: What do you make also of like the medical benefits
Speaker 1: or I mean, do you do you buy into that
Speaker 1: completely or is some of that exaggerated?
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 5: I I as a non stoner but well versed in
Speaker 5: a previous life, I never found anything to help me
Speaker 5: based on strain. So like if a strain was supposed
Speaker 5: to do X, I never felt that benefit. Even if
Speaker 5: it was like sleep or anxiety reduction, they all sort
Speaker 5: of had the same impact on me, which is make
Speaker 5: me want to dance and clean a closet. So I
Speaker 5: steer very clear from recommending cultivars for people. And in
Speaker 5: terms of the medical potential, I think it's huge, but
Speaker 5: I think I'm like a modern science type of gal.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go to the doctor and have them tell
Speaker 5: me what to take type of a gal, so I
Speaker 5: will wait until that research comes down the pipeline.
Speaker 1: Have you heard from people who have used your book
Speaker 1: as a growing manual?
Speaker 4: So yes, this is so lovely.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Merrik Community College in Oakland. They actually
Speaker 5: used the book as they're growing manual for their outdoor
Speaker 5: cultivation class. The program got cut due to budget cut,
Speaker 5: so that's not happening anymore.
Speaker 4: Not to suit my own horn, but.
Speaker 5: I do hear from people reaching out quite a bit
Speaker 5: that have used the book year after year, and I
Speaker 5: think they really appreciate it because I'm a no fuss,
Speaker 5: not a very babying type of gardener to the plant.
Speaker 5: Like it's sort of like tough love and you don't
Speaker 5: have to do a lot. I'm not trying to like
Speaker 5: maximize yields with any weird pruning techniques that were created
Speaker 5: frankly because people were growing indoors trying to compensate for
Speaker 5: not having the sunshine just moving across the sky. So
Speaker 5: it's a very no fuss type of book that I
Speaker 5: think people find really useful.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you mentioned that is it easier to
Speaker 1: grow weed outdoors?
Speaker 5: Yes, Jonathan, Yes, what plant wants to grow inside. I
Speaker 5: mean maybe you're monsterra like a house plan, but yes,
Speaker 5: I mean what you spoke to what had to be
Speaker 5: done in your old house or in your house by
Speaker 5: previous owners to get this plant to grow inside. You
Speaker 5: need none of that outdoors. And that I was confused
Speaker 5: by that too, when I started like, do I need
Speaker 5: special lights?
Speaker 4: Do I need No, it's just a plant.
Speaker 3: And I'll say, you know, on the flip side, there's
Speaker 3: been I think recently, kind of alarming information about you know,
Speaker 3: indoor growers who use pesticides and then clear it all
Speaker 3: out and then think that the plants aren't gonna leach
Speaker 3: it out of the walls, and sure enough, you know,
Speaker 3: there is a bunch of gnarly stuff it's leeching back
Speaker 3: into their plants even though they think they cleared out
Speaker 3: the place. It's scary stuff. So yeah, carry your stuff outdoors,
Speaker 3: people on the balcony and in the garden with your
Speaker 3: other beautiful plants. It'll make them smell great. They'll all
Speaker 3: get along, they'll you know. I think that's another part
Speaker 3: of your book that you speak really beautifully too, is
Speaker 3: you know your plants need friends and the you know
Speaker 3: the terpenes are gonna just get that much more interesting.
Speaker 3: It's it's mysterious and we don't exactly know, so embrace
Speaker 3: the mystery. But it's it's a glorious thing, and everybody
Speaker 3: should do it.
Speaker 5: And even if you are just a consumer, you can
Speaker 5: be brave and buck the trend and opt for outdoor
Speaker 5: cultivated cannabis, which probably has a lower energy footprint than
Speaker 5: that cultivated inside. The market has a premium on indoor
Speaker 5: cultivation because it's all it's so dialed in and buds
Speaker 5: are super uniform and tight, so you get a little
Speaker 5: bit of this funkier, more airy look from being grown outside,
Speaker 5: but it's often done with a lot less chemicals and
Speaker 5: a lot fewer inputs.
Speaker 1: Is that sort of like the difference between when you
Speaker 1: go to the grocery store and get the non organic
Speaker 1: fruit that's kind of uniform and the organic stuff which
Speaker 1: can look a little bit quirky.
Speaker 3: I was listening to your interview on another podcast specifically
Speaker 3: about cannabis cultivation, about how COVID sort of killed the
Speaker 3: release of this book. But I was thinking maybe in
Speaker 3: the aftermath of that, I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people I don't know I hope a lot of
Speaker 3: people got into gardening. I know at first it was
Speaker 3: all about baking sour dough and hoarding toilet paper. But
Speaker 3: has the book, I don't know, gotten it's due.
Speaker 5: It had a very long, zoomy tailwind, and it is
Speaker 5: still selling and it people are still I mean really
Speaker 5: not to too my own horn. People are still reaching
Speaker 5: out to me with not you know, kind of frequently
Speaker 5: telling me how much they love it.
Speaker 4: So I think it's gonna have a.
Speaker 5: Long life, but I don't think we're like gonna blow
Speaker 5: it up and go viral. And there have been a
Speaker 5: few changes since the book came out. Feminized seeds are
Speaker 5: much more widely available now, so I had a lot
Speaker 5: of fun sexing my plants, mostly because I like talking
Speaker 5: about sexing my plants. But that's one of the things
Speaker 5: that makes weeds so unique is that they're male and females,
Speaker 5: and it really matters. But now you can buy feminized seeds.
Speaker 5: They're more expensive, but it means you'll you're guaranteed a
Speaker 5: female crop that won't get seed from a male pollination,
Speaker 5: and those are super more widely available and that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: And also seeds are more widely available.
Speaker 5: It used to be like souvenirs from seed banks, from
Speaker 5: international seed banks, but the laws seem to have changed.
Speaker 5: I know the company that I love working with, Humboldt
Speaker 5: Seed Company. You can now get them in a bunch
Speaker 5: of states just online retail. So things are evolving in
Speaker 5: the market.
Speaker 3: Did you learn any life lessons from growing weed in
Speaker 3: the garden?
Speaker 4: I learned a few. I love this question.
Speaker 5: The first thing that I learned is what can happen
Speaker 5: when a plant is stigmatized. And it's worth noting that
Speaker 5: there are still tens of thousands of people sitting in
Speaker 5: prison cells partly because of an activity that they've partaken
Speaker 5: in that's no longer a crime, while others build wealth
Speaker 5: on that same activity. So it's really taught me to
Speaker 5: what harm and damage that can do to entire chunks
Speaker 5: of our population. And I was able to write this
Speaker 5: book and have no fear of prosecution or stigmatization.
Speaker 4: And then the other.
Speaker 5: Lesson it taught me was we've sort of touched upon,
Speaker 5: but it's one that my first farm manager at my
Speaker 5: first farm outside of Denver, Colorado, taught me, which is
Speaker 5: that plants want to grow, and so for all of
Speaker 5: this weird mysterious indoor cultivation weird lingo all that's sort
Speaker 5: of transpired with this plant in the last hundred years.
Speaker 5: It's just a plant and it just wants to grow.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Johanna for joining.
Speaker 4: Us, Thank you for having me and to our audience.
Speaker 1: Now back to your regularly scheduled lives.
Speaker 3: Amusing Jews is here to amuse you. If you like
Speaker 3: being amused, go ahead and click like and subscribe.