Bringing In the Harvest

Deep in the hills of Northern California's Mendocino County, past three locked gates and up a winding dirt road, the trimmers at Green Mountain Farm are bringing in the harvest. The marijuana plants, which stand four to seven feet tall, are garlanded with dense clusters of fragrant, seedless buds that must be carefully picked and cured before they are dampened by winter rains -- or seized by law enforcement, which has set a record by destroying well over one million marijuana plants this year.

The 50 trimmers at this clandestine grow site work 16-hour days for three weeks, hand-trimming top-grade marijuana destined for medical marijuana patients and dispensaries in San Francisco.

"It's a race against time," says Antie M, manager of the Green Mountain Farm collective, which is cultivating 280 plants for 125 patients.

Under California state law, caregivers and patients are permitted to grow marijuana for a group of patients and can be reimbursed for their expenses. In exchange for allowing the growers to post medical cannabis recommendations from patients' doctors at the grow site -- providing some degree of legal protection for the growers -- the patients receive free cannabis. Most collectives meet their expenses by selling their surplus pot to dispensaries or directly to other patients.

Each patient at this collective will receive a quarter pound of free cannabis, plus a chance to take in beautiful scenery, eat good food, and listen to live music.

While San Francisco city supervisors haggle over cultivation limits and zoning restrictions for medical cannabis dispensaries there's another reality taking place a couple hundred miles to the north. Whatever the supervisors decide, someone has to grow all the pot that gets smoked by patients in the city -- and no matter how friendly city officials are to the end product, the growers are still hounded by law enforcement.

The trim camp at Green Mountain Farm is only one of many such gatherings taking place throughout northern California this month. And this constellation of quasi-legal outdoor marijuana grow sites doesn't just cultivate exquisite medical cannabis.

The farmers who tend these plants are also creating environmentally and socially responsible cannabis farms very different from the armed, old-school, commercial marijuana plantations that feed an insatiable market but often damage the land.

An estimated 80 percent of the medical cannabis consumed in San Francisco comes from outside the city. Let's follow some of these buds as they make their way into town.

Family farm

Quietly cultivating a cannabis crop and then hosting 50 trimmers at a clandestine grow site miles from a power line requires impressive planning. Arriving blindfolded at Green Mountain Farm, I discover a comfortable camp resembling an agricultural version of a Rainbow Family gathering.

The trimmers at Green Mountain sleep in a tidy tent village and eat tasty vegetarian meals prepared by two paid cooks in a well-equipped kitchen complete with two gas ranges and two refrigerators. They take hot showers and listen to music from a laptop and iPods -- all powered by a generator running on 50-cents-a-gallon vegetable oil.

The cultivators here trucked in $30,000 worth of compost to privately owned land to ensure that their cannabis met San Francisco standards. Under California law, patients and caregiver-cultivators are allowed to grow at least 6 mature and 12 immature plants per patient unless the county or a doctor authorizes more. Mendocino County allows 100 square feet of plant canopy per patient. Antie M, who is descended from eight generations of tobacco farmers, says the lush plants in this garden meet those guidelines.

The water that sustains this crop is supplied by a well. A 10,000-gallon tank feeds the irrigation system for the garden, which grows to the edge of the kitchen. A 75-foot-long temporary structure, which serves as a trimming and drying room, stands nearby. The atmosphere in the camp is relaxed but focused. There are no alcohol, hard drugs, or weapons, and everyone must be quiet by midnight. Some people smoke cannabis while they work. The night I visit, the camp puts on a talent show. A shiatsu massage therapist is on hand for those with aching shoulders.