When New York’s adult-use cannabis market opened, the first legal cannabis product sold in the entire state came from a small farm in Cortland, NY. It came from Florist Farms.
That’s not a marketing claim. It’s a documented fact. Florist Farms — founded by two organic farmers who started with a backyard vegetable garden in 2010 — was at the front of the line when the legal market launched. They’d been building toward that moment for over a decade.
The Story Behind the Farm
Karli Miller-Hornick and Allan Gandelman started as vegetable farmers. Their mission in 2010 was straightforward: grow high-quality organic food for their community in Cortland, NY. They mastered organic farming for nearly a decade, building the soil knowledge and regenerative practices that would eventually carry into their cannabis operation.
In 2017, Allan was diagnosed with Lyme disease and began exploring cannabis as part of his treatment. That experience led the pair to obtain one of New York’s first hemp licenses and launch Head & Heal, a CBD and tincture brand. When adult-use licensing opened in New York, they converted their operation to THC cultivation and launched Florist Farms as their consumer flower and vape brand.
Today, Florist Farms is part of the Farmer Group — a fully vertically integrated New York cannabis company that also produces Head & Heal tinctures and Blotter concentrates, all from the same Cortland operation.
How Florist Farms Grows
Florist Farms grows using regenerative farming techniques — a farming philosophy focused on improving soil health over time rather than depleting it. This means living soil, cover crops, composting, and cultivation methods that put nutrients back into the ground with every cycle.
In 2022, they completed a solar installation on their extraction facility. Florist Farms is now fully solar-powered — their extraction and processing runs on renewable energy from panels on their own roof.
They also choose sustainable packaging and are transparent about their environmental goals in a category that doesn’t always make that transparency easy.
What Florist Farms Makes
Flower — Whole-bud, regeneratively grown, with terpene profiles and COAs on every strain. Grown in living soil under controlled conditions in Cortland, NY.
Live Resin Vapes — Florist Farms flash-freezes their flower at peak harvest to preserve the complete terpene and cannabinoid profile before extraction. The result is a live resin cart that represents the plant more accurately than conventional distillate. Popular strains include Granddaddy Purple, Jack Herer, Durban Poison, and Gorilla Glue.
Pre-Rolls — 100% whole-flower. Florist Farms does not use trim or shake in their pre-rolls. The same flower in the jar is in the pre-roll.
New York’s Original Legal Cannabis Brand
Being first isn’t meaningful unless what you built was worth being first with. Florist Farms earned the distinction because they started with the soil, built the infrastructure, documented the sustainability practices, and grew a product good enough to sell in the state’s first legal sale.
A decade of organic farming before cannabis, a solar-powered extraction facility, and a regenerative growing philosophy that’s built into the operation rather than bolted on as marketing — that’s the context behind the label.
Shop Florist Farms at The Chronic Dispensary
Strain availability rotates with harvest. Check the live online menu for current stock.