“Marijuana is the undercurrent of our business,” acknowledges Shane Callanan, owner of Garden Connections, a new hydroponics store in Jackson Road’s Independence Plaza. Because of its fussiness and high value, marijuana is the poster-child crop for controlled indoor growing environments. But although medical marijuana is legal in Michigan, Callanan explains that most of his suppliers prefer that he follow federal laws, so hydroponic purveyors in states like Michigan try to cultivate other kinds of customers.
“We want to bring quality fertilizers, nutrients, and pest control options to people in this area who are food conscious, and you just can’t get quality products from the box stores,” says Callanan. His life-size rainbow trout tattoo seems a fitting emblem of his industry: sunny and natural, with a slightly subversive edge. He is a skateboarding Californian turned family man, with a degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. He got interested in hydroponics while working at San Francisco’s Plant’It Earth store.
For Callanan, hydroponics is about growing food: major food, not the occasional hobbyist’s herb or tomato. Under construction in a back room of the small store is a CAE (controlled agricultural environment), a demo of what you could put in your garage or basement. “When all’s said and done you’re looking at about $6,000 to $8,000 in supplies” for a CAE of about 250 square feet. Which, he allows, is a lot, but “with a wife and two kids, I know what I spend at the grocery store on a monthly basis. You could sustain an entire family off a garden of this size.”
For less of an investment, say in the $1,500 range, he points out a system that’s currently growing what looks like enough peppers to supply a neighborhood. He quickly calculates that it uses 400 watts, and is “no more difficult than maintaining a fish tank. You’ll have a pH meter and a salt meter. As long as you maintain that within the correct parameters and have a fresh water source, it’s as easy as that.”
Garden Connections, 5060 Jackson Rd., Ste. H, 369-2529. Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
