How did I get here? (part 2)
As a continuation of my last blog: this week I’m focusing on how I ended up running a flower farm that makes me happy.
As I sat down to write out what I wanted from my flower farm in January of 2022,
I had to really explore this one not-so-simple question:
How do you run a flower farm without losing your mind??
If you look closely at this photo, you’ll see:
fresh flower bouquets
dried decorative corn
dried flowers on top of pumpkin centerpieces
dried flower rings
eucalyptus bunches
packets of sweet pea seeds
pumpkins
a very tired woman who is a mom, a speech language pathologist, and started a flower farm as a little “hobby” that became a liiiiiiiittle out of control…
It was time to look at what I was doing much more closely, and decide what I wanted to do. I soon discovered:
The things I don’t like doing are easy to take off the list,
Some of the things I like to do, even love to do, aren’t do-able at this time. (looking at you, wedding work.)
There are pros and cons to any choice you make, and for me I just had to figure out which jobs gave me (and my family) more pros vs. the jobs that actually had a lot of hidden cons.
Here is the list I made:
Farmers markets
Pros
New customer base sees your signs and product
Potentially reach people that aren’t in your neighborhood or aren’t on social media and wouldn’t know about you any other way
You get to meet other small farms and small businesses (I made a lot of friends and discovered so many cool small businesses around the Olympia area from being at these markets!)
Cons
You have to sit there all day, you have to be there early to set up and you have to stay late to break down. It just wasn’t working for me to spend my entire Saturday at a market when my family needed (and deserved) my time.
If it isn’t busy, your flowers are sitting outside all day, and sometimes it’s really hot. You either have to sell them at a discount at the end of the day or compost them.
The night before a farmers market was also completely shot because I would spend hours putting everything together, packing up my van, etc.
Some markets take a percentage of what you make or some markets require a hefty fee for you to be there. It just wasn’t much of a money maker.
Wedding Work
Pros
It’s such a wonderful creative outlet to make a big, luscious, fresh bouquet!
It feels so great to see a happy couple with flowers you grew and put together!
It can be lucrative, if you price accurately.
After you’ve done a few, you get really fast and efficient and you find the easiest ways possible (example: did you know they make magnetic boutonnière bases? or slap bracelets specifically for corsages??? Amazing.)
Cons
It takes time. Those first couple of years I would spend HOURS on each bouquet or table piece. HOURS. Then I’d send pictures of videos to some of my flowering friends and ask for input, then I’d spend more time. SO MUCH TIME.
It is stressful. When you first take on wedding orders, you stress yourself out over if it’s perfect, if the couple will like it, if the flowers will last through the day, etc etc.
It requires your attention. I was spending these hours either at my kids’ nap time or after they went to bed. It was brutal!
If you didn’t price accurately, you’d realize you spent allll that time, stressed allll that stress, and didn’t make much money.
Bouquet Subscriptions
Pros
flowers are guaranteed “sold” and paid for before they’re even blooming
you can cut bulk buckets and assemble several bouquets in one sitting (vs. custom orders which are often just one at a time)
You get to know your customers a little better, and establish a solid customer/farmer relationship
making these bouquets is pretty fun, and kind of quick: it’s like an assembly line of ingredients
Cons
You have to figure out/coordinate timing of pickups to coincide with timing of flowers blooming (can be stressful)
You have to guess how many to sell before the flowers have grown (can be stressful)
You have to coordinate the place where they’ll pick up bouquets (I did it at a brewery once, which was fun, but then I decided I don’t want to haul flowers anywhere, so I have them come to me!)
After looking over these pros & cons, as well as others, I discovered I had a simple way to make this all much, much easier.
The time it takes to cut flowers, make bouquets, and haul flowers around can be immediately eliminated if I just let people cut the flowers themselves.
Imagine how easy it could be if I just didn’t do any of the things??
photo from our Flow in the Flowers yoga class in 2023, when folks finished their yoga flow and cut their own flowers!
Heading into 2022, I changed focus to the U Pick flower field. I cut out farmers markets, I said “no” to most brides that reached out, and I sold subscriptions, but mostly: I wanted to see if a U pick could even work…
With just a few U Pick beds and a small following on social media, I was able to open up the field (by reservation) to several customers, new and old. I was nervous:
Would they like it?
Would they think my field was too small?
Will they know that I am an imposter and have no idea what I’m doing??
The result was excitement all around! I was building the first U Pick flower field in Olympia!!
With my community supporting me, I kindly asked my husband to build more U Pick beds so we could expand, and the 2023 summer was an absolute success.
The U pick is our main focus here, which means I’m able to spend much more time with my family.
If you’re considering starting a flower farm, or any small business, I would encourage you to really focus on what makes you happy, takes up less of your time, and works for YOU and your family (as well as your community).
Nobody can “do it all”, and life is much sweeter when you do less. (and maybe read this book to learn HOW to do less)
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