Starting A Flower Farm
Starting a flower farm has to be one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done.
I’ve grown vegetables for years, and our entire farm ethos was to grow great food and offer it at an affordable price. Then I planted some flower seeds … and the world changed.
I had planned on a small cutting garden. After all, that’s why I had the seeds in the first place. I carefully noted down 10 vegetable varieties and 10 flower varieties I wanted to grow this year. The emphasis would be on the food side of things, but flowers would help the finances (they’re a luxury item after all) and they would attract people to the farmers market stand. That was the theory, anyway.
Seed grown dahlias have been a revelation
Little did I know that everything on my farm would want to eat my food. I shouldn’t have realised; I mean the clue is in the name - FOOD. But I also had water issues; a drought sapped the life out of vegetables but the flowers … oh, they utterly marvelled in the dry heat. After all, what does a stressed annual want to do? Flower. And what happens when the human comes along and cuts those flowers off? LOTS more flowers are produced in a desperate bid to procreate. Actually, when you put it like that, it seems a little mean. But the end result is that a long, dry summer meant curtains for much of the vegetables but a garden absolutely full of gorgeous flowers, flitting butterflies and bustling bumblebees.
A bumblebee with a zinnia
Sunflower - ‘Lemon’
I’ve found the process of cutting and making posies, bunches and bouquets extremely calming and satisfying. There’s nothing quite like going along a row of cornflowers, cutting 100 stems, shoving some smelly sweet peas into the mix and producing five nice posies. I quickly began to realise, however, that I grown nowhere near enough. And had most definitely neglected to grow filler; something you don’t think much of until you’re making bouquets and suddenly comes to understand just how important filler is!
A selection of cornflowers have been a stalwart in the startup garden
Though the flower season isn’t yet over, it is winding down. Blooms aren’t coming as quickly. Plants are getting tired. And once the first frost hits, that’ll be it; zap. At the moment I’m making £2 posies that I sell on the stand and at a local shop and £5 straight bunches because they’re easy to do and take little time. The posies consist of 20 cornflower stems (a low value flower) and some sweet peas OR 7 secondary snapdragon flowers and sweet peas. Meanwhile the straight bunches are generally 10/11 stems of strawflower or zinnia or 6/7 stems of dahlia, glads or sunflowers. Making a bouquet requires more flowers and more thought and thus, you have to price higher. As a newcomer, not many people yet know about me, so I’m advertising custom bouquets if people want them but there’s no point putting time or effort into them when they don’t sell on the garden gate.
I’m already excited for next year and the vast amount of flowers I want to grow. I’m not about to forget vegetables; I still want to focus on affordable food. But these beautiful blooms have really gotten into my heart.