Episode Transcript

E65 Growing at Home with Sue and Chase – Full Transcript

Trevor: So, Kirk, we're back. 

Kirk: We're back. How are you Trevor. 

Trevor: Good. I really, really enjoyed the interview we just did with a friend of the show Sue. We've talked to her a few times. And new friend Chase. 

Kirk: Yes. We literally just finished it. Like, this is like, when was the last time we got to voice an episode immediately after it was done. 

Trevor: Pre-covid. 

Kirk: Yeah, probably, yeah. So, let's catch up. What's new? 

Trevor: I did one hundred and fifteen flu shots on Monday. 

Kirk: Well done. You were wearing the appropriate PPE. 

Trevor: I was. I had my N95 mask on. You know those goggles that you had in high school chemistry class. I had those on. Yeah. I look particularly sexy. 

Kirk: Yeah I'm sure he did. So covid. Yes. Yes. I guess we should always recommend people go to TWIV if they want to learn about the Covid virus, right. 

Trevor: Yes, yes. Our, our other favorite podcast TWIV for all things covid. 

Kirk: And this one is Reefer Medness - The Podcast. I'm the nurse. 

Trevor: Yeah. You're Kirk Nyquist nurse. I'm Travis Shewfelt I'm the pharmacist. 

Kirk: And you just interviewed somebody that is learning how to homegrown. Tell me that. 

Trevor: Yeah, well, it was great. Like we follow Sue on Twitter and she always has lots of interesting things to say. And she's I mean this is the nicest possible way. She's one of those fantastic food porn people, too. She always has beautiful pictures of the food she's made. But lately, last couple of months, maybe since midsummer, she's been posting pictures of these plants and she's been growing them and having questions and talking about the spreadsheet she's made on, you know, how much money she saved. So Sue, Sue hadn't been a grower before, just a medical user. Lyme disease for her for that.  So medical user, a purveyor of you know, she educates anybody who'll talk to her and but she's turned into a first time home grower. So, there's got to be a lot of people out there. You know, we've mentioned this before in Manitoba. We cannot grow our four plants. But outside of Manitoba, even if just from a Rec-wise you go, you know, I need a covid project. I'd like to grow four plants at home. There's got to be a bunch of people out there thinking about that this winter. And so I thought this is very timely. 

Kirk: Yeah, I thought it was a really good interview. And I'm just looking at my notes from as I was eave dropping in there and I'll apologize. My goal was to eavesdrop and but I just had to ask a couple. 

Trevor: Well they started talking about hops, you were in there at hops. 

Kirk: I grow my own hops. Yes, I know all about hops and growing cannabis is something I'm also very interested in. So, I wanted to ask a few questions. I, too, am researching it and looking at doing medicinal grow. So, in Manitoba, we can grow medicinally.

Trevor: Right. But as I guess what, I'm not a medicinal patient, call me a rec-person or non-medicine, but I am not allowed to in Manitoba. I don't want to give too much away from the interview but seriously, as somebody who doesn't know anything about growing, I learned about vegetative state. I learned about trichomes, I learned about male versus female. You know, just those because it's got to be a lot of people out there like me who just don't have a clue about the actual how it goes from being a seed to a bud. And we went through a bunch of that. 

Kirk: I like the story that Sue tells. She planted a bunch of seeds because she's interested in watching the plant. She moved to boys outside so she could just see them grow. She allowed them to freeze just to see what would happen. But a grow mentor, Chase comes in and he's got a business Temple Growers?

Trevor: Yeah, I think his I think his name is Temple Grower, and I think he'll get this right in there. But I think the one of the organizations he's with is called Percys Grow Room, and they'll help you with some of your home grow. And they have a podcast, Percys Grow Room podcast, where they talk about growing and or a lot of other stuff. You know, I'm too excited to chat right now. Let's listen to that and we'll come back at the end. 

Trevor: So we have a friend of the show back with us, Sue Litwin from Saskatoon. Sue, among your many, many other things, you know, including being a Lyme Advocate and being a fantastic cook and cooks with cannabis. You've decided to start growing your own at home. So, tell us, why did you decide to start growing at all? 

Sue: Well, I wanted to save some money that was the main reason. 

Trevor: That's good a reason than any. 

Sue: And I applied for to grow with Health Canada, and my first application was lost. I was informed about eight months after I applied. So, then I had to reapply. 

Trevor: So, was that the still called the AMCPR or is that the new Cannabis Act? 

Sue: It's the new Cannabis Act and it's quite possible, I kind of got caught between the two in the administration because it was right around that time. 

Trevor: OK, all right. So, eight-month delay, but you finally got your paperwork in place. How did you start out? Is this inside your house, outside your house, like so far for everyone out there, I know nothing about growing. So, we're going to, Sue is going to walk me through this. So. So, how did you start, Sue? 

Sue: OK, so I had gotten some seeds from a client last year. I taught him how to make cannabis oil and he just lives a few blocks from me. He grew his cannabis outside and he said, if you want some of these seeds Sue you're most welcome to have some. So, I took some seeds and I thought, oh, I'm just going to practice grow like in my windowsill. It was meant to be a total experiment. I was still waiting for my license to grow and the seeds popped and I started watching them and I started talking about the fact that I wanted to grow. And like I knew Chase was around. Like on Twitter. I had seen him, but I hadn't really interacted a lot with him. And all of a sudden, he DM me and he's like, hey, you want some help? And I said, Well, sure. And so, he just started talking to me and we just started talking to each other because I love DMs, like, give me as many DMs as possible, because that's how I've gotten to know any anybody in the cannabis space. 

Trevor: So, I jump in because that's an excellent segue. So, for a voice no one's heard on our podcast anyway. Apparently, though, what other ones. Chase, how about you introduce yourself and tell people what you do? 

Chase: Sure. That would be great. I guess. My name is Chase Bouchet. I go by Temple Grower on Twitter and Instagram and all that. And I'm really nothing special. I'm a medical grower that's been growing for about just under, I would say, a decade now and then through the various iterations of the various regulations that the cannabis or medical cannabis has gone through. I've been through all of that. So, yeah, I'm just I'm a I guess I went to school, I graduated in 2014 from the University of Saskatchewan with a geology degree. And so, I did that for a few years. But I've, I've always had medical issues with my, with my stomach. And cannabis has always been kind of the go to medicine that I used thus far for it. So yeah, over the years I've just kind of tried and tried to hone my craft, I suppose, in terms of narrowing it down to strains and different things that work for me specifically. Obviously, that's important in the medical sense because we all know there's tons and tons of different strains and cultivars and names of things out there, but not every plant is the same. So, it's important to define what works for you. And so that's kind of been my, I guess, journey thus far is just learning to grow, helping people to grow now that it's legal to go back before legalization, it was a little bit more iffy to, you know, come out of the metaphorical closet, I suppose. But now with legalization, it's a bit easier to be more open about this kind of thing. So, yeah, and I've always been a big proponent of people being able to support themselves in terms of their medicine rather than having to rely on other people, especially in the medical marijuana world. We all know how much of a kind of a debacle that has been, especially on the medical side of things. Expensive. It's used to be a lot harder to get in terms of just supply from the LP. It's a lot better now because we have a lot more companies doing it. But yeah. So, I've always been a big proponent of  not being under the thumb of those kinds of things and producing your own, so. 

Trevor: That's fantastic. OK, Sue, back to you. So, you've, you've had some seeds, like you said, pop on your windowsill. 

Sue: It's was just an experiment, really, just to study the plant. I didn't really plan to get medicine out of it. I just wanted to observe the plants. And then when Chase contacted me, we started talking and wow, he says I mean, he's a genius, I think. 

Chase: I don't know about that. 

Sue: Maybe it's just because he concentrates on it so much. You know, when you concentrate on learning something, you learn it well. And he's definitely learned it well. And because he's got a scientific background, he really uses that, like he uses that to make his super soil for his cannabis, which is part of what he understands. So and he's taking a master gardener class, too. So, he got me set up with it like I got a tent and I got everything I needed. So he helped me get everything set up. 

Trevor: OK, Chase, tell us a little bit what you don't have to go give out any trade secrets, but what super soil? 

Chase: That's a really good question. It's kind of a hot topic these days that the super soil on the living soil. But essentially, it's in my mind and the way I like to define it. It is a soil that has all the nutrients built in. So, you're not having to continually feed every day or every week, like with the Miracle-Gro type of stuff or with your bottled nutrients. So, I premix bone-meal, blood meal, basically all the components of the plants need into the soil prior to it. You cook it. So, you let the microbial activity kind of get activated and start doing what they do best. And after about three-weeks or so, I'm sitting in a in a barrel and cooking the soil is ready to go. And effectively, the way I've designed it, because I like I mentioned I worked as a geologist a few years back and I was out in the fields for two to three weeks at a time. So, I needed something that my partner, my girlfriend here can could just water basically because she's not exactly a green thumb. So, yeah, basically all you do is water it until you harvest it. So, it was it's a little bit more simple in the sense that yeah. It's more complex to make in the beginning, but it's not really complex. But yeah, once, once you get it made it is basically just a water only soil. 

Trevor: Excellent. Ok Sue, you've got formula for super soil. What else is in your sort of starter cannabis set up what, what you have at the beginning. 

Sue: So we have a garden store here called Early's and like they're pretty good, like they're trying to help people grow cannabis. So, they've got all sorts of supplies in their store. And they you can buy tents and different heights and fans separately there, but you can also buy a kit. So, I thought, I'm just going to do it simply, first of all. And I bought a kit and it had a CMH light, which I love. It's like the sun. It's all warm and toasty and it looks like the sun is in there. So I love spending time down there. So, does my dog. 

Trevor: OK, if you could hear but that was my dog barking in the background. 

Sue: Ya, I did. 

Trevor: He's annoyed he's not getting cookies fast enough. OK, ok. So CMH Light, what does what does that mean. I assume it has a whole bunch of different broad spectrum something or other. But tell me what a CMH light is. 

Sue: You know what? I'm going to turn this question over to Chase because he gets really nerdy about lights and I love that. 

Trevor: OK,. 

Chase: I won't go to much. You know, you can we can spend I mean, there's a podcast devoted to these topics, and I'm by no means an expert on this, but CMH stands for ceramic metal halide and it's a type of high intensity discharge light. I'm sure everybody's heard of the HPS or the high-pressure sodium in the metal Halides. They're kind of the, they're the traditional technology. I'll say they definitely work really well. But, yeah, they're just a style of light, basically. So, you have they're part of the high intensity discharge. The HID family, though, on the other side you have the LEDs, which these days are actually getting really, really efficient. So, yeah, it's just a type of light and a really, really nice type of light actually I quite like using those. 

Sue:  but it was under specked for the 4x4 tent. 

Trevor: OK. 

Chase: Yeah, a bit small. 

Sue: So, my middle buds actually tested higher. I just had my cannabis tested by one place so we can get into that later. 

Trevor: Sure, now and because again, I know almost nothing. OK, so you've got you've got a tent. You've got lights. You've got soil. A few other bits and pieces in there. How about just help me out with things like male and female? Is the whole plant male? Is the whole plant female? Tell me a little bit about that. 

Sue: So, plants can be either male or female.  And the males, well luckily, they express themselves usually a little bit sooner. And my client's seeds I planted 12, 10 of them turned out to be males. So, I was left with two females. And the male plants start to get these little balls on them or little oval shaped things. 

Trevor: OK. 

Sue: And that's kind of how you tell you have a male. And lots of people were posting pictures on Twitter this year because they were trying to figure out their males from their females. So, people on Twitter are really helpful with that, I find. So, I was able to identify. Like from Chase helping me and also from Twitter people helping me. And so, I culled those 10 males and just kept the two females growing. And then I also got some seeds from Chase and yeah, I started my grow. 

Trevor: Now just do male plants not produce flower like not produce a bud. Is that why you don't need very many of them or do you need any of them at all. Like I. 

Sue: Well so the male plants have flowers and when the flowers open up they express pollen and that pollen can go really far as you'll find out from my testing later. 

Chase: It's going to put a picture up on my screen here of a male. Oh, perfect. You can kind of see the difference. They're quite different. 

Sue: They're really handsome, though. I love looking at the males. 

Chase: Beautiful ya, but not useful for any sort of well, other than breeding. I mean, you don't need male flowers at all. They just get in the way. 

Sue: There we go. 

Chase: So, if you've ever seen a Hops' flowers. They have the cones. Right. But then there's the other because hops, hops, economists are actually quite related in terms of the botanical classification of the plants. Their cousins essentially and their male flowers look basically identical. It's really cool. But, um, yeah. So, they pop up like that and then those little flowers open up and they release their pollen and the pollen will then float and stick to the stigma. So, the little white hairs that you see popping up on the female plants. 

Trevor: OK. 

Chase: And when that happens, that's basically fertilization and then a seed. The Pollen will send its genetic information down the, I don't exactly know how it works, but it fertilizes a seed and then the seed will grow inside of rather than the Sinsemilla without seed flower that we're all used to. 

Sue: I think it's this style Chase. 

Chase: That's what it's called. 

Sue: The stigma is the little things on the style, Yeah. Anyway. 

Trevor: OK, no, I've learned lots and Kirk hasn't spoke up yet. I can't believe that Kirk loves hops. I literally have a hops wreath in my house that Kirk made. He. 

Sue: Nice. 

Trevor: He makes hop pillow. Kirk, he's an old beer brewer from forever ago. Kirk loves hops. Come on Kirk, say something. 

Kirk: Hi guys. My goal was to be quiet in this interview, but I do have a question.  Sue was it your goal to seed your flowers like you did you want to? Did you want did you want to grow this crop with seeds? 

Sue: That was a really good question, Kirk. So what I did was I, I planted some of my males outside just to watch them. And they were pretty and my bunny ate the leaves and I use some of the leaves in my cooking, and then I culled them because I had a total of seven cannabis plants. I think my prescription allows for twenty-five, but I don't use as much cannabis as a lot of people. So, I just grew seven and two of them were started before the other five seeds that Chase gave me, which all turned out to be female. So that was great. But the plants that I started first got too tall for the tent basically, and I couldn't get the light right and get the levels right. So, I decided to move two of the plants outside and my son was kind of like helping. He's a chemistry student. He's really interested in working at a cannabis lab someday. So, he was helping me all along. And we were like, some of these are your rec plants. Some of these are my medicine. Just take care of them together. And so, I thought, well, if I put two plants outside, it doesn't really matter. They can be his rec plants and they grew really tall and I decided to plant them in the garden. I took them out of the pots and planted them where bunnies used to live, where there were just worms and like that soil is super fertile and I still fertilize them and put magnesium around them. And they got big, beautiful flowers and they froze three times. But it doesn't matter. People are so worried about their cannabis plants freezing and maybe it's cultivar specific,. 

Chase: Definitely. 

Sue: But mine did. Mine did great and I got lots of flowers. 

Trevor: OK, so let's go. So, we'll go back to Sue. You culled your males. You've got a couple females, you've got two more females from Chase. So, the females that you've got, are they now, what did you do a lot of it still in the tent. Or when did you or did your females ever end up outside too. 

Sue: So, two of the females that I started at first ended up outside in the dirt. In the garden and the other five stayed in the tent. 

Trevor: And how long does this take sort of from seed to usable plant? 

Sue: Well, don't ask me because I let my plants veg way too long. 

Trevor: OK, help. Help me. I've heard that term. Let your plants veg. What does that mean? 

Sue: So you need to let them grow a little bit before you change up the lifecycle. Well, Chase, Chase can add to that because he doesn't always do that. Sometimes he starts twelve-twelve right away. But like normally you would let them go for about six weeks, let them grow for about six weeks. And then and then you can switch to twelve, twelve and then you can then they'll start flowering. 

Chase: Vegetative growth essentially means it's just the plant when the plant is vigorously growing but not producing flowers. So, it's just growing indefinitely. It's kind of the same as, not quite the same, but in regular horticultural gardening, you have your tomato varieties of determinate versus indeterminate. So, you determinate tomatoes, they grow to a certain height and then they basically start growing. They flower. They produce the tomatoes and then they're gone. Whereas an indeterminate variety like cherry tomatoes will keep growing like a vine, basically producing tomatoes all along the way. But it effectively keeps growing. Cannabis in the sense does that, too. It doesn't produce the tomatoes while it's keeping on growing. Essentially, it just keeps growing until, like you said, you flip the light cycle to the from the long day cycles to the short-day cycles where twelve hours, like twelve hours of dark generally is what most growers use. 

Trevor: And during the vegetative state you do something like sixteen and eight or. 

Chase: Yeah. Something like, usually eighteen and six is kind of the most typical. Yeah. 

Trevor: OK. 

Chase: But yeah, some people run up to twenty, some people will use Twenty-four hours with certain types of plants like the auto flowering plants. But I think there's kind of a diminishing returns when you get up to those amount of hours. And plants do need to sleep too. I think a little bit like they do things in the dark. 

Sue: They're so cute because they the outdoor ones when it would start to get dark because it gets dark slowly outside. Right. It's not like all of a sudden and the leaves of a droop. And so it just shows like what is wrong with my plants. And he said they're just going to sleep Sue. 

Chase: It's funny. But yeah, vegetative growth is essentially the pre-flowering stage.  It's when you are manipulating the plant. So that's when you can do your toppings or where you cut the tops of the plants off to make it more branchy. You bend them, can break the stem. Do all kinds of different manipulation techniques in order to increase the yield. So rather than having the one center, major or main COLA or main growth stem, you have kind of a bush or more like and especially for Indoor growers. That's a great idea to do just because you do increase your yields quite substantially by knocking off that center and then encouraging the plant to be more bushy, I guess. 

Trevor: OK. All right. So, you've gone through vegetative state. You have decreased the amount of daylight. So, you're going to, you're encouraging flowering and then what happened? 

Sue: Well, I think because I let the plants veg for so long, the ones in the tent, like the ones outside, were fine because they were like in living garden soil that had a lot of nutrients. But the ones in the tent, I think, ran a little low on nutrients. So next time, you know. 

Chase: The pots were a bit undersized for those plants. 

Sue: I'm actually really happy with what I got. Because near the end, Chase said to me, well, you know, the LP probably won't grow God Bud, because you get little popcorn buds. But I mean, the stuff I got is fantastic. 

Chase: So there are a couple that do grow I will say, but I don't know if it's actually God Bud, but that's a whole other conversation. 

Sue: Yeah, I know. Genetics. 

Trevor: All right, Sue, so you've got you have plants. They have buds. And I don't know if I'm missing a couple of steps, but I've heard about curing I don't know what curing is. Is that kind of the next thing after you've grown the bud, you're like... 

Sue: No. 

Trevor: OK, what's the next step? 

Sue: Well, the next step is taking the plants out of the tent and cutting the branches. 

Trevor: OK,. 

Chase: Harvest. 

Sue: And then yeah, harvesting. And then you need to dry them and you need to trim them. So I trim them wet. I decided to trim them wet this time just to try to see what it was like. 

Trevor: And what does that mean, trimming them wet. 

Sue: Just as soon as you cut the branch you can trim the leaves around the flowers. 

Trevor: OK. 

Sue: And if you some people like to hang their cannabis and let it dry that way and then they trim the leaves, some people don't even trim the leaves. You don't have to. 

Trevor: OK with trimming we get a prettier bud. Or does it affect the actual quality? 

Chase: Not really. 

Sue: I don't know. Actually, that's kind of a debate, isn't it Chase. 

Chase: Well, yeah. Like when honestly, when you do wet trim, you're handling the budget and you're cutting it so that you do probably get a little bit more trichomes damage, I guess, compared to just literally chopping it and hanging it without. Some people say when as the bud dries, those big fat leaves, even if you leave those ones on, they'll kind of hug, hug around the butt and protect the bud from whatever, I guess. But I mean, if you're not whacking it around, there's probably not a huge amount of damage going to going to happen in terms of hanging it like that. But when you wet trim again, you will be you have to manicure it and you will be holding it in your hand here and you're clipping around. Sometimes you're digging into the bud a little bit with the scissors. 

Sue: So but I saved all my scissors hash. 

Chase: Yeah, that's the thing is it's not like it goes to waste. You scrape the resin off of your scissors and that's probably one of the best or one of the tastiest extracts you can get. It's effectively hand rub hash. 

Sue: Yeah. And we like Chase and I, we use all our trim. Well, maybe Chase does not. I do. He gives me his trim and I use my trim and I make cannabis oil and I just send it across the country for free. 

Trevor: OK, and maybe because I did know the word, but maybe not everyone does. Sue, tell me what a trichome is, because that's if we're trying to get medicine out your trichomes important. What's a trichome? 

Sue: So, there are about six different kinds of trichomes on cannabis plants. So not just long stock with a little head on it. There's all kinds of different trichomes on a cannabis plant. But the ones that we're most interested in are the stocks with the heads. Capitate. They have heads and in the head is contained most of the chemicals of the cannabis plant. 

Trevor: All right. So, you can see why you wouldn't want to knock those off. 

Sue: Right. 

Chase: Exactly. It's really important. And that's one of the things about weed that's been across the country kind of four different times, as it whacks around those little heads get knocked off. And you're losing a lot of medicine. So fresh weed. 

Sue: It's really, really important. Like I've been talking about this. It's like when you grow your own cannabis, your mind will be blown. Like because you learn all sorts of things about the industry by growing your own cannabis, if that makes sense. 

Trevor: Sure. Absolutely. I'm sure, Kirk, I can't believe you don't have questions at this point. 

Sue: He's laughing, I can see him. 

Trevor: He's giggling in the corner. I'm going to let Kirk with a couple before we ask a few more. 

Kirk: I'm chomping at the bit. Chase, I have a question. Master grower, when do you decide to harvest? When do you know the flower is ready? 

Chase: Right. That's a good question. A lot of people say when the little stigmas started to turn orange, but I don't really find that is a super accurate way of telling. I like to I have a microscope is a it has a it attaches to my phone. It's a USB microscope. That's it's a forty to a thousand times magnification, at least it says it is. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. But I use that to assess the capitate stock trichomes that she was mentioning before. And as the flowers mature, they usually turn from a, like right when they first form, they're clear in their heads and as they mature, they go from a clear color to more of a cloudy color, and then from a cloudy to more of an amber type color. 

Sue: They get stoned. 

Chase: Yeah. And I mean anecdotal, I guess, explanation of that is as it progresses from that clear to cloudy to amber, you get more of a sedation effect as it gets more mature. So, you can kind of titrate the effect you like. If you harvest early, it's more of a heady cerebral type of effect. And then as you progress, it's more of a stony type of couch-lock effect. But I mean, the effects are probably pretty subtle and from strange. The strain is obviously more important, I think, than the maturity of the trichomes. But personally, I go for just when they're starting to turn Amber. So, I like, I don't like it to couch locky, I guess, if that's actually what does it. So, I go for just when they're starting to turn from cloudy to the orange color. 

Trevor: Kirk has been talking lately about CBN as one of the cannabinoids that seems to show up the older the cannabis is. So maybe it has something to do with that. But you know what? We're out to get an actual chemist on to tell us if we're barking up the wrong tree on that. 

Chase: Yeah, yeah. No, I've heard that before, too. 

Trevor: So soon. All right. So you have you've grown you've trimmed what what's next? Does that immediately get into your cooking, into your oil, or is there something else you'd you do after your trim? 

Sue: No, after I trimmed, I did wet trimming and then I had to dry the cannabis because it's just like a leaf on a tree. It's like got lots of moisture and it needs to dry before you put it in the jar. It'll get all moldy. Right. 

Trevor: OK. 

Sue: So, after I get trimmed, I did something a little different and a lot of people were quite interested in it. And it was Chase's idea. He had done it before. He took just like a plastic bin with a lid and he drilled holes all over it on the lid and on the sides and he strung strings. I did two layers of strings and then I lay my branches of cannabis with the buds or flowers across those strings. 

Trevor: A little bit with little cannabis hammock. 

Chase: Mm basically. 

Sue: Yeah, exactly. So, it was like, just do it yourself, little thing. And it was inexpensive. I got like an eleven-dollar bin from Canadian Tire and this is all really inexpensive. 

Trevor: Good. 

Sue: And then yeah, I left it there for about seven to ten days and I know people have been talking about the snap the stem test isn't very good test, but I would try the stem like near the top of the cola and in the middle and at the bottom to really see if they were dry yet. So. 

Trevor: OK. 

Sue: Not just the middle of the stem. 

Trevor: And now we can top corner, we can see one of Chase's boxes with holes. OK, yeah. 

Chase: That's my prototype. 

Sue: So yeah, he hung his like that, but I left long branches and I just lay the branches on top of the strings. 

Trevor: OK. 

Chase: Essentially what we're trying to do with this is you just needed a controllable environment because there's a specific humidity and temperature that are ideal for your cannabis to dry at.  You want to have it in about fifty to fifty-five percent humidity and probably around 16, 17, 18 Celsius for approximately six to 10 days, depending on how dense your buds are. And so, with this, I basically just put the lid on and I kind of just crack the lid as much as I needed it to be to keep it at those temperature and the humidity I just mentioned, I had a humidifier pointed right at it as well to keep.  My basement is quite dry. So, you just it's basically just a controlled, closed environment is all that really represents. And however, you do that to dry your plants is the way to go. But this is just a really, really small batches in case I don't have any room anywhere else. 

Sue: Well, I keep my cannabis in my bedroom. In a drawer. So, and I have hydrometer and I noticed that it was around 50 percent up there. Plus, we have the bathroom, so it's a little bit more humid. So, it was really, really easy for me to keep. I kept my cannabis bucket in my tub and we have a shower that's separate in that room. So, yeah, I was able and when it would get like below 50, we would just take a shower. 

Trevor: Okay, there you go. 

Chase: Red-green. 

Sue: It works perfect. And then when they were dry, I just took the buds off the stems and put them in a jar and yeah, you leave them in there for a month. And the hardest part is not like you want to try it. So, you try it all through the cure. But it's really best after a month. When you hit that one-month mark, it really comes into its own. 

Trevor: OK, Sue, so you sort of walked us through this. So if, in Manitoba, unfortunately for rec, we are not allowed to grow our own, but most of Canada you can grow four plants if you just want to play around with it. But someone says, you know this, I need a covid project. I want to grow my four plants at home. You think do you think it's worthwhile? Do you have, you know, a top two or three tips for them to just get started on? What would you say to someone said, you know, between now and then in 2021, I want to have four of my old plants growing in my basement. 

Sue: So, there's different ways that people grow. I mean, there's the super soil and people use cocoa and hydro. There's all different methods. So, I guess, first of all, you have to decide how you want to grow. So that would be the first step. But Chase also has an hour and a half presentation on growing four plants. 

Trevor: OK, well, and I was going to mention it now. Both you guys actually have some really good stuff for the community. 

Sue: We've got lots. 

Trevor: Yeah, I'm going to say, Sue, do you want to talk about EduCanNation or the Library of Cannabis or some of the presentations? What do you want to plug today? 

Sue: Well, I'll plug it all shortly, but. 

Trevor: OK. 

Sue: I'm turning EduCanNation into more of a donation platform. I don't get that this week because, I mean, people in the industry aren't getting paid. Chase and I had this talk, like we both want to be kind of educators and like he wants to help people grow. And I want to just educate generally and help people learn how to cook with cannabis. But there aren't that many people yet who are like into cannabis. A lot of people still drink a lot, but I think it'll change. I think we'll get a much bigger population for cannabis when people really see the difference and how much healthier cannabis is than alcohol. Alcohol is not healthy anyway. 

Chase: Growing, too. There's, you know, like I moderate on a website called perseysgrowroom.com. And it's basically just volunteer grow help is what we do where we're a personal. Percys Grow Room stands for personal and it's just a place online where you can come that we have all kinds of articles and information that that are there, that we've all written, people like me and other guys like myself for free about all the questions you just asked. And you sign up and basically you can ask people like myself questions and post pictures of your grows and well, we'll help you Q&A stuff. But, you know, we're one of many forums and there are many, many, many videos on YouTube and all kinds of books out there and information. There's so much so much information, it almost seems. It's too much for some people. 

Sue: It is and even basic cannabis knowledge is too much for people. 

Chase: Yeah, but I would say don't overthink things. And really, it's not rocket science. It's effectively it's a specialized horticulture. And we've been doing horticulture for a long, long time. That's kind of my point is with my super soil, for example, I, I stay away from all the fancy label bottled nutrients and all that, all that stuff, just because, you know, we've been using the stuff that I use for millennia. So, it's probably works. Right. And why would we all of a sudden change. 

Trevor: sounds like it's got a good track record. 

Chase: Yeah. And cannabis industry is interesting that it's the only industry that really uses all those fancy bottles. Nucs that are one hundred dollars a bottle and all this stuff. So, I don't know. I like to just be aware of what is that what you're actually doing. It is just a plant. It is a very special plant, but it is effectively just a plant. And yeah, I like to do your research, but don't worry too much about how much there is out there because you can you could read until you die I think. 

Sue: It’s a fun plant. It’s meant to be fun. 

Chase: Yeah. 

Trevor: So, guys that's been really good. So Chase, you talked a little bit about Percy's Grow room. There was also a podcast you were involved with. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? 

Chase: Sure. Yeah, it's well, it's the Persy's Grow Room podcast. It's called Highonhomegrown and we broadcast live every Sunday. And yeah, we're basically we're an international panel of the there's five mon that that and they're on the panel and we do. It's a structured show. I guess we do cannabis news. We do our question and answer. We do a little bit of his famous stoner history of people like famous activists or other people that have been around the industry for a long time. Strain history and stuff like that. The big part, though, is our interviews. And we're getting we do lots of interesting interviews with a lot of interesting people we've had Ed Rosenthal is coming up. Frenchy Conneli has been on. Tommy Chong. 

Sue: Dr. Grinspoon was really good too,. 

Chase: Peter Grinspoon. I'm sure I'm missing. 

Sue: Danny Danko. 

Chase: I know I'm missing a lot, but I apologize for that. But, yeah, it's a good show because it's a general show. It's not we don't get too much into the science. None of us are scientists that have actually studied this stuff. So it's a little out of scope for us. 

Sue: More to the politics and the medical side. 

Chase: It's yeah, we're just like everybody else kind of thing. We're not we're not we're not experts or anything. So, we try and keep it light and easy, but also try and help and encourage the home grow world. Because like I say, it's really important for people to realize that it isn't rocket science. You don't need to, like I said, be under the thumb of these companies that, you know, they're producing good stuff, don't get me wrong. But is and it's not really their fault that it's expensive. But nobody likes to pay this much for the medicine that we've all been paying less for over the years. And we all know. And then once you grow, you really do know that it doesn't cost much. It's a bit of an investment in the beginning, but it's very much worth it. Not only the medicine you get, but the experience that you get with it as well. 

Sue: You don't need so much to look at all that terpene profiles that the LP's have and the cannabinoid profiles because it just works when you use it fresh it just works better. 

Trevor: And Sue, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the I'm going to get it wrong, but the Library of Cannabis, I think you guys need some courses. Some, what have you been up to? 

Sue: Oh, lots of stuff. I'm always doing lots of stuff and I'm going to apply for a job soon to trimming cannabis. So, I'll let you know on Twitter whether I get that or not. I love trimming Cannabis. I could get a job working for lots of people, I'm sure. But the library of cannabis was actually what I first had Chase's God Budd. He gave me some of his God Budd to see, you know, what it was like if I wanted to grow it and I have this incredible vision and it felt like I was floating. I was in bed like I had vaped it and I was in bed. It felt like I was floating in a sea of stars. And all this light, this rainbow light is emanating from my body. And it was after that that I just thought, hey, I need to bring all of the resources of cannabis together in one spot for myself and for other people. And so far, I've just been on it by myself, so not much is getting done. I'm hoping that other people will add resources to it and I just don't have enough time to work on it. But I plan to slowly. The EduCanNation group is something completely different where a group of basically patients it was begun by two breast cancer survivors and they really wanted they had just got into cannabis like when they were sick and found it was incredible. And now they're healthy again. And they wanted to start a nonprofit for education about cannabis because the government didn't give us any education. They just gave us, what was it, 11 warnings from research studies that were flawed. So, like, none of the information we're getting is true and we just wanted to do something about that. So we're a very small group, but we have big hearts and a lot of gumption to educate Canada about cannabis. Canadis there's a there's a good word. 

Trevor: Kirk, where you try to jump in. 

Kirk: Well, I was just going to say, I certainly hope that you're flogging our podcast as a credible learning experience. 

Sue: Absolutely. All the time. And I. I plan to put that in the library. I want to put all the good stuff in the library. I just haven't had time. But I'll do that tomorrow, Kirk, OK? 

Kirk: Sure, you know, just trying to plug our broadcast. Yeah. Chase, I have a question for you. Help me define craft cannabis. 

Chase: Yeah, that's a good question. I will probably get in...

Sue: Not that's not a thing. Is it, Chase? It's just cannabis. 

Chase: We will get in trouble for that. 

Sue: Ya, you will, you better watch out. 

Chase: Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I think that Craft cannabis is small scale. You know, the producer, you can you could probably go to their farm and see what they're using, their other inputs. And I don't know, you just have a much more personal relationship than going into a store and buying a product off the shelf and not knowing who grew it. I guess the farmer's market kind of model would be my definition of craft. 

Sue: Yes, that's what we need to do. That's why we want to get people growing. That's why we're giving everybody seeds, right Chase? 

Chase: Absolutely. Yeah. I still say like a until I can go set up a booth, you know, I'm more than happy to send some stuff in to get COA to make sure that that it is proper for human consumption and all that good stuff. But until I can set up a booth at the farmer's market, stick my COA on my little post up there and sell my seeds and my cannabis, I really don't think it's completely legal. And that would be a definition of craft, in my opinion. But yeah. 

Kirk: So at this point, you're gifting on the medical side. 

Chase: Yeah. Well, as Canadians, I hope I'm pretty. I know we're legal, legally available or allowed to give up to 30 grams of cannabis to another Canadian and they equate one seed to one gram, gram of cannabis. So therefore, we can give up to thirty seeds as recreational or just as Canadians. It doesn't necessarily even need to be for anything, I guess. I don't think you need to define it as such, but yeah. 

Kirk: No, I agree with you. That's how I interpret it as well. Sorry Trevor. 

Trevor: Those are great questions. I was going to say, though, this has been great. And but before I go on and on and on, either of you have any last thoughts, you know, for a first-time grower what they should think about or just want to wish them well or anything else you want to talk about in closing. 

Sue: I think a grow mentor is a really valuable person. That's what I would say. And like we continue to learn from each other to. Right. So it's really nice to have a partner like honestly, you know, when Covid had like I was supposed to start teaching cooking with cannabis at the public library in Saskatoon, I had a community room where I was going to do cannabis education. And I was quite sad that all that went away, you know, all that good education went away. So when I met Chase and started growing and started learning more and I've talked to more black market people now, which has been really valuable because that's where it's at. Right. We need to we really need to listen to black market people because that's where cannabis comes from. Right. And I feel like we are damaging the culture. Like, that's just from knowing Chase, talking to him, learning about all of that. It's a little upsetting to me actually, that we are not honoring that because we love to share like the cannabis community is about sharing. It's not about expensive cannabis. 

Chase: Keep in mind, I'm a bitter medical patient. So, you know, I've around awhile. 

Sue: It's made as medicine, like it's super medicine. So, you know, it should be a lot more accessible and a lot more affordable. 

Chase: I agree. 

Trevor: I think that's a good end. And Chase any last words? 

Chase: No, I well, I'll say, if you do decide to start growing, just don't overthink it. You know, there's a lot of info out there, but it's not rocket science. So, I'm glad to. 

Sue: There's lots of help out there. 

Chase: Yeah. Don't be afraid to ask. There are some jerks. There always will be. But for the most part, they get the canna-community is very embracing and helpful. And we're all willing to help each other out because we all we're all in this together, so. 

Trevor: Kirk, that was a nice chat, I for, you know, happens to be a Thursday night. That was a really nice Thursday evening chat. 

Kirk: Yeah, it was. I enjoyed that. I like the fact that this is the second Grower we've met and medicinal growers, it uses soil. 

Trevor: Yeah. So, Sue uses soil because Chase uses soil. But Chase has been doing a lot of research for, I think he said more than a decade now. And he is very, very pro soil, I'm sure. And maybe we'll get one on a little later on. I'm sure there's a lot of good things that can be said by people who love hydroponics and how well they can control what's going in and out. But from what Chase is saying, sounds like soil is once you sort of get the set-up, soil is fairly easy. 

Kirk: Yeah, yeah. I know. It's interesting because I wanted to ask the question about probiotics versus worms, because when we were talking to the Green Beaver, an episode was Season two, episode eight, we learned about probiotics soil and they also make their own soil and just to give Sue her dues, she was episode thirty-one where we interviewed her the first time. So yeah. So again, soil comes into play. So, I wonder how many wonder how many home growers use soil opposed to hydro or using coconut, as they say. Because when we met with Delta9, did they not say that they used the coconut? 

Trevor: I'm losing track of who used what, but we've definitely talked to growers who use hydroponics because they have more control. And I'm going to segue into My Cannabis Stories. There's got to be some people out there right now who love hydroponics or others who hate hydroponics or love soil, hate soil. Record a voice memo on your phone. Tell us why you would love hate your growing medium. And it'll be a My Cannabis Story because we need some of those. 

Kirk: I think this was a really good episode, Trevor. I think we need to keep track of the Chase in regards to learning more about growing. There is lots of questions not asked, but one that answered, I guess. But what I liked about it is that it sounds like it's a simple thing just through a couple of seeds and you put it through a veg cycle and what is it, eighteen to six. And when they start to form flowers,. 

Trevor: I now know what a veg cycle is I didn't before. 

Kirk: And then and then you flip them the flower and that's the point. And I like I said to you, I've been doing a little research on this, so now I know where I can find my mentor to dip into it and get more into it. 

Trevor: And all seriousness and we'll put links in the show notes. But Sue has got quite a big online presence now, everything from her EduCanNation to Library of Cannabis to I'm not going to get it right. Her new group with the they were basically having online courses EduCanNation. It's mission and get their education to cannabis. And I'm not saying it right, but we'll get all those links. And then Chase has Percy's grow room and the Percy's grow room podcast. We'll get all that in the show note. So if any of what they said interested, you will. Which will we'll be able to have links there. 

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. Do that and a Segue. Do you guys have a choice of music for this episode. 

Sue: Oh, Chase, you go for it. 

Chase: I don't know, like maybe some really like I don't know. I hate being asked about music because I love music and I just I'm, I'm very like, oh, if I pick this song it's going to be perfect. And after I pick it I should pick this song should have picked that song. 

Kirk: So if you if you weren't talking to us right now, what would you be listening to? 

Chase: I don't know. I don't know why, but the first thing that comes to my mind is Sound of the Police by KRS1