Reflections on a Decade
/This year marks my 10th season as a flower farmer and business owner. It’s a big milestone, so it seems like a fitting time to share some reflections on the past decade and what I’ve learned so far.
What I’ve Learned About Farming
Grow slowly. Our small urban farm currently occupies almost half of our half-acre property – which doesn’t sound like much until you see how many flowers you can grow in a small space. But we didn’t start out that way. My first garden here was a 4’ x 8’ raised bed the previous owner had installed, plus some perennials here and there. Once Kurt entered the scene we leveled up to a 30’ x 40’ fenced garden, and then when we launched the urban farm business we added a 14’ x 32’ high tunnel. And almost every year since then, we’ve decreased the lawn areas to add more growing space.
At the beginning I sold flowers to a few local florists, and then gradually added bouquet subscriptions, weddings, workshops, plant-dyed silks and other products. Also at the start, I was still working full-time while Kurt ran the farm business (mostly vegetables at that time). Once or twice a week I would wake up early to harvest flowers by headlamp, and then head to work while he did the deliveries. It took time, quite a few seasons, to make my way from that routine to full-time farming and then to shift my focus where it is now, primarily growing and designing for weddings.
Edit what you grow. The first year I grew cut flowers, I knew very little about what to grow, what would make a good cut flower or how to choose seeds. I don’t even think I had heard the term “flower farmer” yet. Ten years ago, the large retail seed companies had way fewer flower varieties and didn’t necessarily indicate which ones were good for cutting. So that first year I grew quite a few things that weren’t great (too short, flimsy stems, poor vase life, difficult to harvest). I quickly learned the importance of editing out the duds. Over the years my criteria for what to grow has changed as the business has changed, and I’ve done a LOT of editing. Some of my current yeas and nays:
No asters because of aster yellows.
Lots of snapdragons because they enjoy our climate, keep blooming all summer and come in so many varieties and colors.
Very few dahlias because they’re so labor-intensive to store, grow, maintain and harvest.
Nothing that’s invasive in my state or in nearby states/provinces.
No big tulip crops because our spring weather turns hot and dry too quickly.
More native plants to add variety, assist pollinators and test as cut flowers.
View from inside the shed: it’s not fancy but it works.
Work with what you have. It’s so tempting to want to buy all the fancy tools and gadgets that claim to make farming a breeze. But I’m glad that for the most part, we used what we already had until we knew we needed a specific upgrade. For years I delivered to florists and weddings in a 20-year-old Honda Element, a square black vehicle with tepid AC (not a great recipe for summertime). When I was doing large enough weddings that I had to occasionally rent a van and I knew the business could afford it, we purchased a cargo van.
Even now, while I’d love to have a studio with great natural light and plumbing, I work out of a large 60-year-old shed with a gravel floor. Along the way we’ve aimed to make the farm pay for itself, and I’m proud to say that it’s turned a profit every year since year two. In the world of farming, large initial investments like infrastructure, tractors and other equipment can delay profit for many years – so we’re fortunate that our small scale helped us keep things simple.
Don’t expect to know it all (like, ever). I think what makes me a good farmer isn’t my years of experience or all the reading and research I’ve done, but my realization that I’ll never know everything I want to know. There’s no book of answers for farming, especially flower farming! There are many more resources now than there used to be, but still so much of it is trial and error, experimentation and observation.
What keeps me going is the act of growing things – or, more accurately, being present with the plants as they grow themselves. Along the way I’ve also developed a fascination with soil, insects, compost and fungi. I know so much more than I did 10 years ago, but mostly I know that I’m not in control and that every year will be a surprise. Luckily I find that exciting.
What I’ve Learned About Business
Follow your curiosity. This is my motivating force: curiosity. Everything seems more possible when approached with curiosity. “I wonder why…” is how I start many conversations in my head. Curiosity has an expansive energy. It leads to questions and possibilities, which can unlock more of the same. Curiosity means testing things, it means asking “What if…?” and not needing to have all the answers. It’s how I stay energized and avoid boredom.
Learn how to manage yourself first. When I transitioned from a professional working for other organizations to a small business owner, I didn’t realize that becoming my own boss meant I was, literally, becoming my own boss. I would have to motivate myself, manage my time and make a lot of solo decisions. Who would hold me accountable? Me. Who would tell me when and how to work? Me. Who would be disappointed if I failed? Me.
When designing weddings, I love working uninterrupted, cranking some music and getting into a state of flow.
Over the years I’ve learned that I work best on a schedule, I like to focus deeply on the task at hand, I need to write things down to get them out of my head, and sometimes I need to trick myself into doing the things I need to do but don’t want to do. This is one of the areas where I believe you can’t follow someone else’s road map. Here are some questions I’ve used to figure out how best to manage myself:
What time of the day do I have the most mental or physical energy? (For me it’s morning, especially a crisp blue-sky summer morning.)
Do I work best with a clear schedule or to-do list, or do I need more freedom to choose my tasks each day? (I prefer a schedule, although I often make adjustments based on priority, the weather, my energy and other factors.)
Do I enjoy working alone or with others, in a quiet or bustling environment? (I love working alone, especially if I need to focus, but the energy and excitement of teamwork can be really great too.)
When trying something new, how do I learn – watching, reading, listening, hands-on or a combination? (Usually a combination, especially watching and hands-on.)
Do I need a snack? (The answer is always yes.)
Take things one step at a time. At first it can seem like there are a million things to do and so many new skills to learn, and it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed. In the early days when I was still working full-time and farming on the side, I planned weekly “power hours” to keep up the momentum on building the business – every week I would sit down and work on whatever needed attention, just moving ahead a little bit at a time.
Even now, when I have a large task ahead of me, I try to break it into smaller actions I can take to work my way through it. I like checklists and to-do lists because they show my progress and remind me where I am. And for complex tasks that I’ll do again in the future, I love to save a checklist (my favorite: Trello) and reuse it so I don’t forget any steps. This helps reduce anxiety, too, because it helps me focus on the smaller item at hand instead of stressing about the big scary end goal that doesn’t seem possible.
Know your numbers. Pretty early on, I started tracking various numbers to see if I was being efficient, which flowers were selling the best and where I could improve. We use QuickBooks to track income and expenses, and I’ve been using Airtable for years to manage my flower database (seeding, germination, harvesting, yields, etc.) as well as wedding inquiries and bookings. I tracked my time in the early days of wedding designing so I would know how long each piece took me, in order to know how many weddings I could book and when I would need assistance designing or setting up. For a few years I offered wholesale, weddings and bouquet subscriptions all at once, and I had the data to know how many stems I could plan to harvest each week. Some weeks I sold nearly everything in bloom.
Now, I know not everyone likes numbers as much as I do, but I find it so empowering to have my own data for making decisions. I try to use technology in a way that helps me stay organized and avoids duplicating effort. Here are a couple examples of how I gather and use my own data:
Time and scheduling: I use a calendar app to schedule my tasks in blocks of time because that’s how I like to work (and I often edit my schedule throughout the day). But I also use my calendar as a searchable record of how much time I’ve spent on something in the past. When it comes time to do something like annual website updates, I can look back at the previous year to see how much time I should allocate.
Flower germination rates: As I mentioned, I use Airtable for my flower database, which includes my seeding schedule and quantities (I love how it tallies all the rows at a glance). I also add a column each year to track my germination rates, which means that once the seeds have germinated I note how many seedlings I have. This only takes a few seconds for each variety. Over time this has helped me plan how many seeds to start so I don’t end up with too many or too few plants. Both my seed starting room and my growing areas are tight, so this helps a lot.
Make your business work for you. I think what I enjoy most about running a business is the ability to adjust, edit, say no, change course. Being a farmer in a northern climate, I use winter for planning and making big adjustments. I basically get to reinvent my business every year if I choose. After changing course many times in the last decade, It’s only in the past couple of years that the business has remained fairly constant. It’s more of a flow, less of a grind – but it’s taken time and lot of intention on my part to make it that way.