Flora & Flame is an Oakland cannabis cultivator growing small-batch indoor flower in living soil on vertical racks. The project started in 2017 with the aim of proving that living-soil cultivation could scale to commercial production.
The Oakland facility
The operation occupies a 17,000-square-foot multi-level building in Oakland with 8,400 square feet of LED-lit cultivation space, arranged in a dual-tiered bunkbed layout that houses up to 4,000 plants at a time. Everything runs on renewable energy, and moisture from the plants is collected, filtered and returned to the system, holding waste under ten percent. The company describes it as the largest indoor, vertically grown, living soil farm in the world.
Living soil
Flora & Flame grows in no-till organic living soil: a self-sustaining root-zone ecosystem of beneficial bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi and microorganisms that colonizes the roots and cycles nutrients for the plant, in place of inert media fed by liquid nutrients. Flower is hand-grown, hand-trimmed and hand-packaged in small batches.
People
Bay Area cultivator Chris Castle started the project in 2017 after years of growing and leads it as co-founder.
Flower drops
Releases rotate through the year. The 2026 drop archive lists cultivars including Guavanade, Gorilla Glue #4, Crunch Berries, Donny Burger and Super Silver Haze, with lineage and sensory notes published for each.
Competition record
Fish Scale, grown by Flora & Flame from a tissue-culture clone, took second place at the King of Z Hill competition held on 4/20 in 2023 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
Licensing and retail
Flora & Flame holds California license C12-0000449-LIC and lists more than 30 stores statewide. Its public contact address is support@floraandflameca.com.