Living the Dream: Chris Butler

We always strive to be better than we were yesterday. We love to evolve, learn and grow, and it’s our dedication to continuously improving that has helped our farm reach success each year. We approach this evolution of our farm by defining new projects, and usually, these projects are intended to boost our sustainability or enhance efficiency.

But sometimes projects are put into action to increase quality or fill our sales pipeline. In the past, we’ve done this through improvements to our cold frame greenhouses, like with the installation of a metal arm to make tarp pulling easier; by installing a climate-controlled greenhouse for winter production to create more avenues of profit; by installing sensors to help us control our environment more precisely and increase our yield quality; and by homing in on our linear workflow design to keep our team operating efficiently.

Our latest project is the installation of a solar panel to power our farm, a move that will make us more independent, ensuring we have power during cultivation, harvest, curing and processing, even during the rolling blackouts of fire season. We will use the power of the sun to run our pumps, our home appliances, our LED lights, our air conditioners and heaters and everything else it takes to operate our farm and residence.

While our big projects are a large piece of how we continue improving, our cultivation space is another area we find ourselves working on regularly. We strive to apply our knowledge from yesterday to today and approach every challenge with optimism and an open mind. While we’ve defined over the years what it takes to have a successful harvest, there’s always some TLC our land could benefit from, like thinning out weeds in surrounding areas, rebuilding our soil before each season, cleaning pots to reuse or renewing our irrigation lines.

When success is the goal, we must always be fine-tuning our methods. The passion behind cultivation for us comes with the idea that the job is never done. Without the motivation to improve, we wouldn’t continue increasing our flower quality, expanding our yields or bettering our relationship with the environment. When hiccups happen along the way, we view them as an opportunity to learn, then take that newfound knowledge and apply it to our operation as we advance.