Serina is feeling much better, and is back to chat with everyone about the idea of officially letting team flowers win and growing only flowers for 2022. Should we be a flower farm? Join in on the conversation and let us know what you think.
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Ian and Serina of YOU CANT EAT THE GRASS feel that every small change can make a big difference to the world we live in. Every garden planted leads to a better future. We hope to inspire and motivate others to make positive changes in their lives by sharing our journey towards greater sustainability as we build our family farm. It’s hard work to build a life worth living, and completely worth it!
Contact us at: iancolbeck@gmail.com
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After being in the nursery business for over thirty years, we learned that the only constant is change. When we first started, perennials were hot, people were obsessed with them. Not long after that, an herbal renaissance occurred and the demand for herbs skyrocketed. One year I said, let's just grow basil, it's the most profitable plant we grow! Then the interest shifted to plants for xeriscape. And succulents. Then natives. "Pollinator" plants. Through it all we had to keep adjusting what and how much of each we grew, but to only grow one category would have severely limited our sales. And I guess I'm saying, yes, the flowers may be the most profitable, but to only grow flowers would really change how your customers see you. If you can find a balance between growing what you love to grow and growing what is most profitable, I think you win! Good luck to you!
Please don’t give up on veggies just yet (maybe just big tomatoes). Getting rid of the seedling sale and having the walk-in cooler, farm side stand, and SO much infrastructure complete will help. Veggies might not make the money, but they can be a big draw and create flower customers. Growing good food for the community was a big part of your “why farm”. Team Veggies! (Sincerely, a fan and home gardener that has never farmed a day in her life.)
What about a middle ground? Doesn't need to be all or nothing. Choose the 6 to 8 veggies that are most in demand, profitable or potentially profitable and not super labor intensive while expanding flowers to 75 to 80% of your business. Hedges your bets a bit. Some folks like the one stop shopping and having some veggies may attract more buyers.
Veggies are important. I love your flowers but it would be sad to not see your beautiful veggies. Wish I lived near you so I could buy all the veggies. Just my two cent. Do what is best for your health and well being.❤️
Taking to account supply chane being broken.. keep producing food too. Maybe do 60% flowers and 40% food??
Make wreaths, soap, lotions, ect. during the winter months to sell year round…also running classes out of your farm would be fun..
Could you just do flowers, carrots, salad mix and no other veggies? That way you are only putting energy and time into your most productive things. Also, whoever you hire needs to be up for some late night flower arranging. That way if you aren't feeling well one week the bouquets will still get done.
Really popular right now are corn stork wreaths.
You can also thrift and then paint containers and sell dried / fresh displays
Thank you so much for this video. We are having the same dilemma with our new farm out on the east coast. Appreciate your perspective!
I'm so happy that you are feeling better Serina.
As a viewer who came to your channel because of a love for local food and sustainable food production I think you also need to consider the YouTube value of growing food and not just flowers. If youtube is a large source of income there is also value in your farm for your content creation. I love following you guys and would continue to watch even if all you do is grow flowers next season, but I hope it's not at the cost of losing your message of growing local food for locals and connecting people with their food network. I think those are still really valuable things even if it doesn't translate to dollars made directly from selling on the farm. Wishing you guys all the best and thankful you share your journey here with the world.
How about selling to sellers or small grocery stores instead of direct
Selling? coz your veggies are just so good
Serina, your flowers and bouquets are absolutely beautiful and I think deciding to be a full- on flower farm is doable for you! You will succeed! I have watched this video about 4 times now, because what you're discussing is helping me to make my own difficult decisions for next year, so I'm really thankful for the way you work things out verbally on these live videos!
Very nice to see you. Please do take care
have you reached out to nicole, or floret, what about sunflower steve for some feedback? can you add more perennials and herbs?
There’s one variable you don’t add in. Which makes your soul sing?im 74 years old and I look back over my life. I know you have to pay yourself but there needs to be a balance. Think that way for a moment for what it’s worth!?
Tq123bg
Great to see you again. I plant too many flowers every year. This year what didn't sell got dried. Now I have lots of dried product for wreaths and little dried flower posies. I am going to try to focus down on only a handleful of varieties for each season. Of course it needs to be the ones folks want and will buy 🙂 Good luck in your next growing season!
You make a great point of only growing what makes the farm a profit, I know Josh Sattin only grows lettuce mix, carrots, and beets, and stopped growing tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.
Create content! Did you ever consider selling seeds? Seems like seeds can be stored and have income throughout the whole year
I stumbled quite accidentally across a podcast with Jennie of LoveNFreshFlowers where she described a tulip planting method that is a total game changer. If you do go heavy on flowers, check out her method. No more back-breaking trench digging! No more trencher rentals! And another podcast I came across, with the farmers of Spring Forth Farm, reiterated a business idea we've all heard before about narrowing down what you are doing. You dropping the seedling sale is an example. What Spring Forth decided to do was drop something each year (like wedding flowers, and farmers markets) and they found their margins grew each time. Now they exclusively grow spring flowers. This reminded me of your comments about the farm being too many businesses to keep doing. I know you don't want to sell to florists, but Spring Forth talked about how starting on day 1 they loved florists which I found interesting. Maybe if you have some time and interest you could look into that podcast (No Till farming with Spring Forth Farm). Definitely look into the no-till tulip method though! So much less work!
I am so glad Serina is feeling better! I am wondering if it would make sense to try to earn more money during the holiday season? If you sock away all the extra flowers for drying all year and then bring in some seasonal help for cranking out designs in October and November, you could take advantage of the big increase in spending at the end of the year and still mostly take December and January off. I am thinking wreaths, garlands and centerpieces. Even just providing a lot of those things at your stand and seasonal markets could bring in big end of year profits. Also, I definitely think you should offer salad mix and carrots. People will come for those and leave with flowers, right? Why not just offer the veggies that sell the most, if they are easy to grow? I think if you focus on the things that already profit the most and focus on flowers as your main business, leveraging what you have already learned, you will do great! Wishing you big success! You deserve it. 🙂