Bob Osborne says more people want to grow marijuana, though Cannabis NB says its seeds are poor sellers When Bob Osborne set up a workshop on homegrown cannabis for Saturday, he knew there would be some interest, but he underestimated how much. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Osborne. “We’ve obviously touched a nerve.” […]
Bob Osborne says more people want to grow marijuana, though Cannabis NB says its seeds are poor sellers
When
Bob Osborne set up a workshop on homegrown cannabis for Saturday, he
knew there would be some interest, but he underestimated how much.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Osborne. “We’ve obviously touched a nerve.”
Osborne,
owner of Corn Hill Nursery near Petitcodiac, asked cannabis expert
Randy Flemming to lead the workshop about growing the plant.
When
the event quickly sold out, Osborne found a bigger venue. When that
sold out, he scheduled another session for Oct. 5, which is already
three-quarters full.
Participants in the Saturday workshop will learn about the soil needed to grow marijuana, how to prune the plant and curing.
“There’s a lot to do actually,” said Osborne. “It’s fun. It’s fun to grow things. I mean, this is just another plant.”
Recreational
use of cannabis became legal in Canada last October. The law allows
adults to grow four plants per household, although there are
restrictions in some other provinces.
Osborne said growing cannabis is still new to a lot of people, so there are a lot of things they don’t know.
People
often come into the nursery with questions about what they need to do
to grow cannabis and how to grow the best-quality plant. And it’s not
just young adults who want to know.
Osborne isn’t the only one
noticing the uptick. Jenny Scott, general manager of Scott’s Nursery in
Lincoln, said more people started coming in during August to ask about
the plant.
“People
are getting more excited about being able to grow it, and they can do
it organically, so much easier, themselves,” said Scott.
She said the questions come from people who have used marijuana, as well as from people who’ve never used or grown it.
“They’re very hungry for knowledge and want to know as much as they can,” said Scott.
Scott’s
Nursery held a similar information session after cannabis was
legalized, and Scott said there was a great turnout. She thinks that
with summer vacation over and the temperature getting colder, people are
starting to think more about what they can grow inside.
Osborne
said he’s disappointed with the selection of seeds from Cannabis NB,
the only legal seller of the product in the province.
“There is this sort of disconnect between growing your own and the availability of all this material,” said Osborne.
Scott
has heard the same complaint. She would like nurseries to be able to
start a plant, so people can buy it and grow it themselves, without
having to start completely from scratch.
Cannabis NB only
offers two types of seeds on its website. Spokesperson Marie-Andrée
Bolduc said that’s not much different from other jurisdictions.
She said Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador offer the same two seed types as New Brunswick.
That’s
because Cannabis NB can only buy from licensed producers in Canada, and
most of those producers don’t offer seeds, Bolduc said.
She said seeds only represent about 0.02 per cent of Cannabis NB sales.
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