Reflections on the first year of legalization

[two heads]

I've been a guerrilla grower for over 20 years here in southern Ontario, Canada so I was pretty excited by herb becoming legal in Canada on October 17, 2018. Not because I could buy it in government-regulated shops but because I could finally grow my own in my own backyard. Allowing homegrowing is the must-have for any legislation legalizing cannabis in my opinion. Canada may not be perfect but they got this part mostly right.

The first year of legalization was an interesting one for me. I finally grew a magnificent backyard Victory Garden BUT it was (mostly) ripped off a couple of weeks shy of harvest. BUT my ever-trusty swamp garden bailed me out. BUT one of the swamp plants got frozen solid and went entirely in the hash bucket. BUT, during this first year of legalization, in my semi-retirement, I've found myself working part-time in a local medical cannabis facility helping out with the harvests and one of the eager young lads there told me about dry ice hash extraction, which I tried on my frozen Original Glue and was amazed by the quality and yield of dry ice hash over ice water extraction. SO, my frozen plant was a blessing in disguise and I find myself in the dead of winter following my first legal harvest with lots of herb, lots of hash, lots of cookies, lots of gifts from newly-freed friends and looking forward to the prospect of learning from my errors of 2019 in 2020. The same sort of thing we guerrilla gardeners feel every winter but this time sans paranoia. It's awesome.

 

[two heads]

The first day of legalization was a memorable one for me as it was my final day of harvest for the 2018 guerrilla swamp garden, That day, as I rode my bike home from the swamp, backpack filled to bursting with stinky Bangi Haze, I was grinning from ear to ear. I honestly never thought I'd see the day and here it was.

I wasn't sure if I'd ever be back to the swamp that had served me and the other head (now living out west) for so many years. We'd been pulling 1-3 pounds out of this swamp every year for a long time now. That's a good harvest but I would now be able to do as well or better from four plants in my backyard so I wondered if I needed the swamp anymore. Still, as any guerrilla gardener knows, rippers are out there. Our swamp garden was more work to find and rip-off than they wanted so it had been secure from day one but backyard gardens were going to be easy pickings. So I decided early on to try a backyard garden but plant the swamp as usual.

I'm real glad I did.

But let's start with the naive optimism of my backyard garden. Four plants, as allowed by the law.

June 21:

July 22:

 

[two heads]

That same day I visited the swamp garden and it was looking great too. I had visions of a Best-Year-Ever yield.

But sometimes I should leave well enough alone. I thought the Critical + 2.0 was sitting a bit dry in the swamp so I lifted it up to move it to a wetter spot. As I did so I heard a lot of ripping from the bottom the root pouch it was in and I realized I had probably destroyed a lot of the root system. Sure enough, next visit, it only had two tiny branches still living and it never did yield much of anything.

Still, I had three big plants in the swamp and four huge ones at home.

The swamp on September 5.

The backyard on September 5.

 

[yardgrazer]

Ugh, it hurts knowing what's coming.

 

[two heads]

Right around this time I get a call from someone I've known for a long time who has left a marketing position with a large food company and is now working with a smaller medical cannabis facility here in our little southeastern Ontario town. He knows I'm semi-retired and love cannabis and wondered if I would be interested in helping out with harvests now and then. The pay's not great but they are willing to work with my schedule as a self-employed designer and I really do love coming in, suiting up and working hard trimming freshly harvested plants till break and then maybe doing final trim till lunch. The place smells amazing and the staff are mostly young people who are really into herb. It astounds me sometimes just how much we process each and every hour and I've learned a lot I can apply to my own gardening.

Not surprisingly, most everyone there grows. Mostly indoors but many have an outdoor garden this year as well. That's where I first hear about a rip-off. In early September, one of the guys says he was ripped off overnight. A few days later I hear a similar story on the local news. I still haven't built the back gate that would make my backyard more secure or put up the second security light but they're on my list...

This part-time job just adds to my astonishment at how much it's the same, and yet how profoundly changed my world is, since legalization.

 

[two heads]

It's all good yardgrazer!

Ugh, it hurts knowing what's coming.

 

[two heads]

So September progresses. The buds are filling out at both sites and need strings run to hold them up.

The swamp with its strings on September 15:

And some nice buds for mid-September. Guerrilla Glue:

Glueberry OG:

White Widow:

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Interesting reflections - sad to hear you got some ripped -

 

[two heads]

At home I've also run strings... but still not built that gate on September 24.

They come during a wicked overnight downpour on September 25 and thank God they're not very well prepared. It looks like they try to cut the huge plants down with a pen knife or a pair of scissors so, luckily, they don't get everything. A lot of lower branches are still on the plants the next morning and I recover some more decent bud on the ground around the plants and leaving the yard. This is what I woke up to September 26:

In the end, I harvest about 200 grams of mainly tiny buds taken before their time from my 2019 backyard Victory Garden and I think I'm very lucky to have that. Lesson learned. Next year, I'll keep the swamp as it turned out to be an invaluable insurance policy this year but I'll also make damn sure I harvest my backyard garden in its entirety as well. The back gate is being built as soon as the snow melts but, more importantly, I'm budgeting about $500 from my cannabis factory earnings toward buying temporary construction fencing I'll put up at the beginning of September, and I'll buy a IR sensor alarm to put inside it. Maybe a few trip wires too. They are NOT getting my plants next year.

 

[Fitzera]

That is frustrating!! The part that gets me the most is the invasion of my property. But it would be pretty fun and entertaining next year with some home alone type setups

Better luck next year!


Ps...a couple buried totes like pit traps, but filled with polymer flocculant...it would be like watching deer try to run on ice!! That stuff is like the most slippery snot consistancy you can imagine, adding wager just makes it worse. Hilarity is sure to follow

 

[two heads]

Getting ripped off at home shocked me but I quickly realized it was my own fault. Unfortunately, I wasn't done making bad decisions yet. I was pretty pleased with myself for having the foresight not to abandon the swamp in the flush of legalization and now I was going to reap my reward and tip the scales back in my favour after losing so much of the backyard harvest. So I went out October 3 thinking I would either harvest a bit if it wasn't quite ready or take everything if it was. It looked real good when I got there and the buds were almost at their peak. The White Widow:

The Original Glue:

And the Glueberry OG:

I've always said a bud in the hand is worth two in the bush but the weather had been nice so I only took some heavy lower branches and left the rest till I could get back again. A nice haul but I could have, and should have, carried a lot more.

 

[two heads]

I had helped a few people set up backyard gardens this year and I got fooled by how well they were enduring some cold nights that followed October 3. I forgot the swamp is often a few degrees colder than a backyard overnight and sure enough, when I went back to the swamp on October 14 to finish harvesting, my plants had been frosted badly where my friends' backyard plants were fine. The worst hit was the Original Glue, which ended up being a total write-off. There was no good bud on it and it went entirely into the hash bucket, other than the 75 grams I brought home on October 3. (Dry ice hash comes to my rescue but more on that later).

A Original Glue bud on October 14:

The Glueberry OG did a bit better and the White Widow better again. Good to know when it comes to choosing frost-resistant strains. They mainly had frosted tips with salvageable bud below:

With a rare White Widow bud being completely undamaged:

 

[two heads]

Thanks for bearing with me on this mid-winter reflection on my first year of legalization. It really has been an interesting year. In spite of some set-backs, I consider it a success. I decided to become a guerrilla grower all those years ago because I was tired of the sword of money that hung over this plant I loved so much. Buying from my friendly neighbourhood dealer was righteous but expensive and discouraged treating it like the wonderful plant that should be shared widely that it really is. Growing my own would solve all that. So the other head and I set out with a goal of one pound each, minimum, in order to break away from the monetary side of it altogether. We've met that goal almost every year (other than the great flood of 2004). So for me a success is at least a pound and, in spite of my mistakes, this year came through.

200 grams from the stone that the rippers refused, 212 grams out of the swamp at its peak on October 3 and 330 grams salvaged from the bud not frozen on October 14. That's 26.5 oz, or a little over 1.5 lbs. Rather than imagine what might have been, I'm thankful for what has been. Wait till next year!

 

[two heads]

I mentioned earlier about dry ice hash extraction. I've made hash with my trimmings and second-rate bud for years using ice water extraction and 'bubble bags'. This year I tried dry ice extraction for the first time and it is by far a superior system. Because I lost that entire Glue plant to frost, I had 90 grams bags of it dry and ready to make hash with. I made the first batch using ice water like I always do and got 9 grams of hash. 10%, which I was pretty happy with. Then I heard about and tried using the same bags and dry ice. This time I got 65 grams of hash from 180 grams of bud, or about 36% return. The quality is better too. There's no drying period as there is never a 'wet' phase with dry ice so there's never a risk of mold. And it's way quicker. I only ended up processing two batches of bud because the first one went so fast and I still had lots of dry ice to use.

So now, I also have an abundance of great hash and lots of frozen Original Glue to make more. Maybe I'll bake with some?

Here's the hash, right after extraction. 52 grams of 220 micron and 13 grams of 75 micron.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Unfortunately made in china

Unfortunately made in china

This is a pretty good system that you can even rg up to message you, if you like that stuff. At least you would know who did it.

Too bad china is dying and these are out. There may be others.

https://www.ebay.com/p/2143514583

 

[two heads]

That's part of the plan. Home Depot has a decent set-up that includes a motion sensor and two door/window alarms that feeds your smart phone as well.

I simply made it too easy last year. With a fence, an alarm and motion-sensored lighting, I think the rippers will look elsewhere. There's certainly no shortage of backyard grows now!

This is a pretty good system that you can even rg up to message you, if you like that stuff. At least you would know who did it.

Too bad china is dying and these are out. There may be others.

https://www.ebay.com/p/2143514583

 

[Swamp Thang]

Hey Two Heads I am following your journal of this historic transition from guerrilla farming to perfectly legal home cultivation, and as I do so, I dream of one day experiencing the freedom of growing in my own garden, and not having to slog through that bug-infested watery wilderness every time I need to tend my crop.

With your new security measures installed, rippers will learn that yours is one of the homes best avoided, ensuring that future grows run their course to harvest without any bipedal pests showing up. I raise a toast to your new freedom, sir, and hope one day to have a similar development to celebrate on the pages of the IC mag forum.

 

[two heads]

Thanks Swamp Thang. I hope this wave of legalization/sanity spreads. Life just feels qualitatively better now and I can't help but wish this for all ganja lovers.