GROWERS & SHOWERS

Photography by Whit Forrester
Text by Danny Calvi

Josh tends to a glorious Sour Diesel variety.

 Up in Mendicino County, California, there’s a hella-lush farm where all kinds of yummy varieties of bud can be found. Photographer Whit Forrester went there to see the workings of the farm, and to document the connection between medicinal cannabis and the queer community that has coalesced around the art and science of growing since the opening of the first San Francisco buyers club in 1992.

Stanley gives some TLC to the bushy Agent Orange.

 Unlike what you may think, it’s not all improvised apple bong breaks and chilling — working the farm takes dedication, intensive labor and mad horticultural skills. It would be an understatement to say head grower Chris has a green thumb. All the plants are organic, of course, and fertilized biodynamically with chicken manure. In a good season, a single plant can yield as much as six pounds of green bud for a patient in need.

Chris and his Blue Dream…

Sometimes pornstar Gino, shown here with Ace of Spades.

 Although the U.S. Congress and Obama stealthily ended the federal ban on medical marijuana cultivation and sale — the provision tucked safely inside a 1,603-page federal spending measure passed just last week — it’s still easy to take that bowl for granted. The criminalization of pleasure is never very far removed from queer memory, is it?

Henry came in from San Francisco to help with the trimming.

Jay separates White Fire buds from stems in the drying shack.

Photographer Whit, seen here with some fresh bags of Golden Shower Magnum Kush.