High-tech pot gardener gets 5 years

A former employee of a Gloucester County hydroponic gardening store was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison for growing marijuana in his Glassboro home, authorities said.

Frank J. Harder III, 33, of Glassboro, used grow lights and equipment from Tasty Harvest Hydroponics in Deptford, where he had worked, according to the New Jersey Attorney General's office. Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants in water containing dissolved nutrients.

In November 2008, authorities found elaborate marijuana-growing operations in Harder's home, the Deptford residence of Tasty Harvest's owners, and the home of one of the store owners' parents.

Store owners Paul J. "Chip" Trace, 45, and his wife, Charlotte, 49, were sentenced in April to five years in state prison for maintaining or operating a marijuana production facility. Miriam Andrew, 76, was sentenced to three years' probation for allowing her daughter, Charlotte, to grow marijuana in the older woman's Woodbury home.

In Harder's home, authorities found a cultivation system with 43 marijuana plants, 20 marijuana cuttings, and about two pounds of harvested marijuana, officials said.

Authorities found 16 marijuana plants growing in a hydroponic system and a bag containing about a quarter-pound of marijuana in the second-floor bedroom of Andrew's residence.

A search of the Traces' home uncovered two indoor areas that contained high-tech cultivation equipment, 33 plants and a bag of nearly a pound of marijuana, officials said.