Cash Crops

Back in 2004, in a keynote speech for the American Community Gardening Association in Toronto, I pitched a great fundraising idea for compost demonstration gardens. These education gardens were scattered around North America, many of which were geared to urban agriculture. There’s no money in food I argued, we should grow grass. And by grass I meant the kind you smoke. I envisioned the demonstration gardens growing and dispensing medical marijuana. I was working at the City Farmer Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden at the time. The former head gardener and his successor both lived next door to grow ops, so I figured we had “expertise” and could even farm out our services. Instead of the compost hotline operator, I would be known as the grow op-erator. Not so far fetched now, right?