My Flower Story

As I start my third season of farming flowers commercially, I wanted to look back on how I got here. I began this journey after a move, a career change, and some inspiration. We moved from a 3 acre property to a 21 acre farm and I switched from ER nursing to school nursing. Suddenly, I had land and three months off! In 2017, I stumbled upon Erin Benzakein of Floret and discovered flower farming. I had no idea it was a thing and quite honestly never gave thought to where flowers came from (I’ll save that for another post!). The dream Erin presents is utterly amazing. Fields upon fields of perfectly blooming flowers. I wanted to do that! I had the space and the summer…

Spoiler alert: not the reality of most flower farms!

I was naive, so naive, in thinking it would be the best summer job around. Little did I know how far from a “summer job” this gig really is. While I’m not cutting flowers in the field year round, I am planning (a lot!!), field mapping, seeding, preparing beds, digging dahlias, splitting and storing dahlias, keeping seedlings alive, cleaning buckets, sourcing seeds and bulbs or any other host of to-dos literally all year round. Our growing season here in north central Pennsylvania (zone 6a/5b) spans from about April to October depending on Mother Nature. I quickly learned, it’s a year round commitment.

Year one, I planned to trial my new found knowledge and continue to study as I went. The learning curve was (and still is!) steep! Seriously and overwhelmingly steep. It’s hard to emphasize that part. Perhaps because my background has nothing to do with farming or agriculture, but I truly thought it was more difficult learning all I did in the first year than it was completing my Masters in Nursing. Through numerous books and online resources, I taught myself as much as I could and as quickly as I could. I started my first year with a few 80’ rows and was shocked by the volume I was growing in such a small space. So much so that I figured I would go ahead and dip my toes in the sales side of the equation. I approached my very first florist with my Chantilly snapdragons. Luckily she loved them and was interested in what I was doing. She was willing to take what I had when I had it which for a small farmer starting out is so incredible. From there I met my second florist who was also incredibly welcoming and encouraging. She loved my product and valued the difference between locally grown and shipped wholesale flowers. It was so empowering and refreshing. I still work with both of these creative women and am so thankful they took a chance on my flowers.

Year two was incredible. I had my first CSA group (bouquet subscription) which was so amazing. My flower stand/cart was built and well used! I even made some beautiful fresh wreaths for the holidays, something I hadn’t really planned! I expanded my growing area by at least 2.5x and worked my tail off to do all the things! I was overwhelmed by the community support. Even with our farm tucked out of the way and a drive from town, we managed to sell out more days than not. People cared about what I was doing and it made me want to work even harder.

As year three begins we’ve already accomplished so much. We more than doubled our CSA shares, added a walk-in cooler which will change everything, started with blooms earlier than imagined by using a couple caterpillar tunnels, expanded the growing area yet again, and have people ready and waiting for our flowers! It’s truly amazing.

It seems like a dream and it really is. But it’s only made possible by literally endless hard work. Working full time off the farm and coming home to a few hours of day light during busy spring makes for very long days. The same for the fall when things are still blooming and the field needs cleaned up and prepped for the following spring. There has yet to be a day when everything gets done. There is always, always something else to do. My farm isn’t a picturesque field of flowers like I saw in those Floret photos. Those fields are meant for pictures. My fields are meant for cut flowers which, when done well, makes for rows and rows of green, not flowers, as most should be cut before full bloom.

The second dose of reality is that, as with any field grown crop, we are at the mercy of Mother Nature. Just last night we hurried to cover everything we possibly could before the 28 F temps rolled in over night. I woke up to my precious parrot tulips looking pretty droopy and sad even under frost cover. I hope they will rebound like frozen peony plants but there is no guarantee.

Seeds you sow may never grow but that’s part of the journey. I’ve learned a lot about myself in these three years. It’s certainly not a fairy tale but it IS a dream made possible by hard work and a supportive community.

Thanks for coming along!