A Flower a Day...
Flowers have always been a part of my life. I truly believe this is how my mom keeps track of the seasons. Which flowers can be planted now? Which ones need to be brought indoors due to the fear of frost? Planting season was and still is a huge part of my upbringing and life. When I was young my parents, along with my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins would all meet at my grandparents farm to help get the garden ready for planting. This was always an exciting time for me. I loved helping my grandpa get the land tilled, add in the fertilizer and then plant the seeds. All the grandchildren present were tasked with placing the seeds in the holes that the adults prepared for us. It would take all Saturday and we were always rewarded at the end of the day with a big family dinner. My grandparents planted a huge vegetable garden and we reaped what we had sewn all throughout the year. Of course it did not stop there. We also celebrated mother's days by going to nurseries and purchasing the flowers that would become the focal point of the front yard. Flowers are part of who I am and hold only fond memories for me.
To this day, I still enjoy going back home to Pennsylvania during this season to help my parents with their flower beds and garden.
When we bought our own farm we weren't certain which direction we wanted it to take. We knew chickens were a definite, but what other ways were going to work this land. We have thought about raising sheep, maybe pigs, but nothing seemed to quite ignite a passion. We have been here for 1.5 years and we think we found that passion by planting flowers for others.
Back in July I was reading "This Summer Will Be Different" by Carley Fortune. The book's main character owned a flower shop. The typical kind we all know about. Where you go in and buy a bouquet for a loved one, or ask for the staff to make the bouquet and deliver it. These types of shops are everywhere, and amazing, however the book got me to thinking about a cut flower farm. I know they are common in a lot of places, but after doing some research I learned that this is not the case for my area of Texas. We have the typical flower shops, and we have some amazing nurseries around, but nowhere that offers the ability to come and cut your own flowers to create your own arrangements.
After letting this thought ruminate for a few weeks, I brought the idea to my husband, Alvin. He loved it and immediately started helping with how we could make this dream a goal, and hopefully one day, a reality. We then brought it up to our best friends, Chance and Kelcie. They too were absolutely on board with the whole idea.
We have started the research on what grows best in our area of Zone 9. We have also started to watch videos, read guides, and even signed up for some free courses to help us grow in our knowledge of cut flowers. This summer we did plant Sunflowers, and Zinnia's just to see how well we could manage them and we were more than thrilled by the outcome.
We have many plans for this farm, this cut flower garden, but we are going slow. We want to make sure we do this right. Our goal is to start out this fall by planting over winter seeds, and then come February (because our growing season starts very early and lasts through December) we will plant out Zinnia's, Dianthuses, Lisianthus, Snap Dragons, and a few other varieties.
We do not plan to be open to the public for a few more years. Next year our plan is to take the excess flowers and make bouquets to donate to our local senior center and to sell at a farm stand outside of our house. We want to go slow so we can grow in our knowledge.
We are so excited to get started, and we plan on documenting as much as we can.
