Transparency: Why Is It Important to Both the Farmer & Buyer?

Transparency: Why Is It Important to Both the Farmer & Buyer?

When purchasing a product, many feel it's important to know where that product came from and how it was made. It's natural to care about the origin of your purchases because they affect our lives, whether directly, like through consuming food we buy, or indirectly, like how our dollars are applied to the business, its employees, and its production process. We care about transparency because it connects us to the source of what we've purchased. It puts an understanding of creation and highlights the efforts taken to make the product into the finished good we hold in our hands. Craft cannabis is no different, and Giving Tree Farms embraces transparency as one of our core values.

The Job Is Never Done

The Job Is Never Done

We live in a reality where technology has given us access to a wealth of knowledge and resources that can help us on our personal and professional journeys. The world around us is continually changing, and if we want to keep up with new opportunities and developing regulations, we have to evolve with it. Success in anything isn't found by staying stagnant; we have to overcome hurdles, adapt, and create solutions that we can apply to various areas of our life. We're acquiring wisdom as we move through each day, and it's these lessons that we use to grow our business, cultivate outstanding craft cannabis, and maintain long-term relationships with our clients and partners.

How We Scale & Maintain Quality

How We Scale & Maintain Quality

As cannabis cultivators, it's important that we continue scaling our business to keep up with the demand of a quickly expanding industry. To remain within our strict cultivation standards, we have to maintain quality while we scale, and this is possible through increasing avenues of efficiency and implementing smart-farming techniques.

Personalizing Sustainable Cultivation

Personalizing Sustainable Cultivation

Sustainable cultivation comes in many forms, each uniquely beautiful in its own way. This is because being sustainable means working with your land and adjusting your approach to serve its needs. From the soil you grow within to the average cloud coverage in the sky, understanding your microclimate is key to creating a sustainable garden that is perfect for your particular space.

The Linear Workflow Design

The Linear Workflow Design

With efficiency as one of our main objectives, we like to regularly evaluate our workflow and see if there are areas where we can improve. Because of this, we've made changes along the way, some that turned out well and others that presented challenges. But what we've found through our years of discovery is that a linear workflow design works best for our farm for several reasons, and maybe it will work best for you too.

A New Beginning: Our Off-Grid Journey

A New Beginning: Our Off-Grid Journey

We started our solar journey by signing up for Sonoma Clean Power as our source of grid energy. This program guaranteed that all of our energy use was obtained from renewable sources, like solar and wind energy. But where this came up short was during California's rolling blackouts throughout the fire season. As a cannabis cultivator, fire season takes place during our fall cultivation cycle, harvest, and through part of processing, when it's absolutely imperative that we have electricity for irrigation, humidity and temperature controls, and security measures. When we process fresh-frozen harvests, this adds an even more critical need for continuous power. Otherwise, we could lose our entire crop. We knew we needed to take matters into our own hands or possibly face an uncontrollable fate. This thinking was the start of our off-grid solar journey.

Highlighting Our Favorite Cannabis Brands

Highlighting Our Favorite Cannabis Brands

As a wholesale cannabis cultivator, we’re introduced to some exceptional brands throughout the year. Some of them, however, have really stuck with us. Whether it's their sustainable values, their small farmer sourcing, or their drive to make a difference, the following brands have taken "business" a step further.

PRESS RELEASE: Giving Tree Farms’ Orange Hill OG is selected for the Natural Cannabis Company’s 2020 Best of Harvest Box

Giving Tree Farms’ Orange Hill OG is selected for the Natural Cannabis Company’s 2020 Best of Harvest Box.

The CEC’s Proposed LED Mandate

The CEC’s Proposed LED Mandate

In an effort to raise efficiency standards for indoor cultivators in California, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has proposed a new mandate that would require all cultivators currently using supplemental lighting to switch to LED lights by 2023. This costly requirement has put many California cannabis cultivators on edge, knowing that this transition may not be possible in an industry that's heavily taxed and already expensive to operate compliantly in. Most cultivators who want to produce cannabis outside of the regular season, like within a greenhouse or indoor facility, don't have the monetary means to support such a costly transition so soon.