I told my husband I wanted to grow more flowers next year, and apparently he took me seriously. This fall, we finally tore down the old fence that bordered our current garden. It was actually here when we bought the property because the previous owners had goats, but we never ended up needing it, so it had just been sitting there as a sort of unused boundary. Once the fence was gone, we suddenly had all this extra space to work with. My husband brought out the tractor and plowed up the ground, expanding the garden to over 7,000 square feet. It feels a little crazy to see it all opened up now. I can look across that big stretch of freshly turned soil and picture rows and rows of flowers growing there next summer, and I honestly can't wait.
This year was really my first season figuring out what growing flowers for weddings would look like on our farm, and it has made me realize how much potential there is here. I’m so excited about the possibility of growing more varieties, having more stems available, and being able to take on more pre-orders for the following season. At the same time, I know that going from a smaller garden to more than 7,000 square feet means I’m going to have to change some of the ways I do things. I’ve gotten away with a pretty simple, hands-on approach so far, but there’s only so much hand watering and hand weeding I’m going to be able to do once there are thousands of plants in the ground. We’re already looking into irrigation and landscape fabric for next year, which should make a huge difference. Of course, I'll still be keeping my practices chemical free.
The expansion isn't just happening outside, either. Our indoor growing setup is going to have to grow quite a bit too. I’m going to need more grow lights, more shelving in the basement, and hopefully an automated way to water seedlings once I have a much larger number of trays going at once. There’s something really fun about figuring all of this out as we go, though. I never set out with a huge master plan for the farm. It has grown a little bit at a time as I’ve learned what works, figured out what I enjoy growing, and seen where there is demand for the flowers I’m producing. Now I’m at the point where I actually need to start thinking about systems and efficiency if I want to keep growing without making the whole thing unnecessarily complicated.
There’s still plenty of work to do before winter arrives. We need to spread a lot of compost over the new garden space and get everything tilled before the ground freezes, and then I’ll have the whole winter to dream about next year’s varieties and growing plans. I’m especially looking forward to opening up more pre-orders for wedding flowers and knowing that I’ll have a much larger garden behind those orders.
I feel really grateful for the opportunity to do this. There is definitely a lot of work ahead, and scaling up is going to come with its own challenges, but I love that this little farm keeps giving me something new to learn. What started as a small flower garden has slowly turned into something much bigger than I originally imagined, and I’m really excited to see where another season takes it.
