The Growing Revolution - Smart PotCast

Nichole, who goes by PurpleLungz on TikTok and Instagram, was our guest for Episode 76 of The Growing Revolution. She's in the now, legal home growing state of Virginia, where he's been chronicling her cannabis growing journey online, and garnering a lot of views in the process. She has been growing in Smart Pot containers for almost the whole time and noticed a big difference after starting her journey using plastic pots from Walmart.

We talked about where she learned her growing knowledge from and her some of her secrets of success as to how to do well...

For Episode 75 of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we got to speak with Danny Murr-Sloat, co-founder of AlpinStash, a Colorado based genetics provider, and consultancy service for the cannabis industry.

Danny's career in cannabis started as a major turnaround point in his life, which up until that point was stuck in an upside down world of using opiates to try and manage the chronic stomach pain that he started experiencing after High School. Doctors couldn't really understand the problem and instead of treating the issue, they just masked the symptoms by prescribing ever increasing amounts of opiate...

In our latest installment of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we spoke with Rebecca who goes by @happyheartgardens on social media. She is an enthusiastic backyard gardener who grew up on a dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, but for the recent past has lived in Southern Alabama.

She's been gardening hard for the last 15 years or so and had to overcome a slight learning curve after moving down south with her husband. The heat, humidity and pressure from pests and disease presented a challenge but Rebecca learned how to adapt and overcome.

We discuss what...

In our latest installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Elizabeth Beak, founder of Joy To The Earth Tree Farm, outside of Atlanta, Georgia. She founded this organization in 2022 after hearing of a similar company overseas doing Christmas Tree rentals to local residents. She thought that if they could do it there, she could start one here in the USA.

Her journey started by doing research into what kinds of trees would do well in the Atlanta area, as her goal was not only to have Christmas trees that avoid filling up landfills, but...

In this latest interview for The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we got to speak again with Ben Owens, who is a cannabis home growing coach and advocate based in Colorado. We spoke with him back in season one, where he was the guest for episode 14, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/no7k6yy75WY

We wanted to get Ben back on to talk about such home growing topics like, how to keep your cannabis garden clean and pest and disease free, how to select genetics, how to avoid bottlenecks in the growing process, and...

In this week's installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Chris Blase of Blase Family Farms. Chris and his wife, Jill, started the blueberry farm in 2011 after coming home from a vacation in East Texas, where the family had a great time at a blueberry farm, picking berries. He thought that it would be a great idea to start one close to the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area so that folks didn't have to drive so far to pick fresh blueberries. The rest is history.

Chris started growing in ground, moved to raised beds, before...

Welcome back to episode 70 of The Growing Revolution where this week we got to speak with Kyle Durr, Nursery Manager for Casey Trees. He oversees the general production on their farm in Virginia, outside of the Washington DC metro area. Casey Tree was started by Betty Brown Casey, longtime DC resident in 2002. Betty was concerned with the steady decline in the tree canopy coverage in our nation's capital.

By 2001, the canopy level was down to just 35%, so Casey Trees' mission is to increase that to 40% by 2035, and after planting 30K trees since inception, they are well on...

This week on The Growing Revolution, we spoke with Rick Jones who invented the Square Farmer saucer. His innovation solves two problems; its square design allows for less wasted space when multiple plants are in a given space such as a grow tent, and it raises the plant's container (hopefully a Smart Pot) out of any standing water from irrigation runoff.

Rick came from the world of selling solutions for making self-insured health insurance plans more affordable for businesses. In 2016 he had an "ah ha" moment when he saw that there were no other products in the...

In episode 68 of The Growing Revolution, we spoke with Kayla, who goes by Prosperous Living on social media. She is a stay at home mother of 5 kids in the Homosassa area of Florida (north of Tampa). She hasn't been gardening for a very long time, but since she's been at it, she's been very aggressive with expanding her garden and for working as an influencer with Smart Pot, and other gardening related companies.

Living in USDA growing zone 9 has a lot of advantages, and Kayla is basically growing a ton of produce, year round! Her soil is...

In this episode of The Growing Revolution, we recorded live from the MANTS (Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show) expo in Baltimore, Maryland. We got to speak with Andy Mallory, VP of Vendor Operations for the Master Nursery Garden Center Group. Master Nursery is a buying co-op organization that links up their member retail store with manufacturers like Smart Pot, offering them exclusive products and manufacturer rebates for purchases made within the network. We have been with Master Nursery for over 4 years, and it has been a great way to introduce our products to their member dealers, increasing our sales and...

This latest episode of The Growing Revolution, was a real treat to record. Our guest, Ryan Cook is a former Army Serviceman who enlisted at 17, served in 2 stints in Iraq before being medically discharged. He is born and raised in the mountains of West Virginia which is also where he currently resides.

Seeking a new passion after his service in the Army, he turned to homesteading, and especially gardening. His quest, was to become a state record holder in as many categories as possible. On his first season, he smashed a world record but then because of...

In the latest installment of The Growing Revolution, we sat down with Michael Fiore of Smith's Gardentown, which is the premier independent garden center of Wichita Falls, Texas.

Smith's Gardentown is a multi-generational family business and the torch is currently being passed from Michael's Mother to him. They focus a ton on classes and education, workshops and other ways to get potential customers in the door. Michael has been very prolific on social media platforms and if you aren't following them, you should. He's putting out new content continually, but if you are into plants, you will...

We are back with Season 3 of The Growing Revolution and our guest is a huge fan of Smart Pot growing containers, Trevor Johnson, of Alldredge Gardens in Midland, Texas. Trevor is the lead grower for this nursery, which is an oasis of green, in West Texas.

Trevor has been with Alldredge Gardens for a while, but for a short stint, he was an employee of High Caliper Growing (Smart Pot) where he was working with tree nursery customers. He's a self described, "nurseryman at heart" and he got the itch to move out of sales and back...

In this latest installment of The Growing Revolution, we spoke with Alex Luscombe who is one of the managers at Lukas Nursery & Butterfly Encounter in Oviedo, Florida. Their nursery is one of the top 100 independent garden centers in the USA based on total sales, and it takes a small army of around 40 people to get the job done.

Alex explains how the town of Oviedo itself, was founded by Paul Lukas and his family in the early 1900's as Slovakian immigrants. Later, Lukas Nursery was started by the Lukas family members with Paul Jr as President. They...

In the latest installment of The Growing Revolution, we spoke with Charles Malki who is the founder of IV Organic, based in Southern California. He came onto our radar as we were browsing on Instagram and came across his page for IV Organic where he has a ton of information on trees, organic gardening and much more.

Like many of us, Charles had a love for plants from a young age, cultured by his mother and grandfather. His lifepath was leading him into medicine where he had an early interest in cardiology. He then decided to get...

In this week's episode of The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we got to speak with Paul Meehan of Natchez Tree Company of Lamar, Mississippi. Paul has become a great customer of our Root Control Bags for his tree farm, and we wanted to learn about his history, how he got into the business in the first place, and how he's using our products.

Paul's nursery has only been running for 4 years, but he's already been selling through his inventory, which is a great accomplishment for a first generation tree farmer. He originally went to school for marketing...

This is the conclusion of our interview with Michael Melendrez of Soil Secrets in Los Lunas New Mexico.

We discuss humic and fulvic acids, labeling laws and practices, comparing mycorrhizal products on the market, his nursery Trees That Please, and much more. It is pretty obvious from this interview that not only does Michael know what he's talking about, but that he is passionate about it, and he really cares about healing our Earth, and healing our bodies from the foods that we generally eat.

Our world needs more people like Michael who knows what...

This week on The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we speak with Michael Martin Melendrez, founder of Trees That Please, and Soil Secrets based in Los Lunas, NM.  Michael is passionate about people, plants and especially, soil health. He grew up the son of a farmer, and his father taught him at an early age about the importance of soil health.  His passion for plants and soil won him a state title through the 4H Organization for judging soil composition, defeating people much older than him. Seemingly always the underdog in athletics and academics, Michael still excelled through sheer determination.  The stories...

On the latest episode of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we spoke with Alex Burnett, founder of Canna Innovations. He is a manufacturing industry consultant who has been focusing lately on cannabis manufacturing and distribution. He has taken the skills that he learned as an Engineer and later through attaining his MBA from large Fortune 500 companies like Texas Instruments, to starting his own ventures.

With Canna Innovations, Alex has developed a few products for the industry. Cannoogle, is a resource for people to find the right cannabis growers, dispensaries in Oklahoma to either buy or sell products...

In our latest episode of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we interviewed David Larsen with Circo Innovations. They developed the snap clamp for attaching plastic sheeting around pvc piping for tile cutters to work indoors. Shortly afterwards, many industries, especially the gardening and greenhouse industries realized the potential of the snap clamp, and eventually all of the other products that they've introduced over the years.

They are a small, family-run business based in Northern California, east of Sacramento. David talks about the many benefits of working in the family business and some of the potential issues to...

This week, we spoke with Bart Eller, founder of Paonia Soil Company. They have been making growing mediums and soil amendments since 2012 in Paonia, CO, which is on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains.

Bart is a serial entrepreneur, but hopefully Paonia Soil Co is the last company that Bart starts up. In this interview he speaks about his background prior to Paonia Soil and the family upbringing that brought him to try and save the world, one farm at a time. They have a unique process of creating their "super soil" which makes it have...

This week on The Growing Revolution, we interviewed Maygan Clark. She is based in the Cincinatti Ohio area, and is a passionate gardener, beekeeper and small business advocate. Her main job is in advising businesses on workplace safety training but when she isn't doing that, she is in her own garden, consulting with others on building and maintaining their own gardens and apiaries (bee house) and building The Growmunity, which is a local networking group for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

For being in her 20's, she's done more than some people do in a lifetime. We've loved...

This week on The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we spoke with Jahasiel Torres, Manager of Orange County Farm Supply, in Orange CA. They have been serving the City of Orange and the surrounding communities for 75 years, and JT has been the manager for the last 10. They are currently owned by the Roy family and it is truly a family business with many of them occupying various positions in the company over the years.  

The focus of their garden center has always been on customer service and being knowledgeable about the products that they sell, so their customers have...

This week on The Growing Revolution we spoke with Valin Bodie of Environmental Soil Solutions. He is a trained Soil Scientist with a degree from Oral Roberts University. His passion for agriculture comes from his family upbringing in the Bahamas where he was taught the importance of regenerative gardening. 

He talks about his educational and professional journeys in the world of soccer, where he played against national teams from USA, Brazil and more. His professional journey in agriculture had him starting out working for someone else until they got mad at him for doing research and trying t...

In this week's installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to sit down with Kris Whitten, AKA, Horti Kris. He is a longtime veteran of the hydroponic industry since it's early inception.

His road began shortly after leaving Virginia, where he landed in Huntington Beach, California, and thus began his journey with growing cannabis. Besides being a grower, Kris is an inventor having come up with the first FlipBox on the market for running multiple rooms off of the same ballasts. Later, he solved the problem of dust and contaminants from air-cooled lighting systems with the DustShroom...

In this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, we welcome back gardening influencer, author, and Smart Pot super fan, CaliKim. We talked about her recommendations on how to easily set up a super productive backyard garden, even for folks who don't have huge yards. CaliKim's yard seems much larger than it actually is, because she has maximized space, especially growing vertically.

We cover topics such as garden placement, what to plant, when to plant, and more!

We always appreciate Kim's gardening knowledge and for her making the time to join us again on the podcast.<...

This week our guest is Brandon Rust, who is a cannabis agronomist and consultant, as well as owner of Bokashi Earthworks. He sells organic biostimulants and microbial inoculants to improve soil health and quality.

We talked about his background growing up in the San Diego area, his move to Oklahoma, his passion for organic chemistry and so much more.

Brandon also touches on the recent adult use initiative for Oklahoma, why it failed, and why that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

We have worked quite a bit with him lately in supplying his...

On this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Sean and Allison McManus, who are a husband and wife team of gardening authors, influencers, and inventors. We met them over a year ago because they found us online and thought that a Smart Pot might be a great container to grow their dahlia flowers in. They were right!

Their passion is in ornamental flowers of all types, growing in ground, and in containers of all types. They are long time gardeners and have been answering gardening questions for decades. Sean's background is in...

We are excited for this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, where we got to speak with one of our favorite recurring guests, Milo Shammas, Founder and CEO of Dr. Earth Organics. He blazed the trail for organic gardeners in the USA decades ago, so who would be a better source to help us understand fertilizer labels, what they mean, and what they might be leaving out.

Some of the topics that we cover:

What are some other important elements to have in your fertilizer besides NPK?

What "NPK Numbers" should gardeners be...

For the latest episode of The Growing Revolution, we interviewed Will Bowden and Adam Rollinger from Grasshopper Farms in Michigan. They are on year three of growing in full sun, outdoors for the Michigan marketplace. They are focusing on growing the highest quality cannabis possible, and less focused on yield, although they do quite well in that department, also.

Will focused on building a team of veteran, outdoor growers who have a passion for the plant, work well as a team and have a long term plan of steady, sustainable growth. They grow in 100 gallon Smart Pots...

Welcome back to episode 46 of The Growing Revolution. This week we interviewed Emmanuel Arce, who goes by the handle @ultimate_gardening on Instagram. He's a 16 year old from South Florida who's very passionate about gardening in general. His initial draw was ornamental flowers but he then dove into growing edible plants. Emmanuel is a big advocate for organic gardening practices, and he LOVES growing in Smart Pot raised beds.

We talk about his gardening journey, and what he's got in mind for the future. The gardening industry has a bright future with people like Emmanuel replacing us...

This week on The Growing Revolution we sat down with Andrew Martin and Tarra Quinn of 024 Collective. They are a full service marketing team that services all industries helping with social media, branding and all aspects of marketing, specializing in the cannabis industry. They work with many growers, dispensaries and related businesses and have a strong finger on the pulse of the marketplace in Oklahoma, especially.

We greatly appreciate their insight on what’s going on there and for their support of our Smart Pot products as well.

In episode 44 of The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we sat down with A.C. Moon, who grew up in the culture of Northern California and for decades has been a grower, advocate, edible manufacturer, and farm consultant around the world. She most recently was working in the US Virgin Islands to help on setting up some farms out there.

She has been a long time fan of using Smart Pot containers and even invented a product, The CropTop Greenhouse, that works hand in glove with the Smart Pot container to create a mini greenhouse. A.C. has...

Episode 43 of The Growing Revolution is a super fun one! We were joined by Uncle John and Sean Piccirilli of Cutting Edge Solutions. John started the company back in 2001 after an interesting previous career as an avid Nor-Cal grower. Cutting Edge Solutions is known for high quality liquid, and water-soluble powder fertilizer products. Their growers have won numerous cups and awards, and their results speak for themselves.

John and Sean share stories about the company's origins, how they differentiate themselves, dealt with the covid supply crunch, and so much more!

This was one of the...

For episode 42 of The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we got to interview Alexandria Irons, who goes by Queen Of The Sungrown on social media. Alexandria is a passionate consultant and teacher of regenerative farming and gardening practices. Through various in-person and online classes and research papers, she's pushing growers of cannabis, and traditional crops, towards organic growing.

When she was growing cannabis for the recreational market, she was a big fan of using large size Smart Pots and still recommends them to her clients.

We lover her vision for sustainable agriculture, and we are just...

In the 41st episode of The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast, we interview Mark, the inventor of the Green Pad CO2 Generator line of products. Natural CO2 levels are around 400 parts per million. Most plants can benefit from double or triple that amount!

Plants cannot grow without CO2, and supplementing in a clone dome, or a grow tent is highly beneficial. Mark invented the Green Pad CO2 Generator as a simple, easy way to amplify the CO2 levels without the need of complex or expensive equipment.

Mark is a long-time cannabis grower/ and Smart Pot user...

In Episode 40, we got to speak with Jim Eagan and Ben Thompson of Plant Revolution/ Plant Success, who are responsible for the products like Great White, Orca, King Crab and more. Jim's parents started the business in their garage back in the 90's, like so many businesses have in the past. Through innovative, high performing products, they have helped countless growers to use less fertilizers, while growing healthier plants and achieving higher yields.

We talk about the challenges that they've faced over the last few years, innovations in microscope technology allowing us to know more about how...

Welcome back for Episode number 6, of Season 2 of The Growing Revolution- Smart PotCast. Our guest this week is Eric Hall, who we have known for a number of years as a tree nursery manager, and as he was developing the Monarch Auger.

Installing fabric, in-ground bags can be a labor-intensive operation, but with Eric's Monarch Auger, it's a breeze! Labor needed to install 150 in-ground bags a day goes from 14, down to 3 or 4. Labor being one of the largest expenses in any agricultural operation, being able to save on that manpower helps to achieve a positive return on...

In our latest episode of The Growing Revolution, we are joined by Genvieve Bessette, owner of La Shop Agricole. She is a passionate gardener herself where she loves organic gardening, designing gardens large and small, diagnosing plant issues and running a long-standing grow store in Quebec.

She has been a very strong supporter of Smart Pot products over the years and has even been a driving force behind some of our raised bed products. We got to chat with her about how she got started, what it takes to run a profitable garden center, and how to...

In episode 4 of season 2 of The Growing Revolution, we interviewed Timmothy Hammond, who goes by @bigcitygardener online. He's a Houston, Texas based gardener who's been growing since he was a kid, because his parents were smart enough to raise him to know the importance of food, and where it comes from.

He is a very adept gardener, and on social media, he's the smallest Ego guy you've met. He isn't trying to sell anything, or have any agenda. Timmothy just loves to grow plants, and help people try to be the best gardeners they can be.