GROWING PAINS Growing Pains is a brand that truly lives up to its name, having evolved from a DIY basement grow into one of Michigan’s most respected small-batch cultivators through years of trial, error, and obsession. We sat down with head grower Tom Farrell to discuss how he balances his "hands-on" legacy with the demands of their expanded facility, all while maintaining the award-winning terpene pro les they're known for. How did you get started in growing? What resources, experts or otherwise did you use for direction? I got started growing in my basement with one tent. Where I grew up it was very hard to nd good herb and when you got the chance it was very expensive. I caught wind that a good friend of mine who I would skate with grew and back in the day you didn’t tell anyone you were growing let alone show anyone. If cops caught any wind of you growing they would raid you instantly. So, he eventually shows me what he has going on, which is like two lights for ower with small plants. But it was the best stinky herb out there. I remember an eighth would stink up the whole top oor of my apartment complex. It got me so hyped to start with a tent in the basement where I became obsessed.
When you’re selecting a mother plant, what is the rst thing you look for beyond THC— is it the structure, the scent, or a speci c "feeling" you get from the plant? When we are hunting new strains we look for a few dierent qualities, we really look at structure, speed of growth, smell and then avor translation. We o en do this for both ower and rosin selections. When we are in our nal selection phase we will do jar washes of the nal contenders we like. Really in this stage we're just looking for big outliers to see if anything is an absolute dumper we should look closer at. What is the one "soulful" element of small- scale cra growing that you’ve fought the hardest to preserve now that you’re manag- ing a larger facility? For us it's preserving quality at all costs. Owning, managing a brand is a lot more work than I could’ve ever imagined. You really want the world to see the best version of the product and what the brand has to oer, however it's hard when you’re not fully vertical in all your sales. We do have a couple of retail locations throughout the state but we do sell to other stores and sometimes product gets le in the back inventory for longer than it should, or it's in a clear container being blasted with bright led lights all day and that is where the quality can suer. So as we have grown we are trying to work with our retail partners and keep all of our product moving fast on shelves so it can get in consumers hands as quickly as possible.
18 MAY/JUNE 2026
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog