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Siobhan Danger Darwish wants you \u2014 yes, you! \u2014 to get excited about the future of cannabis, because she is excited about the future of cannabis and her enthusiasm is contagious.<\/p>\n
Darwish is the co-founder of the\u00a0Grow Sisters<\/a>, a collective of women in the cannabis industry, and also co-owns Humboldt County\u2019s\u00a0Blessed Coast Farms<\/a>. She believes the cannabis industry is headed in the right direction, with women at the helm.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future is female for cannabis,\u201d Darwish said.<\/p>\n The Grow Sisters started as a happy accident in 2017, when Darwish enlisted the help of her younger sister, Sloan Reed, during the time that Blessed Coast Farms received the first state-licensed cultivation permit in\u00a0Humboldt County<\/a>. As Darwish and Reed began filming themselves at work on the farm in order to document their standard procedures of operation, they realized that the resulting videos were sweet and funny \u2014 and totally legal to post online.<\/p>\n \u201cWe come from the black market where social media and things like that are a rather large no-no,\u201d Darwish says.<\/p>\n Siobhan Danger Darwish<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Grow Sisters populated their social media accounts with videos that make it crystal clear how much fun Darwish and Reed have together \u2014 in\u00a0one video<\/a>\u00a0about sustainability, Darwish leads a white horse through a greenhouse while Reed talks about composting. \u201cHorse poop!\u201d the sisters shout in unison. The Grow Sisters also post product reviews, growing tutorials, zany Q&As and the occasional blooper reel.<\/p>\n From there, the sisters built a sturdy online following \u2014 they now have an\u00a0Instagram account<\/a>\u00a0with more than 30,000 followers as of October 2018 [and more than 46,000 today] and an active\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 that they\u2019ve used to try to educate women, and people in general, about the ins and outs of the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n \u201cEducation should really not cost anyone,\u201d Darwish says. \u201cThat is why we have stayed on the free social media sites because we really want to just get out this information.\u201d<\/p>\n Darwish said for the Grow Sisters, the connection between\u00a0women and cannabis\u00a0has always been an intuitive one because she grew up watching women work on cannabis farms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt comes as no surprise to me that we run this naturally,\u201d she said. \u201cThe women here in Humboldt County are the ones who grow the cannabis, they trim the product, they are the kitchen witches who create the products. What we are doing is fantastic and special, and I love and adore us \u2014 however, women have been doing this since day one.\u201d<\/p>\n But with the enactment of official Prop. 64 regulations this past January, Reed could no longer legally work on Blessed Coast because she is under the age of 21. That meant the Grow Sisters had to adapt \u2014 so Darwish expanded the meaning of sisterhood.<\/p>\n Sloan Reed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cInstead of being two biological sisters, it\u2019s grown into a rather large network of women who are in support of the industry in all of its facets,\u201d she said of the ever-expanding group. \u201cIt\u2019s not just cultivation. We also have women who are lawyers, who are biologists. We\u2019re starting to grow exponentially.\u201d<\/p>\n The scope of the Grow Sisters\u2019 videos has grown exponentially, too. While the first season mostly focused on Darwish and Reed, the second season was dominated by a new series,\u00a0\u201cSister, Grow Your Own!\u201d<\/a>, designed to teach viewers how to home-grow the six plants California legally allows for adults. For season 3, Darwish hopes to expand to holding real-life cultivation demonstrations, both on Blessed Coast and the farms of her fellow sisters. She also wants to create a \u201cGrow Sister Approved\u201d designation that lets fans know when a cannabis operation employs women and uses\u00a0sustainable, ethical practices<\/a>.<\/p>\n When it comes to creating content for the Grow Sisters, Darwish tends to let the ideas flow organically, rather than mocking up an intricate play-by-play strategy. Instead, she answers the questions her followers ask, keeps an eye out for hot topics and continues to draw from her work on Blessed Coast. Darwish said viewers respond well to that kind of authenticity and approachability.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really pride ourselves on the number of followers that have stayed with us and that stayed committed to loving us and supporting us,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd every single one of those followers is also organic! We\u2019re not generating any numbers on a false pretense. This is really our community.\u201d<\/p>\n Nat Pennington, the owner of the\u00a0Humboldt Seed Company<\/a>, said that the Grow Sisters\u2019 followers aren\u2019t the only community that has received a positive impact. Pennington says when he first met the Grow Sisters at a cannabis event in Humboldt two years ago, they quickly connected over their similar values.<\/p>\n \u201cOur holistic, community, environment approach \u2014 putting those things first \u2014 seemed like a shared priority of ours,\u201d Pennington said.<\/p>\n This September, the Grow Sisters participated in a \u201cphenotype mega-hunt\u201d hosted by the Humboldt Seed Company, a move that Pennington says speaks to the Grow Sisters\u2019 ethics. The mega hunt involved a large number of cultivators, mostly based in the\u00a0Emerald Triangle<\/a>, selecting and growing the best breeding stock.<\/p>\n \u201cHumboldt isn\u2019t really well-suited for commodity cannabis,\u201d Pennington said of the collaborative project. \u201cIt definitely needs to have innovation and needs to have the kind of value-added storyline the Grow Sisters bring to the table with their media and their willingness to participate in innovative \u2014 and sometimes even financially risky\u00a0\u2014 projects like the phenotype hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n Pennington says the Grow Sisters can help the small farmer to get their brand out there in a positive way \u201cthat\u2019s not just a simple commercial,\u201d but \u201ca story that they bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n Darwish reiterates her commitment to her community, and the women in it, through her words and her actions.<\/p>\n \u201cBlessed Coast Farms is being physically run by women,\u201d she said, although she adds that her husband\/co-owner is \u201cinstrumental in the permitting\u201d and sometimes helps lift heavy objects.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sourced into our community,\u201d Darwish said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re really scouting for women, it\u2019s that women are aligning themselves with us.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 34 of Cannabis Now.\u00a0LEARN MORE<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, do you follow any cannabis industry professionals on social media?<\/p>\n The post You Grow Girl! How the Grow Sisters Spread Their Expertise<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Siobhan Danger Darwish wants you \u2014 yes, you! \u2014 to get excited about the future of cannabis, because she is excited about the future of cannabis and her enthusiasm is contagious. Darwish is the co-founder of the\u00a0Grow Sisters, a collective of women in the cannabis industry, and also co-owns HumboldtContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":32253,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7211,50,5,7212,780,7213,85,6599,7214,7215,4229],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32254,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32252\/revisions\/32254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Danger-Darwish-Indoor-Grow.jpg\")
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\nRead More: You Grow Girl! How the Grow Sisters Spread Their Expertise<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"