Aster Farms is a sungrown cannabis farm in Upper Lake, Lake County, California, run by co-founder and CEO Julia Jacobson and her husband, co-founder Sam Campodonico-Ludwig. It grows in living soil under a medium outdoor license and sells flower and pre-rolls sorted by its Sunscape labeling system. In September 2026, California's cannabis license records listed the farm as active through June 30, 2027.
A tech founder and a Mendocino farming family
Jacobson came to cannabis from technology and retail. She graduated with honors from Brown University in 2007 and went through an executive program at Bloomingdale's. She then co-founded NMRKT as chief executive, a Techstars company that XO Group later acquired.
Campodonico-Ludwig brings the farming side. His family has cultivated cannabis in Mendocino County since 1968, across three generations. Together the couple own the farm's state license. Leafly carries the brand's own tagline: woman and legacy owned.
Medium outdoor in Upper Lake
The farm holds California license CCL18-0002471, a medium outdoor adult-use cultivation license issued April 22, 2019. It permits up to 43,600 square feet of canopy. A September 16, 2026 snapshot of state records showed the license active, with an expiration date of June 30, 2027.
Aster grows in the sun, in living soil. The company describes its method as organic and regenerative, with a closed loop that composts plant matter back into the soil. The farm recognizes the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake as the original owners of its land.
Lake County has other licensed growers working different models. Naughty Squirrel Farms keeps a Lake County site for side-by-side cultivation trials alongside its larger Calaveras property.
Water, compost and the 96-straw math
Water is managed tightly. Aster runs drip irrigation, waters at night to cut evaporation and mulches its beds. A 400,000-gallon agricultural pond, lined with poly material, holds the supply, and a floating wetland keeps that water oxygenated.
The company's sustainability report put numbers on the outdoor case. By Aster's count, growing an eighth takes about 2.5 gallons of water, against about 25 gallons for one glass of wine. The report also noted that only 3% of legal cannabis is grown outdoors, while 60% is grown indoors.
Packaging got the same scrutiny. The report found that the packaging waste from a single pre-roll equals 96 straws, and it called out the plastic tags and zip ties Metrc tracking requires at each plant stage. Aster answers with glass jars, compostable materials and bulk purchasing. Energy use concentrates in drying, and the company plans to expand into solar power.
The Sunscape system
Aster's packaging skips the indica and sativa labels. Its Sunscape system sorts cultivars by points in the day, from daylight categories such as Radiant through to night. Each package also carries a QR code linking to its certificate of analysis, covering cannabinoids, safety screening and terpenes.
In 2024, The Emerald Magazine picked up two Radiant cultivars from The Emerald Dispensary. Forbidden Punch tested at 805 mg of THC per 3.5 grams and Skin Contact at 770 mg, both priced at $31.64 an eighth.
Jars, pre-rolls and a Potli olive oil
The core lineup is flower in 3.54-gram jars, larger 14-gram packs and pre-roll packs. Leafly's 2026 listing shows Cherry Dosi, Velvet Aurora, Modified Grapes and Dozer eighths, Maui OG flower, Sour Lato in 14 grams, an All Gas pre-roll pack and a Cherry Bomb infused pre-roll pack.
Collaborations push past flower. Aster made an infused extra virgin olive oil with Potli, a women-led brand. With Artet, an infused beverage company, it released Founders' Blend, a live resin cannabis aperitif. Honeysuckle Magazine covered both projects in its October 2021 profile of Jacobson.
The brand built attention early. Pioneer Intelligence ranked Aster No. 60 on its Top 100 list of the hottest U.S. cannabis brands for October 2020, and SF Weekly and Benzinga covered the farm. That year, Aster pitched itself as the "cleanest, meanest and greenest around."
From Lake County to Manhattan
California is home base, where licensed dispensaries such as The Emerald Dispensary have carried Aster jars. New York is the second market. Green Genius NYC, at 214 Third Avenue in Gramercy, stocks Aster sungrown flower, pre-roll packs, infused pre-roll packs and seasonal cultivar drops as the brand rotates in and out of the New York supply.
Green Genius also lists Aster as Clean Green Certified, the same third-party certification Mendocino County's Henry's Original carries for its sungrown flower. Santa Barbara County's Raw Garden counted 10 years of Clean Green certification in its farming and harvest practices in January 2025. In 2026, Jacobson and Campodonico-Ludwig still hold the Lake County license, and the farm keeps growing outdoors in Upper Lake.
For adults 21 and over.