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After the plant’s inclusion in the 234-year-old publication’s planting and gardening guide caused a bit of a buzz last month, editor-in-chief Carol Connare helped put it in perspective.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac garnered some serious attention on canna-centric social media last month when it was noticed that the devil’s lettuce had been added to the OFA’s online Planting and Gardening Guide for the first time — listed right there between candytuft and cantaloupes.
“That quiet inclusion,” wrote Beard Bros Media, “marks a cultural milestone — and one that reflects how deeply cannabis has become normalized over the past several decades.”
When I headed over to the almanac’s website to check it out for myself (the below spring planting advice is based on my SoCal ZIP Code), I was surprised to find that the cannabis entry actually hyperlinks to a landing page titled “How to Grow Cannabis Indoors and Outdoors: The Complete Plant Guide” featuring a robust bumper crop of gardening advice.
The lead article is “How to Start Growing a Weed Plant From Seed,” written by Melissa Moore, a cannabis professor and horticulture coordinator at SUNY Niagara, and two of the articles linked at the bottom of the page (one on picking the best feminized seeds and another on autoflower seeds) were penned by Parker Curtis, a cultivation expert and educator with Florida-based Homegrown Cannabis Co. (remember that company’s name, I’ll be coming back to it).
Editor’s note: Mention of advertisers/authors below is for context; no paid relationship is alleged.
Since I’m not used to turning to the Old Farmer’s Almanac for my herb-growing advice (ever since writing about the USDA-grant-funded Grow It From Home gardening workshop program a few years back, I’ve been been lucky enough to get my weed wisdom firsthand from Oregon-based commercial hemp farmer Emily Gogol), I didn’t know how exactly how long the 234-year-old publication had been catering to the ganja greenthumb crowd. Was this as brand new as the gushing on the socials made it seem? Or has it been part of the esteemed publication’s crop rotation in the past and we somehow missed it?
To get the straight dope, I hopped on a Zoom call to ask the almanac’s editor-in-chief Carol Connare who told me it’s actually a little bit of both. It turns out that hemp (which we all know is the exact same plant) has been part of the Old Farmer’s Almanac coverage since founding editor Robert B. Thomas published the first issue back in 1792. Connare pointed me to a handful of mentions in that issue, including this planting guidance for February 1793:
Look to your bees.
See to your doves.
Begin to get out your hemp and flax , as the days begin to moderate.
“I can find regular mentions of hemp in editions throughout the 1800s,” Connare added, “and only one after 1920 , in 1967, which was a reference again to flax/hemp as feed crops.”
After that, she said, cannabis went MIA from the pages of the Old Farmer’s Almanac until just a few years back.
“When I became editor here in 2023, we were just working on the 2024 Garden Guide and there was this story [in play],” Connare said as she held a print copy of Melissa Moore’s “how to grow” story from the 2024 guide up to her webcam. “My predecessor really didn’t want to put it in there,” she continued, “but I had come from Massachusetts, where everybody grew — and I grew — and people were asking for information, so we responded to that [ask]. … Our readers are interested in herbal remedies of all kinds, and growing their own food and so [we decided] let’s give them the information.”
“Our readers are interested in herbal remedies of all kinds, and growing their own food, and so [we decided] let’s give them the information.” — The Old Farmer’s Almanac Editor-in-Chief Carol Connare
“We added cannabis to the planting calendar last November,” she explained, “at the same time we launched the cannabis grower’s guide, which was based on the 2024 story in the annual Garden Guide print edition.”
So the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s relationship with the cannabis plant isn’t exactly new. What is new and noteworthy, though, is that the most recent print edition of the annual OFA proper — the one with the distinctive old-timey yellow cover that was published in September 2025, contains a full-page cannabis ad for the Homegrown Cannabis Co. (I told you I’d be coming back to it). There’s also a smaller ad for the same company later in the almanac (on page 73 if you have a copy of it kicking around), along with a few gardening tips. (Example: “Surround your cannabis with fragrant thyme to attract pollinators and vibrant marigolds to naturally repel pests.”)
In the battle to normalize and destigmatize the magical plant, I agree that cannabis’ inclusion in the print version (in September 2025) and online seasonal planting and gardening guide (beginning in November 2025) are both very symbolic and very visible wins. But the quality of the information? Unfortunately, it isn’t where it should be for such a trusted gardener’s go-to. Some of it is head-scratchingly confusing and some of it feels like it’s repeating claims that experienced growers dispute.
Case in point, this curious advice for when to start your indoor plants: “Start seeds in late winter or early spring (February-March).”
“No,” said hemp farmer Emily Gogol who I’d asked to eyeball the OFA’s advice, “the whole point with indoor is that you can grow anytime you want! I can’t believe I just read that.”
Gogol pointed out a couple other places — some big and some small — where the guidance was sub-par. Among them: germinating a cannabis seed by dropping it in a glass of warm water (one of the article’s three suggested methods), which she called “insane” (I was embarrassed to admit to Gogol that I’d been doing this — wrong — for years in my own home-grow efforts) and the advice to wait to transfer plants from inside to outside until three to four weeks before summer solstice. (“I think they’re confused about light cycles,” she said.)
“I love that they tried, I love that they’re speaking to backyard gardeners,” Gogol said. “There’s a lot of great information — maybe 90% of it is great but it’s very conflicting. But I think any kind of traditional gardening acknowledgement on cannabis for the home grower feels nice and I appreciate that times a million. It makes me so incredibly happy.”
I agree with Gogol that we should celebrate this as a symbolic win it is and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, advice-wise. And, if The Old Farmer’s Almanac wants to up its herb gardening game for next year’s edition?
“I’d be happy to write it for them,” Gogol said.
This is a contributed opinion/news analysis piece. Views are the author’s own.
