Nichole, who goes by PurpleLungz on TikTok and Instagram, was our guest for Episode 76 of The Growing Revolution. She's in the now, legal home growing state of Virginia, where he's been chronicling her cannabis growing journey online, and garnering a lot of views in the process. She has been growing in Smart Pot containers for almost the whole time and noticed a big difference after starting her journey using plastic pots from Walmart.

We talked about where she learned her growing knowledge from and her some of her secrets of success as to how to do well on social media. She's not full time as a content creator, but she's getting close to the point where she could be if she wanted to.

This was a very fun interview to conduct and it's not hard to believe that she has so many followers online because she has a great personality. We've always enjoyed viewing her posts, and we greatly appreciate her being a Smart Pot grower.

For more great episodes, please subscribe.

For more information on Smart Pots, head to smartpots.com

To follow PurpleLungz, click this link: PurpleLungz (@purplelungz2) | TikTok

For Episode 75 of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we got to speak with Danny Murr-Sloat, co-founder of AlpinStash, a Colorado based genetics provider, and consultancy service for the cannabis industry.

Danny's career in cannabis started as a major turnaround point in his life, which up until that point was stuck in an upside down world of using opiates to try and manage the chronic stomach pain that he started experiencing after High School. Doctors couldn't really understand the problem and instead of treating the issue, they just masked the symptoms by prescribing ever increasing amounts of opiate pain killers. At one point, Danny explains that he was taking 3X the lethal dose of fentanyl, but his tolerance to that drug left him feeling like he was a productive member of society.

In 2009 his Dad suggested that he obtain a medical marijuana recommendation as a treatment option to deal with his condition. He was reluctant to try, but after the urging by a friend, he purchased some flower from a local dispensary and immediately felt relief.

This started him down the path of learning about the cultivation of cannabis where he worked for a local hydroponic equipment retailer, working for a cannabis cultivation operation, then taking that knowledge and launching AlpinStash in 2014, growing flower for the newly recreational market.

Eventually, Danny pivoted and took his knowledge and started providing consulting and genetics services. Through this, he was hired by SNDL, a large cannabis licenses producer in Canada, first as a consultant, and eventually as their Director of Production where he was in charge of a 400K sq ft growing operation. It was a large upshift from what he was used to, but he quickly learned the ropes there and increased their yields significantly, while implementing an IPM program that drastically cut their losses to disease and pests.

Danny has been a long-time user of Smart Pot containers and loves how they keep the roots from spiraling, where he notes in our conversation that Smart Pots help to produce more root "tips," which is where most of the nutrient uptake happens.

Danny, and his wife Kristen have a great relationship and have built a great legacy in cannabis.

For more information on Danny and obtaining his services, please go to alpinstash.com and for more information on Smart Pots, head to smartpots.com.

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In our latest installment of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we spoke with Rebecca who goes by @happyheartgardens on social media. She is an enthusiastic backyard gardener who grew up on a dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, but for the recent past has lived in Southern Alabama.

She's been gardening hard for the last 15 years or so and had to overcome a slight learning curve after moving down south with her husband. The heat, humidity and pressure from pests and disease presented a challenge but Rebecca learned how to adapt and overcome.

We discuss what she learned from having such a large change in gardening climate, and what kept her going, not giving up. One of her suggestions is to choose the right plant for your climate. Not all plants can do well in the South, and there isn't much point in growing them. Or, if you do, grow a variety that can handle the heat.

Rebecca has been a longtime user of Smart Pot containers and loves how easy they are to move, which helps to extend her growing season when frost threatens her sensitive plants. She is one of our influencers, and to get a 10% discount at http://smartpots.com/shop, enter the discount code "happyheartgardens" at checkout.

To learn more about Rebecca, check her out on Instagram: Rebecca 💚 Your New Garden Friend (@happyheartgardens) • Instagram photos and videos

Please subscribe to our channel, and like this episode. We've got more great interviews coming this season!

In our latest installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Elizabeth Beak, founder of Joy To The Earth Tree Farm, outside of Atlanta, Georgia. She founded this organization in 2022 after hearing of a similar company overseas doing Christmas Tree rentals to local residents. She thought that if they could do it there, she could start one here in the USA.

Her journey started by doing research into what kinds of trees would do well in the Atlanta area, as her goal was not only to have Christmas trees that avoid filling up landfills, but to also have trees that can be planted in the wild once the reach "retirement age." This was not as easy as she had originally thought because upon consulting with local forestry officials, she learned that trees that are grown in containers for many years often will have poor root development due to the circling of the roots that containerized trees produce.

This problem led her to Davis Dunbar of Redbone Nurseries, who is growing many trees that are used by Trees Atlanta, an organization dedicated to increasing the tree canopy coverage of the metro area. Davis grows both above and below ground in our Smart Pots and Root Control Bags (our below ground version). The fabric of a Smart Pot will catch the root tips as they hit, and prevents them from circling the container endlessly, making them perfect for transplanting into the ground when it's time.

Elizabeth then needed space to grow her trees, which lead her to the Love is Love Cooperative Farm, just outside of Atlanta. The story of how that cooperative farm came to be is pretty cool as well, and could be a model for other large cities to help eliminate food deserts. We discuss this further in the interview.

After getting everything up and running, she needed to rent these Christmas Trees, and Elizabeth got to work spreading the word through some creative methods. Her work ethic and dedication to learning how to "wear many hats" is inspiring to all entrepreneurs, regardless of what your business is selling.

If you want to learn more, or reserve your tree for the next Christmas season, go to https://www.joytoearthtrees.com/

To learn more about Trees Atlanta go to https://www.treesatlanta.org/

Lastly, to learn about Redbone Nurseries go to http://www.redbonenurseries.com/

We really appreciate Elizabeth and her time in joining us on the podcast.

Please LIKE and SHARE this podcast, and subscribe for more great interviews coming in the near future!

For more information on Smart Pots and our parent company, High Caliper Growing: https://smartpots.com/ and https://treebag.com/

In this latest interview for The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we got to speak again with Ben Owens, who is a cannabis home growing coach and advocate based in Colorado. We spoke with him back in season one, where he was the guest for episode 14, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/no7k6yy75WY

We wanted to get Ben back on to talk about such home growing topics like, how to keep your cannabis garden clean and pest and disease free, how to select genetics, how to avoid bottlenecks in the growing process, and much more. Ben also recently co-authored another book, Clean Growing, which is all about... Clean Growing :)

You can learn more about Ben and the Growhort, which is where he is personally coaching growers week by week from seed to harvest, here: https://www.startahobbygrow.com/

You can follow Ben on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cannabenoid

Thank you for watching this video. As a bonus, if you go to smartpots.com and enter the code, "hobbygrower" at checkout, you'll get a 10% discount off of your order.

Thank you to Ben for his time, and for being a great advocate for cannabis and home growers everywhere.

Be sure to like this episode and subscribe to our channel for more great interviews.

To watch the full video, click this link: https://youtu.be/TH_QR-sYAn8

In this week's installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Chris Blase of Blase Family Farms. Chris and his wife, Jill, started the blueberry farm in 2011 after coming home from a vacation in East Texas, where the family had a great time at a blueberry farm, picking berries. He thought that it would be a great idea to start one close to the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area so that folks didn't have to drive so far to pick fresh blueberries. The rest is history.

Chris started growing in ground, moved to raised beds, before finally growing his blueberry bushes in Smart Pot containers in 2018. He noticed a large difference in overall plant health and production since the switch and has reduced his watering needs by about 30%!

Besides blueberries in the Spring/ early Summer, they also have a pumpkin patch in the Fall, and also sell handmade items like popsicles, soaps, fudge and more. It's a great destination, situated on 26 wooded acres, where folks can get a break from the city, without having to drive for hours.

Chris actually has a full time job as a Dairy Scientist (cheesemaker) for a large local company, and in his free time tends to the plants and does general farm maintenance. It's his respite from the daily grind, and if you see the pics of his property, you'll see why. It's a slice of heaven in Rockwall, Texas.

To learn more about what Chris and his family are doing, go to www.blasefamilyfarm.com

To learn more about Smart Pots, head over to www.smartpots.com

We greatly appreciate Chris as a customer, and for giving his time in allowing us to learn more about his awesome blueberry farm.

Please "like" the episode and follow our account for more great episodes to come!

Welcome back to episode 70 of The Growing Revolution where this week we got to speak with Kyle Durr, Nursery Manager for Casey Trees. He oversees the general production on their farm in Virginia, outside of the Washington DC metro area. Casey Tree was started by Betty Brown Casey, longtime DC resident in 2002. Betty was concerned with the steady decline in the tree canopy coverage in our nation's capital.

By 2001, the canopy level was down to just 35%, so Casey Trees' mission is to increase that to 40% by 2035, and after planting 30K trees since inception, they are well on their way to hitting that goal. Casey Trees used to employ the ball and burlap technique for harvesting trees, but about a decade ago, they decided to try the Root Control Bag, fabric in-ground planters, and haven't looked back since. Their root ball is 1/3rd of a conventional root ball, much lighter and easier to transplant or install, and the tree is healthier leading to almost 100% viability for their installed trees.

If you want to learn more about Casey Trees, go to caseytrees.org

If you'd like to learn more about the Root Control Bag, go to treebag.com or smartpots.com

Please subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss one of our great interviews, dropping weekly. The video podcast is also available at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-jP48BpQp3yvF4uiortfxLYpkDNrVylk&si=tghCorZvBiahtd6p

This week on The Growing Revolution, we spoke with Rick Jones who invented the Square Farmer saucer. His innovation solves two problems; its square design allows for less wasted space when multiple plants are in a given space such as a grow tent, and it raises the plant's container (hopefully a Smart Pot) out of any standing water from irrigation runoff.

Rick came from the world of selling solutions for making self-insured health insurance plans more affordable for businesses. In 2016 he had an "ah ha" moment when he saw that there were no other products in the marketplace similar to the concept that he had for the Square Farmer.

He didn't have any experience in manufacturing, wholesale sales, retail sales and distribution, but that didn't stop him from diving in headfirst, and learning as he went. As with most entrepreneurs, Rick did a few things then, that he would do differently now, which he touches on in this episode. If you are an entrepreneur, or thinking of becoming one, this is a great episode to watch regardless of what industry you are in.

If you want to try the Square Farmer trays for 10% off, use discount code "smartpot" at squarefarmer.com. We greatly appreciate Rick's time for joining us and for extending this discount to our viewers.

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