TumbleWeed Farm co-owner Christi Masi stands amid a jungle of Purple Haze.
BENTON CITY — For decades, Eastern Washington has been famous for its apples, strawberry festivals and wine industry. Now, cannabis farms can be added to the list of Eastern Washington staples. Recently, TumbleWeed Farm, the producers of strains like Banana Kush and Durban Poison, have set their roots down just east of the Cascades.
“We’re in good company out here,” TumbleWeed Farm co-owner Christi Masi said. “When we got started over here, I started a meet-up group so that we could meet with the people in the 502 community, and it has just been phenomenal.”
The co-owners at TumbleWeed Farms, Masi and Scott Masengill, began developing their farmland with their nephew Sam this past January. Together, the trio have successfully cultivated the land using their own homemade soil and without any chemicals so they can operate as eco-friendly as possible.
“We have two greenhouses and a large outdoor area,” Masi said. “Sungrown is what we say because that was the only way we were going to get into this business.”
While applying to become one of Washington’s first licensed Tier 2 growers, the couple braved through roughly a year worth of paperwork and inspections, and invested approximately $200,000 dollars of retirement funds to establish their dream farm. During that time, Masi has been traveling between Seattle and Benton City, working two jobs, while her husband, Masengill and nephew have remained on the farm to oversee the production.
“We’re from Seattle. We still have a house there. I haven’t seen it for a couple weeks,” Masi said. “But Scott has been here (Benton City) full time since January. … It’s been an interesting year.”
Outside of harvest time, TumbleWeed Farm operates with minimal employees — just Sam and a pair of farm dogs. The Tier 2 operation runs about 7,000 square feet of canopy and grows nine signature strains of indica, sativa and hybrid plants that regularly ship to retailers.
“We are really sativa focused,” Masi said. “We have some really fun strains. One of them is kind of unknown. It’s Himalayan, from the foothills of the Himalayas. They are a really late harvest, but one of the trees is already 15 feet tall, so we don’t know what to expect,” Masi laughs. “But it will be really fun to test it. We call it Darjeeling.”
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