To Be Blunt: Belle Hunt wants to help your grow, buddy

Belle Hunt has always had a green thumb for cannabis. Even when she was in high school.

"I've always liked plants, I've always loved growing things," she said. "The first time putting like a seed in the ground I was about 15. My mama of course busted me and made me kill all my plants."

That love for growing cannabis eventually sprouted itself just over a year ago as Indoor Grow Buddies, LLC (located at 8503 E. 22nd St., Tucson, AZ 85710) one of the few one-stop-shops in the area for those looking to grow a little green in their own backyards — or closets. 

And Indoor Grow Buddies, or IGB, is set up to cater to both, according to Hunt. All the products carried in the store are ones she or her son, who helps with running the shop and helping customers, have used on their own personal grows.

Hunt sat down (well, walked around) at her shop with To Be Blunt to talk about where the idea for IGB came from, what the shop is set up for, what questions she gets from customers and where she sees IGB growing in the future.

A quick note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

To Be Blunt: Tell us a little about the origin of Indoor Grow Buddies, LLC. Where did the idea come from?

Belle Hunt: So I was working at one of the local dispensaries here, and I was there the night that Prop. 207 passed. And I was on the phones that night for some reason, and literally within 10 minutes of the news, people were calling to see if they could come buy cannabis, which of course I had to let them know that that's not how it worked.

But one of the other questions people were asking was if we had any cannabis that had seeds in it. And so I was like, most of the time people are asking for stuff that doesn't have seeds. So a little light bulb went off.

I started talking to my husband about how many phone calls we were getting that night, and we had been talking about opening a dispensary when we lived in New Mexico for a few years and it went legal there for medical. We had looked into what the cost would be and it was expensive. Crazy expensive.

So when we moved back down here, we looked into it and it was even more ridiculous. So we're gonna scratch that. And that's why I started working at the dispensary, because I like cannabis!

But as a bud-tender, I kept getting questions about how to grow their own, how to grow their own, how to grow their own. Where do I get stuff to grow their own?

And at that point it was like Amazon and maybe Green Things. So, I figured I knew enough to at least help people and educate them and have books to fill in all the other spaces.

TBB: Very cool! So what kind of products do you carry and sell here?

Hunt: So we carry everything basically you would need from seed to harvest. We carry propagation trays, heating mats, nutrients, lights, harvest trim bins, stuff for larger grows.

We have Scissor Magic to help clean your scissors. We carry all the accessories, scissors, tiedowns, digital timers, thermometers, netting, pots. There's some hydroponic stuff like the pumps and buckets and whatnot. We carry soils, a lot of AC Infinity.

Just pretty much all you'd need to get started.

TBB: Let's talk a little about cannabis seeds, because I know initially here in Arizona, those were hard to come by. Do you carry those as well?

Hunt: So at first they were hard to come by because dispensaries and growers, they weren't growing plants for seeds. 

You know what I mean? They're not trying to grow plants with seeds because it lessens the value of the cannabis, because the cannabis is putting all its effort into making the seeds and not into the THC.

So the seeds we sell here these are all from well known seed banks. So they've been doing this for 20-some-odd years. They have structured strains. You know what I mean? You're gonna get Acapulco Gold because that's what it is.

I've had locals come in and say, "I've got this great thing and I'm just blown away!" But how do I know that that's what they say it is? You could have just bought that from down the street and said, "Yeah, I've got these 10 seeds."

So one of the seed banks, they're like a library. It's called Seed Waffles, and they carry Elevate and Chinos and they carry a couple other ones, but those were the ones that I'm pretty much interested in.

I like to keep the seed selection a little more old school. Strains like Blue Dream or like Acapulco Gold, AK-47. I don't really like carrying stuff like Unicorn Poop.

TBB: Haha, and why is that?

Hunt: I feel like the genetics aren't stable, because they've only been around a year or two and these strains have been around for decades.

TBB: Got it. Tell me a little bit about your customers: What are they looking for, who are they?

Hunt: It's a little bit of everything. A lot of people come in, this is their first time ever growing, like ever. Then you get people who grew back in the 70s and need a little more information because things were different back then.

There's been so many different types. It's moved fast in the industry just in the last few years. People are bombarded by YouTube videos and they're not quite sure which route is actually what is gonna get them the best product in the end.

When they come to buy seeds, I usually ask if they're gonna be growing indoor or outdoor, and that'll help determine whether they want auto or photo seeds.

TBB: So pardon the pun, but where do you see Indoor Grow Buddies growing in the future? Or are you planning to just let your roots settle here?

Hunt: I definitely see opening up another, maybe more on the west side of town. That way we can get everybody what they need.

We opened out here on the East side because we live out here, and also, we noticed that there really isn't a whole lot of like grow supply stores on this side of town. There's Mesquite Valley Growers, which I love them, and I go them to them all the time for my house plants and stuff.

But there was nothing cannabis based. So there really wasn't anything on the east side. Like I said, all the things just kind of fell into place.