Feminist Weed Farmer: Growing Mindful Medicine in Your Own Backyard

Stewart, who for five years worked at a California cannabis farm collective, unabashedly “dole[s] out [her] biased beliefs from cover to cover” in a personal and haphazardly organized handbook for “women, queer folks, and folks of color” who are “radically excluded... from the emerging cannabis industry” and wish to learn to farm mindfully. She brings plenty of experience to the book, having most recently operated her own farm, but the book bounces awkwardly between a general overview of small-scale cultivation and her own personal preferences. She discusses clones, for instance, but does not give much advice on growing from them because she prefers seeds. Elsewhere, she mentions mulching (a technique for retaining moisture in soil), but provides no details other than that she does not do it. As much as Stewart despises what she sees as the legal pot industry’s centering of “capitalist, straight, white, cis men,” her book doesn’t offer much for hopeful gardeners looking for an alternative way to grow their own. (Nov.)