Couple to open locally sourced CBD boutique in Boulder’s Water Street Plaza

Boulder couple Jessica and Ed Bates are opening a new CBD boutique that will be stocked with products made from hemp grown right down the road from their future store location.

Moon Mother Hemp Company: A CBD Boutique, which will be located in 550squarefoot store front in Boulder’s Water Street Plaza on Canyon Boulevard, will follow a “seed to sale” model, Jessica Bates said. This allows the couple to maintain control over the quality of the product from before the hemp is grown until a customer walks out of the shop with a CBD tincture or topical balm.

“When you’re controlling the product through the whole process, you can ensure quality,” she said. “The goal is to have the cleanest products possible as far as processing goes.”

While the Canyon Street shop will be the Bates’ first retail location, Ed and Jessica Bates have backgrounds that make opening a CBD boutique a natural step.

“He has a background in cannabis and I have a background in medicinal herbalism, so this kind of makes logical sense,” Jessica Bates said.

Ed Bates, a former medical marijuana care provider, a few years ago pivoted away from marijuana and “started to gravitate more toward CBD for its medical value,” he said.

For the past year, the pair have been making CBD products from hemp grown in a greenhouse in

Lyons. But growing outdoors is “usually more environmentally sound, which is what our goal is,” Ed Bates said.

The Bateses secured 4 acres of farm land on Valmont Road in east Boulder, and set about growing hemp.

“We are committed to organic and sustainable farming processes,” Jessica Bates said.

But running a farming operation is easier said than done, the couple agreed.

“I’ve never farmed outdoors before,” Ed Bates said, “It has been a tremendous learning experience.”

Farming “is a risky enterprise,” he said. “Things don’t always work out ideally like you plan, but you improvise.”

Ed Bates recalled one particularly perilous incident from earlier this year.

“We got hit with a hail storm about three weeks after we planted,” Ed Bates said. “Luckily the plants survived — we really dodged a bullet.”

The boutique — which Jessica Bates said will carry a “nicely curated package of goods and brands” in addition to the Bates’ Moon Mother products — is expected to open in late September.

Lewis Geyer, Longmont Timescall Ed and Jessica Bates look at a bud they harvested in their 5acre hemp field in Boulder County on Aug. 28. They are opening a CBD specialty store where they will sell products made from hemp they grow.