BO Gardens is a newer Cannabis farm nestled in the charming Skagit Valley town of Bow. Cortney Ng founded the family-owned farm where animal rescue remains top of mind. The name itself is a nod to her original pups, Brooklyn and Oliver, a Doberman and wiener dog who have become essential to the farm’s branding.
It has taken Ng and her family two years to develop the former logging property since acquiring the license. Her husband has an established tier-one farm, and after some time, she had big ideas about how to include animal rescue in a Cannabis operation. This eventually grew into her seeking her own license — but it has not happened without a grip of work. Now, the pair runs both operations completely separately, but both are fueled by family. They help one another, and the harvest is often completed by Ng, her parents, sister-in-law and in-laws.
Her parents and grandparents invested in the operation and property where they have their own private living space behind Ng’s home and the BO Gardens facility. Getting the license operational has been a labor of love, from bringing power to the undeveloped land to working closely with the state to reforest it. As of now, the idyllic valley is also home to 70 chickens, five quails, seven ducks, two cats and a pack of beloved dogs that serve as the heart of BO.
Among all of this life sits a Cannabis cultivation held to medical-level cleaning standards. The space includes the usual entry office space, a veg room and flowering rooms. Through the employee locker space, there is also a room completely separate from the Cannabis operation where the barn cats hang out. Each step of the grow space and property is built with intention. And after a lot of hard work, BO is finally a few harvests in.
“My goal has always been to bring all-local ingredients to people around us, so kind of like the same motto with my farm, I want to provide for the surrounding counties with fresh flower from my farm,” Ng said to the Leaf.
The hydroponic garden is soil-based, using cloth bags and simple, clean nutrients. Plants are picked up and watered according to weight using an ebb-and-flow system. After harvest, everything is hung in an exceptionally temperature-controlled dry room complete with adjustable racks.
BO offers prerolls in glass tubes alongside eighth, quarter and ounce jars of their strains. Keeping single-use plastics out of her product line is essential. Most of all, Ng wants to keep the price low for consumers. As for phenos, for now, the farm is running some fan-favorite flavors with dog-forward packaging.
“I named each of my strains after a dog, and then I put their legit strain on the logo as well. This is my Candy Gas,” Ng said as she proudly displayed each jar. “That’s my little wiener dog, and then that’s our Gumbo, that’s my Doberman mix, and then this is our LCG, Lemon Cherry Gelato, that’s my Doberman. And then our next one will be a Gorilla Glue.”
Lemon Ups will also be added soon to the BO strain library. The farm is heavy on the indica and hybrids currently, but Ng is pheno hunting sativas right now — specifically Sour Diesel. As she expands her flower line, the hands-on farmer is also masterminding ways to marry her background in animal rescue and fostering with the blossoming farm.
After years of visiting dispensaries, she noticed that many of the staff and customers are excellent dog owners. That sparked an idea that will hopefully come to life in the near future. She is hoping to bring animal rescues into the fold for select BO Gardens vendor days, where customers would not only learn about the farm, but also a local rescue they could potentially adopt from.
A lot farther down the road, the compassionate farmer dreams of opening a foster and volunteer center on-site. For now, she’s working on a pumpkin patch down by her roadside farm stand, where people can get their Halloween pumpkins for a donation. All proceeds will go to animal rescues.
“I don’t need a lot of money. I just need to live, and then let people, like, experience what I’ve experienced with animals,” Ng said.
Growing top-shelf Cannabis is a labor of love, and Ng, alongside her team at BO Gardens, appears up for the challenge. She pours herself into the entire property, cultivation included. From the community farm stand packed with eggs in special-ordered black cartons to the jams and jellies she makes with her grandma, to the level of detail dialed into her grow operation — it all comes back to Ng. Her intention is felt all over the farm property, and it translates into really good weed.
