Personal Grow | Joshua Mezher | A Pot for Pot | Lecture 108: Pruning and Plant Care

In Episode 28: I had a great conversation with Joshua Mezher about taking care of our favorite plant cannabis. He gives a lot of amazing history of the plant and great advice. But as usual we always get to the same point of "less is more and don't over water".

Biggest take away for me: Remove the lower large water fan leaves.  Use string or garden ties to extend the lower branches and put some pressure on the branch without breaking the branch. It will let the branch reach for more light and along with removing fan leaves which allows more air flow.

Thanks for your time Joshua!

RESOURCES:

Personal Grow Website
MUST WATCH INFORMERCIAL | A Pot for Pot

Transcript

[00:00:00] Charlie: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of know, grow, create with me, Charlie Crebs and our collaboration personal grow with Amanda Reiman and Haley Nagasaki. For today's episode, we are doing a discussion on plant care and trimming and just general upkeep and care of your cannabis plants. And so today we're joined by Joshua Mezher of a pot for pot.

So we have had the pleasure [00:01:00] of working with him, seeing what he's doing and with a name like a pot for pot. It just makes sense that he would be here discussing how to take care of that beautiful cannabis plant. So without any further ado, Joshua, welcome to the show. My man. 

[00:01:14] Joshua: Hey, thanks Charlie. And thanks for having me and doing such a great job introducing us.

[00:01:20] Charlie: No problem, man. I'm just so stoked to be here with you today and I have to see what has been your cannabis journey, which led you to starting a pot for pot. 

[00:01:30] Joshua: Yeah. It's a pretty long journey, to be honest with you. I think some way or another throughout the majority of my adult life of being connected to the cannabis plant whether that was selling pot at far too young of an age or I went on my first free, the weed March back in English originally.

But yeah, I was in England at the time and when I was like 14 years old me and my buddy Tristin ditch down to school and yeah, and then left the plot for a [00:02:00] while, and went through, it's quite common. I think in the civically, in the English culture, treats cannabis very differently is in it's very, it's something that people do quite commonly when they're young.

I think partly as the drinking age is 18 and then it just has a very different world. In the United States, the stigma is so different now, but it's very much so back in the older stigma of smoking pot will make you crazy or reefer madness. So then I left the pawn for awhile and then I moved to the United States and that was like almost 13, 14 years ago now.

And realized that everyone in California.

Yeah, it was pretty mind blowing actually, because, coming over here and back then it was early days of recreational. And so you would, I was so baffled, you could walk into a store and buy weed and that's the whole California culture, and just meeting people and seeing how they still have a relationship with the cloth and everything else just brought me back into the fold and Then, yeah, it just was [00:03:00] in college at the time, actually down in Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz back in the early days of recreational, at least was very much to grow hub, because back then it was distributed and lots of small growers and six lighters and so forth.

And I was living in Santa Cruz at the time. And every day as I drive to school, I've looked left and then it's like the hydroponic shop. And then every Wednesday they're barbecue and out, they're having a great time and I'm like going to college and I'm like, what am I doing with my life?

These guys were over here and you can legally grow. So I basically made it decision actually, just that sort of stereotypical decisions drop out of college and start growing cannabis. And that was my first entry into the legal space that it was back then. It's just such a learning experience.

I was just reading an article actually on the first pound I sold.

[00:03:47] Charlie: Were you selling to dispensary's were you going through that system? Okay, cool. 

[00:03:52] Joshua: Yeah, I know. I never found the golden plug. Really, to be honest with you. So I wound up having a good 

[00:03:58] Charlie: slogan,

I [00:04:00] w I can't wait to hear this experience. I think this is something that we don't talk about. If you were in California during the two 15 times, like this was an aha moment for a lot of us, we're all looking at it and saying to ourselves, wait, so you're telling me I could grow a pound of cannabis and go to a dispensary and sell it if it's of high quality, like that was game changer.

And I know a lot of people's lives. It was. Yeah. So tell me about those times. I'm so interested 

[00:04:27] Joshua: to hear. Oh, it was weird, because back then, You couldn't walk into the hydroponic shop and just say cannabis, and, you really had to become friends with the guys to learn how this works.

I remember trying to get information, how do I sell this pound? I've grown, it have trimmed it, it's in a bag like how much is it worth? You don't know. So these questions you have, and kinda the short answer was this, between this and this go see if you can sell it for and where do I go sell it?

Go find a dispensary. Actually I'm driving to San Francisco and I'm trying to recall the name of the Spencer at [00:05:00] the time, but it's been acquired a couple of times now, in fact will come back to me, who said is now I pull it up online. But it's no longer round of business, but it was one of the original ones.

It's a hardness to ask now. I think it is And yeah, so they'd been acquired multiple times and going under, but, I remember walking in there and being like, Hey, like backpack, a pound of weed, ready to sell, the guy opens it up and looks at it. And the first thing he does is he spots a little bit of PM, gives it back to me to look and then 

[00:05:34] Charlie: powdery, mildew, the PM stands for powdery mildew.

And so if they see any mold or anything, it is out, so yeah. That's yeah. 

[00:05:46] Joshua: Not at that club. No, but, go over the bridge and the standard straw

just spend that day, basically going round to clubs and getting some prices on it and wound up, I think, doing like of the classic net 30 and having to try back up there. And yeah, so [00:06:00] that's how I really. You back into cannabis. And then off to that, I grew and realized that was a bit of a tough game.

And you were so limited in what you could do. And yeah, always had an entrepreneurial mindset, just wanted to start a business. It seemed like the smart thing to do then pivoted from growing to a product that never, she made it to market, but at the time was called turbo termers.

And it was a pair of electric handheld scissors actually have one.

Yeah. So it was this guy and most traumas out there will appreciate this tool. But it was like basically smart pair of electric scissors. Come 

[00:06:41] Charlie: on. That's gotta be, that's gotta get on in the marketplace, their jobs, man. 

[00:06:45] Joshua: I tried so hard. I tried for every tumor out there, but it's pretty cool. It basically has like a.

I should have plugged it in and had it ready, but it has a touch panel. And the way it works is it works in three modes because the thing is with trimming. And a lot of people out [00:07:00] there have trimmed, or I don't know if you've, hopefully some of our listeners, like we're in the old two, 15 days around the circle, two impounds up in Humboldt, because if you haven't paid that pay those dues, it's a, you missed out.

It was a good time. But yeah. Trimming is it's like picking strawberries. And you go look and yeah, sure. There are some AI machines that cost $10 million that will damage off your strawberries and pick them for you. But the truth is that if it's actually a really intelligent process and picking a strawberry like you're gallantly picking it, you're lifting the plot, you're checking the backside of it.

And there's lots of things that I think people don't fully appreciate and picking strokes. And I think that can be applied to trimming cannabis, tenfold, precision job, if you want to do, and really when it comes to pricing at lb, that was one of the tough lessons I've learned was that a well-trained pound is a completely different price point than a poorly trimmed pound, even though it's exactly the same product, really, but you'd [00:08:00] give that thing a diamond trim job and all of a sudden your Baton in the Heights to thousands.

And I've had friends who've bought pounds in the old days and spend time trimming it just to get a resell it because I didn't know, a couple extra points on it. And so yeah, the, that part operate in three modes. They want to send me automatic. If you touch the touch pad at the far end, it would give a very small cut and just like a pair of scissors.

If you touched it, the blades would stay close. And then as you moved your finger back, they would get wide. And it really did become a robotic extension of your arm. It was cool. Anyway, it didn't make it a market, that guy's money off some wonderful people and try my hardest. And unfortunately, hardware, it turns out it's really hard.

Yeah, tremendous. Yeah. It takes a tremendous amount of money. Went to China, visited factories, really pushed the ball far on it. And then went to an incubator, after pushing that for three years. And that was an incubator in Oakland. [00:09:00] And so it was in there. It was run by a guy named Ben Larson who does a for TOSA now.

And yeah, we did a great job of incubating those guys. I like to say. And didn't have yet to market. Then just sitting there being like, okay I was one of the first companies to present an art view group with that product back in the day. And we're in New York and, 2012, I think it was, and it was very different back then.

It was amazing just to be involved with that energy of really early legalization efforts. And the people that, that brought was just like some remarkable people, because, those are people who are willing to put their money on the line on a lot of stuff that was very questionable. And, unfortunately it's a, I think a good quote from Leslie boxcars of your Michelle even, but was, the pioneers taken hours in the back.

And yeah, that, that product was probably just too early for the market at the time. I think it probably would [00:10:00] find more of a place. As in youth labor unions and people really the margins matter now. And if you can back then, if you can make something 15, 20% faster and a lot easier, no one cares whatever.

Nowadays you've got a 2000 square foot greenhouse and it's of a thousand square foot greenhouse running down the line and you might be there. You're like, oh, I wonder how I could make something faster. And unfortunately, all the Triveni, at least the outside of the hobbyist market is a lot of it's done by machines.

Now you can tell by looking at, but so it's mainly if they're a crow's feed or not, and certain telltale signs, but most of it's machine trims, which is to me, it's like putting a bunch of flowers in the washing machine and then giving it to someone.

Yeah. Yeah, so carried that project for a while and did that, and then my business partner, Jason, actually, he had another project that was an electric vaporizer. That was, when he first came out for the ID or dealt with the PAX killer, the, [00:11:00] yeah, just the whole, we had a whole journey going through the hardware cannabis space and it was we coincidentally met RFU group meeting and we actually coincidentally have hired the same product development firm in Palo Alto who just did a horrible job in designing our products.

And we were friends for four years, working on these projects kind of side by side, different entities than were in that incubated together and go frustrated. Cause we're like millions.

We're just rambling our heads on what do we do next though? Okay. Let's get people to grow basically as what we came to wanted to, we had certain parameters as entrepreneurs. It was that we wanted to do something that we could do with very little money at the time. So we were like, okay where are there holes in the market?

And I've always, we've always been on the ancillary side of things like the dispensary and actually delivery service in San Francisco for awhile. One organics that was squeezed in my timeline of the cannabis space, somewhere, a bunch of other little jobs along the way, too. Yeah, the whole story is there that I could spend this whole podcast talking about.

And [00:12:00] then, so yeah, we realized from our dispensary days that we didn't want to deal with regulation all the taxations that was coming down the line and we're like, Hey, have a delivery service. And back then California was like, I can't do delivery. Okay let's think something came up, basically the idea of just teaching people how to grow and providing them the tools that they need to do so and easy to do fashion.

And that's how it came about. 

[00:12:26] Charlie: And when did you start this? 

[00:12:28] Joshua: So we'll start about, it's probably in its fourth year now, but the first year and a half, we spent three months developing the product. And then, waiting on a little bit of capital to come. Yeah. And then, like I said, we started on $10,000, invested five friends of ours and then got, an extra 30 off a few people in that basically bought our first inventory round.

So we started just really nuts and bolts and scrappy and. Put soil in my bag, put soil in Babin. [00:13:00] And yeah, so we put it all together and back then we were doing sort of trade shows and didn't really know how to like, include the seed with illegally in the beginning, because that was a big stumbling block for us.

Sure. So we just didn't care cause we were like cannabis. Appreciated that, that wasn't scalable at the same time and wound up actually just going to an old high school friend in England high school, like childhood friend wedding in Italy and met a guy, there was like, oh my best friend runs.

All the chemistry shows in the lower, he's oh my best friend. Giant seed company and I'm like, oh, sweet. I need one of those attempts to that. I'm like, that's perfect. And that got introduced to our friends over there. I love growing marijuana and that basically really became pretty pivotal in the product because then we could not only provide our customers with choice because people want to choose what they're going to grow, paying yeah.

The flavor strain, photo period or flowering [00:14:00] and basically teamed up with them to provide the coupon that we give to our customers. And that really spring-boarded us because then we were riding on their coattails and They're there on the larger suppliers in the 

[00:14:12] Charlie: world. And I just think, that's such a smart move, that collaborative approach with someone who has a pre-existing business that is, basically compliments your so darn like you need one to do, to use the other, basically in this situation.

That's that was a great move. And just as a resource for anyone out there that is definitely one to go check out. They have so many things on growing and if you have something that goes wrong, they're a huge resource. So I definitely recommend that as one I used for sure in my 

[00:14:43] Joshua: early days, Oh, cool.

Yeah. Rowan Bergman's told a lot of people how to grow. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And see other than, and now we've just been quietly growing week, we've done advertise because of all the, the regulations that surround us. It's all pretty much word of mouth [00:15:00] or SEO. That's where we focus.

All of our efforts is just trying to wrangle that machine, which is like totally confusing beast because you're writing for machines, but you're actually grinding for people, which 1:00 AM I writing for? 

[00:15:12] Charlie: You really do have to find that balance. That is for 

[00:15:14] Joshua: sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's then it took us a year at that first kind of MVP and then we made it a little prettier.

Basically. We didn't really change any of the ingredients, but we just essentially made it more sellable and something that people could relate to more and try to keep it. Within cover two male founders for we try to keep it in the female bracket, because it's a female applaud and just give it, the right home, because now we've put it in a lot of people's homes at this point, collectively we've actually grown over two tons of cannabis.

If yeah. If our average customer gets an ounce of cannabis, there's two tons of cannabis floating out there, America tax-free and home grown. That I'm pretty stoked on to be honest with you. [00:16:00] Heck yeah. That's awesome. 

[00:16:01] Charlie: That's huge. And I think, God, just that grassroots of teaching people how to grow and like hearing those types of numbers is just, it's awesome to hear.

And I think from that experience, my first question to you is What is your why behind that? Why are you, you've mentioned you've been this advocate for some time, but like why go into this business? Like, why is the plant important for you to make a business out of, and to, just keep going down this path and to see two tons being grown off of your system?

Why is that important? 

[00:16:32] Joshua: Yeah, I I think that for me, it's important because it's really it's such a fascinating plant, right? It's really the original plot, when we like really wind back the clock and we really like start looking at where we came from and that caveman and the cave, and we're in that zone of thinking.

And I think when you get to that place, you can really appreciate the place. For what it is, [00:17:00] or I should say Quebec came forward. But you really appreciate the plans, what it is. And I think that if we you look at some of the burial sites and some of the archeology that's being done on the initial uses of the cannabis plant, it has the, like the trifecta that I like to say, which is you have a plum that provides you instantly with some form of medication. And then you have obviously the protein from the seed, we just forget that, oh, the hemp seeds, that's weed seed, right? Like cannabis, marijuana will the same thing here.

And so that, that's just like one of the most nutritional little things there are out there. And then you have instant rope, right? Which is as an early caveman woman, that's such an important thing. You can literally get it as long cannabis branch and just work it around for a little bit and you can make a fairly decent, not out of it and throw a Gorda of your back.

And I don't know, oh, your Stokes mark early human, the other side of it as well, which is, and it's interesting. I think that a lot of people don't [00:18:00] really understand where cannabis comes from. Yeah, as in everyone gets lost in this land, race argument that I think can largely be left behind at this point is of cannabis really comes from that region of the world, what's kind of Siberia in, in that sort of above Thailand, Russia area.

That's like the original, and then you can see through archeology, it goes down and because in the Thailand, the cannabis pot ferocious and how it grows, it just adapts. So it's just it's just, and the SIG the silk road, right? Yeah, that wasn't really facil guys.

You can see it follows the silk road and that it goes to Afghanistan, it makes down Africa jumps over and it makes it down south America. And you can really see how humans were the carrier, the cannabis pawn, along that path. And I think that a lot of people that realize that ruderalis or order flower in cannabis was probably the original cannabis plant.

In terms of, if you were to think of an evolutionary perspective of, okay, I'm [00:19:00] applauding, I need to reproduce as quickly as I can and spurt seed, because it's like rough out here. Bye dears. I'm a super task. Loves me. I look great. I'm crystally come on, look at me, birds coming down it doesn't really make sense for cannabis to have evolved initially, at least from the perspective of photo flowering.

Because a, it evolved in that colder region, but it's still on that 12, 12 band line on it's a little above, it's actually 16, I think, in that region. And then it goes down and then you get the photo period. But if you're a cave person or early human and you're walking through the field, Of your root irrelevant crop.

And then all of a sudden you see a giant one, like I'm super blessed and probably as we know cannabis, just mutates on top of itself. So that was in reality, probably one of the first photo period as pawns, and then they would have taken it back. And then we're now at the domestication of plants, cannabis was one [00:20:00] of the first and it would make sense of this person who tried to mess, defy a huge one. Why not? And then it makes sense because that plot can then do well in that space because it's being protected by something. Which is us instance. And then, so yeah, it's, it's the original plot that we brought into the household.

And then if you start looking at some of the burial sites and I think that. Some of the articles that I've read. And I think if you use some intuition and your early humanoid and you have something that can provide your relief, and one of the most important things is reproduction as a human.

I think that the level that cannabis played an early reproduction, like we know, and from covenant and Chinese medicine and certain areas of him and stuff like that. But I think that it probably gave humans a bit of an niche right. In that region and because, then they're like, oh, I have this politic and find some form for leaf.

And now we know breast milk carries, CBD and so forth. What, sorry, capitalize. I should say not CBD. So yeah, I think the, for me, I just looking at it and I'm like, [00:21:00] wait, this is like the original plot and we've we vanished it, and then I looked at it and I looked at all the people that have still carried it through those times of, when it was legal or it wasn't illegal.

And yet as a company, we ship to countries that it's super illegal, right? Oh my God, you ordered this. Do you want to, it's really, like we had relatively ethical conversations. Like we had formed the Wolf terminals and everything else, but ultimately that that's person, that's their individual choice.

And I'm not going to be like, no, you can't have your medicine human. Like then you make your own choice. If you want that, we'll share it. We'll send it to you. But here are the risks and here's what we can do to mitigate those risks. But know there still is risk associated with that and yeah, few countries on, because

go crazy. Yes. I think that, we're now at a time where we're starting to bring it back and unfortunately the way the cannabis industry is evolves just nature to the beast of capitalism, growing this kind of being left behind and then this like fake stigma almost to that, it's a hard pond to grow [00:22:00] when it's really not it's actually will grow itself just fine.

If you leave it alone for the most part, which to stop watering the jam plot. And it'll be totally fine. So yeah, it's actually an incredible Paul and it grows well in low light highlight, anywhere this plot really will grow. And I think that's that was our mission with Paul, for Paul really was okay.

Bring it back in the household and let people, access and do this easily because otherwise it's super confusing, right? Even our own content sometimes contradicts itself through it. But you go out into it and you go, how do you grow pot? And all of a sudden you've got 10,000 different things.

And the next thing you know, you're buying the pH meter and you spent $3,000 on a grow 10 and I'm like, you're stressing your life away. I really I've had that experience and I think that's the best experience for people to have. So really we just try to distill it to the simplest way possible, which is just, yeah.

Grow it in [00:23:00] soil, just add, deep chlorinated water for the most part and it'll grow. And so we provide the root of jealousy because it's easier ones to grow, arguably speaking, because you don't need to control light cycles and yada, really, I think that's where a lot of people get tripped up to control lights.

If you get a tent outside of the, and outside of your neighbors and so forth, but if you just had a fairly sunny window, you can, you'd be surprised what kind of damage you could do, cause the sun's pretty strong concerns out and a lot stronger than any girl that you're going to buy. So we really just encourage our customers to grow with us on like you can add nutrients with our kit.

Like I don't discourage people from doing that necessarily. But sure. If it's your first time, I'm like, Hey, maybe just do water and we'll work on it. What are his skills? And then we'll like work on. And I think that's one of the things that as a company that we focused on the most really it's our internal support and core support of if anyone has a problem, email us.[00:24:00] 

We will actually give you the time of day and that's mainly thanks to Taylor. Yeah. Doing an awesome job and just really, actually just having a genuine amount of love for the flawed, like no stop, right? Because is this your plot or is this our clock? I don't know. 

[00:24:18] Charlie: So that's so funny and I really interested to know your FAQ's that you get from, just your customers.

But to bring it back to today's topic, we're really trying to talk about that plant care and pruning as that's a stage where we're at, we've had this wonderful experience where we've held people's, select seeds back in the beginning of may. And here we are in August, that plant is just pumping in terms of Vedge, if that's what they went for you notice your traditional cannabis plant auto flowers are just probably taking off by now.

But the question I really wanted to get to is, and this is your perfect person to ask because you do have a pot for pot [00:25:00] is what are those questions like frequently asked questions. And how would you've mentioned the easiest stage is just to let it do its thing and water it and don't water it too much.

But, I feel like at least for myself, when I grew cannabis for the first time outside, that. Almost just saying just a water. It was not enough. Like I wanted to have more interaction with the plant and and that's where I found, I fell in love with trellising and pruning and topping.

So I thought it'd be fun to talk about that, but I also just what is the frequently asked question the most for your business? 

[00:25:41] Joshua: Oh, for the Pacific to filming or training, or just generally 

[00:25:45] Charlie: I would like to know generally, and then we can get into detail 

[00:25:48] Joshua: generally. It's how does my plot look?

I'm worried. No, I think that probably actually one of the most common ones and I'm not the expert because this is not like my task anymore. But it's [00:26:00] probably leaves through and that's really more than often. They're not actually drooping. Drooping is like feeling. Where you're hanging a lot of the time cannabis plants are actually quite rigid and they're there like this.

And that's typically a pretty good sign of over-watering and really where you want your leaves to be as like this, and just really raging and pointing to the sun. I love them. 

[00:26:25] Charlie: They're doing this when they're praying. 

[00:26:28] Joshua: Oh God. Yeah. You're just nailing it, plots nailing it. Yeah. And it's like you said, people like to play with plots.

And you want to be involved with it. You want to play with it and train it and stuff like that. Yeah, I think when it comes to training plots a lot, and I think back to that leafing, countless ponds talk through them leaves. Like you can pretty much see a lot, whether it's the color or like where they're positioned, but really that's what they talk through.

And. [00:27:00] When people do, they're like, they'll bend their plotting over and they'll do like low stress training. So they wouldn't break anything, but like they'll bend over. And then the next day we'll get an email leads. We'll get an email, like what's wrong with my blog? Dude you gave it stress the next day.

You 

are 

[00:27:19] Charlie: fucking tired and droopy. Yeah. 

[00:27:23] Joshua: Stress. Of course it's upset. Like it's not happy today. Give it a few days. It'll probably bounce back or it may just stay mad at you he'll bounce back. But then the problem is right. Is the bill think it's droopy and then they'll have water.

And then you're in like a catch 22 where you're like, just, oh my God. Put down the can, but leave the water, touch it. But yeah. So I think when it comes to training, Cannabis plants. The first question you should ask yourself is what am I growing this for? If it's a [00:28:00] pleasure or the money, right?

Because when it comes to, trying to maximize a harvest yeah. That's kinda money related, whether it's savings for yourself or whether it's going elsewhere. But I think you're asking yourself that question if it's for money then yeah. You may want to get a trellis that out and really spend the time, weaving it in there.

If it's, for pleasure then do whatever the hell you want really, but you should probably just leave it alone because you'll actually get the most enjoyment that way, because you're going to make the least mistakes, especially if it's your first time. So I think I've looked at it from that direction.

Yeah. I think the best thing that you can do for the cannabis pot and actually what likes the most is just removing leaves. Because as the plant goes through its cycle, it's, it's not too smart. It's applaud, right? Oh, I didn't know. I'm covering this button over here.

That could be super juicy. Like this button it's like talking to itself, trying to get out of there. So I think that removing leaves and encouraging that kind of lower canopy to come up by itself naturally is a really good approach to take [00:29:00] because you don't cause the and stress, it actually likes it. I believe there's a word in botany or agriculture that defines Ponsa like that.

Kind of attention being paid to them, or at least someone's told me that could be BS. But 

[00:29:15] Charlie: it makes sense. It's from everything I've gathered about pruning and taking off leaves and de leafing, really what you're doing is you're just concentrating the energy of the plant towards those nugs and towards the flowering part.

Yeah. And I think take it 

[00:29:32] Joshua: away. I think it changes right in the cycle of it, because I think initially. When you're looking at the plot in its early vegetative stage, a lot of people will be quite hesitant to remove big fan leaves then because they're like, oh no, that part needs that it's there.

You could pull us off and really get that lower canopy going. Because once you've grown enough, it's outdoors, you can see they all stack differently. And I [00:30:00] really like personally just let plums do their thing. But I'll go in there and play with them. Like right now I've got two outside that give a really good example of this.

And if you show those groups, there's the side branches, that are getting covered up by the men Cola, because really the cannabis, Paul, it's all competing within itself and way. Cause that's how it's efficient in finding where the sunspots are. If that main Cola can't get to the main sun spot, it's not going to be the main Cola right away.

It's going to reach out and go find that. And I think that. If you're growing in full sun and you remove that main Cola, like I'm not a fan of topping because that really is the most direct path. And then right there, you're just taking away the most direct path to like your biggest nub. I'm much more of a fan of having one large nug in the middle, then training that canopy just by removing leaves during that early vegetative stage to really encourage that site growth coming up.

And then you wise up, [00:31:00] 

[00:31:00] Charlie: so you do no topping of the whole plant or just not the main Cola. 

[00:31:05] Joshua: I'll do an audio, no topic. Yeah. I really just, yeah, I'll do leaves though. Like it I'll remove the family leaves and I'll show cause like on that main color, you'll have all this stuff. Kind of launches and I'll lift the, and I'll help pluck that main co is initial big water leaves just to show those off.

And then I feel like you can manage your canopy just by removing leaves. So it forms quite a flat top, and then you have one main cuddle and coming out the top. And really, that's just being the approach. I've adopted a lot of that's from growing water flowers, and just seeing, I just like seeing the shape that it grows just naturally, because there's also different too.

You're like, whoa. These two closet next to each other, and this one's here, this one's all here. And you're like, you're just a bunch of

[00:31:54] Charlie: That's really, it's also the same thing, right? There's individuals like [00:32:00] yourself who like that more natural and just let it go and run its course and see the beauty of the diversity of the plant. And for myself, I approach it from a little bit of almost like a hybrid of those two that you like.

I actually, no, that's not true at all. I don't do it for money, but I am doing it for yield because I use it as medicine. So the more medicine I have, the last one, that's still money. Cause 

[00:32:22] Joshua: you're 

[00:32:22] Charlie: saving money. That's true. That's really good. Yeah. I care about the yield because I want as much medicine as I can have, so I don't have to buy it.

And so I don't have to go. 

[00:32:32] Joshua: Yeah. We have access to medicine. So I know I'm twisting it, I'm sorry to do that. 

[00:32:38] Charlie: No. I'm actually glad that you said that because it is about money, then it isn't, I'm not trying to sell it, but I am trying to save money by growing myself. I also get the such a personal like that is it is a key part of it.

Because I'm turning it. I can turn a $15 clone into a thousand dollars worth for a pound of weed, I got [00:33:00] off of it. That's considerable savings for myself. It's considered 

[00:33:04] Joshua: you're lucky you're in California, that thousand dollars for you isn't that much. But as soon as you start getting out into the middle of the country and the pay scale starts to change, like we have customers that are saving so much money, how much money it's and what amazes me is you can see the repeat, we have cause like, oh yeah, customers, oh, it blows my mind.

Honestly, I understand why, because it works right. And that they didn't necessarily want to change or experiment, but we've have people that take all different paths. We have people that are starting with our kit and we'll turn them into monsters. And next thing they're like grown hydroponically.

They're blowing up their spare bedroom. Like I brought in six lighters. Then we have a person that grows once a year. Then we have the person that grows, they'll have the wind up having pots and rolling succession. Sure. Some customers are surprised that out, I'm like, wow.

You don't need, if you could just, like really it's a, we'd like, but I guess they do the expansion kids said it's actually quite affordable. And then you're like, [00:34:00] okay, we just spent 40 $50, but you actually, saved like four or 500 bucks and yeah. 

[00:34:05] Charlie: Yeah. I'd say it's amazing to savings.

It's amazing to savings. And I had done it quality, 

[00:34:10] Joshua: right? Let's not forget the quality of homegrown too, because a lot of commercial cannabis and that's what it is now. It was a cottage industry in T 15 days. But like now we're well into the commercial side of things is we're optimizing margins.

And the level of quality is like really poor. It's pretty rare that I'll go to a dispensary, pull an eighth out and it's like fresh, it's got a nose and it's not dry. And I'm looking at the date and it's really? I think you want it to be in that one to two months range, anything older than that.

It's just, it's so hard to keep the plot longer than that and not degrade quality. Yeah. And then the next thing you know, you're smoking the last store is outdoor and you're like wait, what? 

[00:34:56] Charlie: I'm paying $60 a year last year.

[00:35:00] It's wild. It's wild.

I just love that. We've talked about the reasons why we want to grow and all those savings. And you've mentioned, and I love that your kind of style is very hands off, but still picking off those larger families, those water leaves that are definitely taking energy and resources from your plant to grow those larger flowers.

And including that, do you have anything else that like, you've found as being your standard practices, just for, getting it to finish in terms of, plant care outside of just good watering, habits and those families, like w what else are some of the things that you would.

I 

[00:35:39] Joshua: think it's quite relevant for the time we're in right now, for people who are growing outdoors is you're approaching the last time a year where you really want to be spraying your plan. You're probably starting to see some early pre flowers. And so yes. Great. And then another thing on this time of year is as we're in that transitional phase is I think [00:36:00] that people have a tendency to still want to train the plot, but I actually have encouraged people to stop, right?

Like you, if you're growing indoors or in a controlled environment, when you're in the vege state, then you can continue to train. But as soon as you flip and outdoors, where that plant flips is debatable in terms of it's going to start generating those hormones. Cause like most PON sexually flip it about 13 hours.

13 and a half hours, they'll start flipping really, but that's only when they've reached that threshold limit of the hormone that causes them to flower. As soon as the polo starts detecting that the light is getting shorter, it's actually going to start generating those hormones. Really?

It's almost, I would encourage if you're growing outdoors to around that solstice time, where you're before the time getting shorter is that's when you want to, we start leaving your [00:37:00] plum alone right then, and then let her go and then just go to your leaf work. You can obviously go later until you start to see them visually.

And it's interesting cause they'll start flowering at different times, especially if you're growing from seed and not climb, if you're climbing right, then you're going to notice that they're all going to be very homogeneous, but seeds. And even from clothing on that note, if you have a plot that is in the shade.

You'll notice that she'll flower, two, three weeks earlier than the one that gets a little bit more sun. Yeah. So I've got ponds here and they'll field too, that are very different phases, but they're going the photo period ones. It looks like it's three weeks ahead of them. So I would look at your plot and kind of assess, like, where is it?

Pretty much everyone I think should start to be seeing like early Bublitz form at this stage. Yes. 

[00:37:50] Charlie: Yeah. Yeah. So we just finished our last article on all the, looking for sex, seeing male, female, making sure, you're getting those out 

[00:37:59] Joshua: this [00:38:00] year is if you just use string and just lower that like apply early weight to the Bronx, just basically what you're doing and just, secure it to the pot and just open her up a little bit, and that stretch those arms out.

So then you're getting just a little bit more light into the middle of the plot and you can, I love strain. Pawns is a great practice because it's really low stress. And I think if you're training applause, Not in a controlled environment, the least stress that you can apply to it is actually going to wind up with the biggest yield.

If you apply it in the fashion and you've really got control of that light cycle, then you can go much more in your trellis and really weave it. You can lose your your setting at that point. You can top it, and you're not really going to lose too much because you've got as long as early in the pond cycle, you're going to train it and do so forth with it.

[00:38:51] Charlie: For myself. I'll do a lot of instead of using a string, I use twisty ties and just attach them to the edge of my fabric. And then I, [00:39:00] then that's just, I wrap it around a couple times. They're awesome. And you can reuse them, which I really liked. So like string, like it's a specific length and they got to fucking do all these 

[00:39:11] Joshua: knots.

Now we're on that string topic. If you use that garden string sometimes get those little hairs that come off in the bud and that's super annoying. 

[00:39:19] Charlie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that's I love the garden twisty ties for that. And you get like a room of a hundred yards for super cheap and yeah, I'll just do that on my fabric pot, and I'm glad you said that.

Cause I do feel like there's a lot of advantage to first opening up the plant, but I also love doing that too. They all say that like when you put a little bit of tension on the plant like that it, it likes it, it likes having a little bit of attention and for whatever reason, I feel like my body's like doing an exercise or something, but it's so cool though, to see that plant do that.

And I feel like. Would we're talking about training, I think doing a little bit of that right now still wouldn't hurt the plant too much. Definitely not. [00:40:00] Yeah. 

[00:40:01] Joshua: Helping or filming in this stage. 

[00:40:04] Charlie: We can probably come up with a nice calendar. 

[00:40:07] Joshua: Yeah. I think we could come up with a nice calendar for really thought about it, of at what stage, what you shouldn't do as it goes down as plot cycles.

Now we're in this stage, I would avoid topping or Fitbit anymore, or doing anything where you're damaging budding or potential budding sites 

[00:40:24] Charlie: opening. I haven't even really mentioned that to this group of people just to confuse them. That was the whole idea. Just like you said, like we're making this not brain surgery, we're making this so people understand how easy it is for them to do it.

So as we've mentioned, you can just let it go let it do its thing and it'll be fine. But if you want to. Putting those little ancillary branches. That's not the main Cola giving a little bit of opening, just so it gets a little bit more sun throughout the day is a good one. Your diff you're de leafing those larger families.[00:41:00] 

And I just, I think that's a pretty good one. I feel like if people took away those two things from today's episode, I feel like we would have helped them on a really good path in terms of where they're headed with their plan. 

[00:41:13] Joshua: Yeah. I think it, I think they'll get more yield and save a little bit more money, which I'm stoked on.

[00:41:17] Charlie: Yeah. We're all stoked about that. Okay. So now I want to. This is awesome. I just love that. For yourself, you have that kind of customer feedback of growing on this scale, because that is one thing that, I'm just one guy. Who's had my journey with growing the plant for three seasons and had my successes and my complete utter nightmare caterpillar situation from last year where I lost a whole plant to it.

Yeah. It's

so pretty plant. And it was one of those ones where I didn't see anything from caterpillars, like two weeks before and I just let it go a little bit [00:42:00] longer and it just got infested and I was just like, Oh, my gosh. Oh, 

[00:42:05] Joshua: my cannabis is a real thing. Yeah, 

[00:42:09] Charlie: it really is. So I guess the thing I want to just bring up in closing here, I think you've given some great advice in terms of just I love your ethos about growing and how you just go back to the basics and how we, as a civilization almost have grown up with this pant plant and evolved with this plant.

So it's we, I think when we made it confusing that really fucked up our whole look at this plant and how it really has grown with us and has evolved and is it grows anywhere and it's vigorous, like it's going to do what it needs to do. So I guess, yeah. Let's take that look.

And do you have anything else you'd really suggest in terms of plant growth and suggestions? Yeah, I 

[00:42:54] Joshua: think if it's your first time growing, I always encourage people to grow with the water flowers just because it's gonna make it [00:43:00] easy and grow with if it's your first time growing, grow without any expectations, because you're going to learn a lot.

And the second time you do it, you're going to be way better like that. And yeah, if you, if, I think a lot of people don't go into it with high expectations and then they can get disappointed. And a lot of times it's because they're spending $3,000 a month and they're like, oh my God, that was horrible.

I never want to grow that pot again. And you're like, no, dude, it's great. Bloods grow. Like just, this is the simplest way. I think what's happening in our society is a lot of people have gotten lost with nutrients. It's hard because we water our lawns of coordinated water. So you have to add nutrients because the microbiology council would do its thing naturally.

And part of what we do is we try to educate people. Just how good soil can be, ultimately speaking. And it's funny because now you're starting to see it enter commercial cannabis where you're having 200,000 square foot greenhouses that are like, wait, should we just be grown in the soil?

I [00:44:00] like saving us a bunch of money and the headache starting to see those facilities move over the soil. They're getting the same yields, so it's good soil. There's a few, like the future cannabis podcasts does a fantastic job of educating people as well of like weight soil is amazing and just grow with water that's and let the plot do the work and it'll make your life a lot easier than trying to mix a three-part nutrient regime with a pH and everything else.

Yeah. 

[00:44:37] Charlie: That's great advice. And, I love that idea of expectations, I think Regardless, even if everything goes wrong and you only get an ounce off of your plant, or even less, like whatever you get and you get through that whole cycle and you've evolved with it and you've learned, oh, there's nothing better than that.

Smoking your [00:45:00] own cannabis. It is just yeah. 

[00:45:03] Joshua: Oh, it's the best. And sharing it, see you're like, oh dude, don't even worry. Keep 

[00:45:07] Charlie: that. I feel like fucking Kris Kringle, like every November, December, I feel like Kris Kringle, I'm just hanging in and out to everybody. That's your Christmas presents for me is always going to be cannabis from now on, in some way, shape or form.

It's a south, that's a tincture. It's actually flower if you'll smoke it. But yeah, it's just so fulfilling. And I just loved how, what was always present in our conversation today as. I loved how you just made it how much it's given to us along the way and evolved with us. And it has been key in our evolution as humans.

And I think that's not lost on me. And I'm just so glad that's something that you've brought up during this whole conversation, because I think that's the cool part about it. But I think even more interesting is how it makes. Or it's gotten to the point, at least in my life where my life [00:46:00] is revolving around it.

And this is my journey in mine. My mind like you and I talking in a podcast right now, like 

[00:46:06] Joshua: you need to the cannabis club. Bingo.

[00:46:10] Charlie: It's so funny because I don't even look at, as I feel like it's almost like a service. It's not a slavery, and I feel like this must be how religious people feel about God and their own religious beliefs. Like I can see where it can happen. I can see where someone can have that ownership.

And I am so appreciative that my beliefs. Are not only, felt the same by an individual like yourself, but also I can practice it the way I want to some regards, but we can also, we have our own challenges as a group of people. I want to finish with, I want to hear where no growth.

I want to hear where a pot for pots headed. Where does the next year look like? There must have been, this really interesting situation that happened with the whole pandemic last year. I'd love to hear how that went for your business, but what is [00:47:00] the, what does the next year look like for you guys?

Is there a new things coming down the line or is it just, evolving the already amazing community you already have? Yeah, I think 

[00:47:08] Joshua: our goal is to one day expand our product offerings. That's not within our one year phew, cause we're rural, organic growth said, we're still a small company.

And I really, I think the next year for us is probably just focusing on finding ways. I think we've got we've never done much video and have so much video content that I needed pretty. We've got like a great commercial that I'd encourage everyone to go watch on the home page at the bottom.

If you haven't seen it, it'll make you laugh. It is hilarious. Check it out. It's ridiculous actually. But yeah, I think it's just continuing to grow and we net for us, we focus everything on SEO. Because we're operating in a space where we're looked at as paraphernalia, so Facebook and all this sort of traditional things are out of our realm.

And yeah, I think it's just 

[00:47:59] Charlie: continuing to [00:48:00] grow through that a little bit. Talk me through that. I that's something that's interesting to me, How has that experience been with you with SEO? How have you manage that and used it to your advantage in your business?

I think that 

[00:48:15] Joshua: for us as a business it's interesting because when we first launched it, it didn't really make sense to us because we're like, wait, we're giving away all the information, but then you realize that people just want to have the whole in front of him in a box. Cause when he's here.

But it's by the numbers, when you look at it of how much business SEO drives us, it's actually remarkably little is in it's almost a loss leader for us in the amount of effort we put into it. But I only say that because it's really good brand building. Like most of our business at this stage comes from people going directly to our website.

But that could be someone who just remembered the name. Cause it's quite catchy from the blog and they're like, oh, a puffer, pop.com. And they go there, but like we rank really highly on stuff. [00:49:00] And obviously that helps it. It is like a good chunk of our business now. But I think that for the amount of traffic that it drives us during the pandemic, we peaked at like 300,000 visitors a month, which is like insane.

Whoa. People like will have awesome website. You're just like this is crazy. Crazy. Yeah. It's it's from the numbers side of it. It's it's hard to make a fundamental decision cause you're like, okay, we're putting of money here, but it's not necessarily. Yielding us what you want.

Cause then when people are going to a blog, they're going there not to get sold something they're going there to get information. Yeah. So then the only way that really comes back to us is by the email lists. So like I wrote a book which is, how to grow cannabis, like a house plot. And so it's just a short ebook and it's tells me how it grow pretty much this, what it says on the tin.

And so that's how we'll get people into it. And then maybe the holiday season, they'll be like, oh, that's a good gift. Or during the discount season, they'll be like, oh, I'll buy [00:50:00] that. But yeah, a lot of it is a surprising amount of our business comes from repeat customers really, and just we'll have this in their house for three months.

So they have people coming over or they see the claw and they're like, oh, whoa. It makes me, they know their friends smoking for free. They're like.

Yeah. So I think that it's just Testament and I really honestly like we do a really good job of educating our customers and trying to keep them on the right path. But most of it's down to the cannabis plant and just being on awesome, muse. She really doesn't anything and prose.

Our soil was, is three or four times more dense than most of the soil, like Fox farms. Most of like soil is actually, it's funny, because when they sell you soil, you don't realize it, but they're trying to sell you the lightest soil possible because they're shipping it.

So as soon as you make that heavier things started to get weird. Our Sloan was actually about three or four times denser. Like our little bags are so heavy compared to a little bag under the brand or whatever it is so 

[00:50:59] Charlie: wild. Like [00:51:00] those like brand name ones to like a real living soil, yeah. I think like 

[00:51:05] Joshua: people advertise. I think there's a lost distinction here. As in people will advertise like living soil, right? There's a huge spectrum on what soil is alive and dead. Any soil is alive 

[00:51:18] Charlie: matters in your soil. 

[00:51:19] Joshua: It's really how much organic matter is in your soil. And that really comes actually down to a conversation of density, right?

It's like, how much does your soil? And then you can start. And I think that's one of the better ways to evaluate the quality of soil is like, what is the weight of how that then you can really just go to the store and start picking up bags of soil and be like, oh, this one's heavier. So it's got more stuff in it.

Cause ultimately I don't think people realize what is in soil, but it's just, decomposed organic matter it's Boone meal, fish kelp and things that have made me familiar. It's you and I at this point, but yeah, other people damn, it's just rocket 

[00:51:55] Charlie: science. Yeah. That's just so cool.

And I think It's great that you [00:52:00] offer that, you offer soil with great organic matter and you're getting them set up. So all they have to do for the season is water it and water it. Don't over-water it. But if you can handle that and give it a spot, it's going to have success. I think that's just so cool.

And I just think it's really great to, even though you have that collaboration with something like, I love marijuana, I love marijuana.com. It's yeah, they're great. And they have all their resources, but you're your own business and need to make sure you have a resource that embodies your growing tactics.

But also helps them understand it from beginning to end. So they don't have to go to another channel to get that information. 

[00:52:39] Joshua: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think when people get on the track of growing apart for a while, Like we know how to grow it at this point. And if you just grow in this way, we give you like an email track, so you get an email.

That's awesome. Yeah. So we make it fun like that and try to keep it engaging or come on a video [00:53:00] series to accompany that. Yeah. It's a really fun thing to do you blessings every day. 

[00:53:07] Charlie: Yeah. It really is fascinating. And I think, one thing I always enjoy is doing these type of interviews for a multitude of reasons, but, just to hear people's different, why, and also just like their beliefs in the plants is just such an interesting thing to have a conversation about because, We all have different reasons for growing it and trying this out.

And I think the more we have these conversations with people and make it just a standard conversation on a day-to-day basis, the more we're going to normalize the plan and get rid of that stigma. And we love just, really advocating for just growing it with other plants in your garden and just letting it be another plant like it is.

And it's just been such a fun experience. And I'm so glad you spent this last hour with us and I can't thank you enough for, going into the plant. I just really enjoyed your perspective. I think it's was really refreshing and I think it really goes into, just what you've [00:54:00] created with your company too.

It's like you've made it as easy as possible because that's that simplicity. Something that seemed to have worked for you and been a way of looking at it all along, so really refreshing and thanks so much for your time. 

[00:54:12] Joshua: Yeah. That takes time, Charlie. And yeah, let's talk to you soon then.

Yeah we're 

[00:54:17] Charlie: going to be continuing the conversation. So for those listening, we'll be back at it on Wednesday, August 18th at 3:00 PM, Pacific on clubhouse joining by our lovely hostesses, Amanda Reiman and Haley Nagasaki. And Joshua will be joining us then. And we'll just continue the conversation on pruning and plant care.

I super look forward to it. I know we'll be continuing the conversation and just helping people grow some great cannabis this year. So I appreciate your time, Joshua. Thanks for joining us. 

[00:54:47] Joshua: Cool. Thanks Charlie. 

[00:54:48] Charlie: That was great. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to no grow, create, and actually watching it as well.

If you are, and yeah, we'll catch you next week. So have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks for watching. Bye bye.