Each year a word is placed upon my heart. It seems to really pop up everywhere and it appears to be the word that sets the tone and theme of the coming year.

The word that I will find myself having to cling to during the ups and downs of the season.

For 2019 it was “embrace” and boy, was that the theme of the year for sure! We had to embrace the struggles, our salty soil mistakes, brutal weather and ultimately each other to survive the season. Fortunately, it made us stronger and on a year that could break most, we decided to embrace the lessons and by the end of the season our flowers and ourselves were thriving. It took a lot of not only rolling with the punches, but embracing them and working with them.

Even though we feel as if our new year has come and started, there is still something inspiring about the closing of the holiday season and the birth of a new calendar year. Given this, I thought it appropriate to share the word placed upon my heart for the 2020 season.

Last year we moved to a new property, had to pull back from a lot of our normal outlets. We also had some of the best flowers ever- strong, big healthy (we also had a lot of failure on certain varieties, especially in the spring). Overall, we were inconsistent. Inconsistent at being present on all our different forums from being vendors at our normal outlets to social media to Youtube. Anyone who battles with inconsistency knows that gut wrenching feeling one has. The “if only I had my life together I could do XYZ.” The feeling of guilt when you have to cancel being a vendor last minute. Having to toss trays upon trays of seedlings in the compost because they didn’t make it in the ground on time. Turning down brides because of crop gap.

2020 is going to be our fifth season in this game of flower farming. We’ve learned a lot. We have made many “mistakes.” We are also learning what we love and what we do not love. Every year we experience serious burnout. Cooking at home, what is that? From sun up to much past sundown: we are hustling. Sure, in the short run you have to hustle for the dream but it is not sustainable in the long run. We have been essentially swimming up stream. Incredible amounts of effort but not much progress. Certain outlets being absolute time sucks with very little in return. Taking on too much for the limited time we have.

Heck, giving away time is a bad habit for us. Many times, we couldn’t afford to throw money at something so we gave our time into it. This has cost us in many ways the biggest being: consistency.

In case you haven’t noticed 2020’s word is consistency.

“Consistency” is defined by the Oxford dictionary as: conformity in the application of something, typically that which is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy or fairness. The achievement of a level of performance that does not vary greatly in quality over time.

Consistency is a loaded word for us and it has quite the domino effect. For us, we tend to overcommit and say “yes” to all who ask. Graham and I like to make others happy. We often do this at the sacrifice of our own well being, which leads to burnout, which leads to neglecting other important duties, which leads to inconsistency- see how that goes?

2020 I suspect is going to be a huge year for us in many ways. The biggest way? We are trimming the “fat” off our business so we can better focus on the parts of our business that truly carry our business. That we can better focus on the quality of our product and the quality of our lives. This will not be easy. Pulling away from the outlets and ways that we have grown comfortable with over these many seasons is scary. Those supposed safety nets, at some point, the worth has to be weighed. This is that point and the result is they are costing us too much in time and sanity which negatively impacts our product and tumbles us into the realm of inconsistency.

This is the year we want to work on Sierra Flower Farm but not be consumed by it. With the calm before the storm of the next season I have been diving into some old business books that I have skimmed over but haven’t made a priority to utilize. These last few seasons, the business has been running us. It’s time to grab hold and finally start running the business. That is a huge goal of mine this year and Graham’s as well. Longterm planning, which for a girl who has been bounced around her whole life is kind of a big deal. Dreaming of outbuildings and English rose gardens instead of hideous junipers. Visualizing exactly what we want out of Sierra Flower Farm and what we want to say through our flowers. Sure, this is something we have done before. Well… something I have done before but this desperately needs to be revisited and with Graham this time. It has turned from a hobby-like business with a baby on my hip for some extra spending money to something incredibly more. I am passionate about growing and designing flowers, now is the time to refine my vision and processes.

Another big change: Graham and I have always had our “stay in your lane” roles when it comes to Sierra Flower Farm. This caused a lot of frustration and head-butting. Graham wanted full control of the dirt, that was his. So I checked out. The truth is, we needed to come together, research and plan. We balance each other out. Also, when a mistake is made, they tend to be too heavy of loads for one person to carry. It took us coming together to problem solve and then take action to correct the mistakes. On my side of the business, I too have made many mistakes. The heavy burden of wrongdoing or “failure” is quite the emotional baggage. Finally, instead of butting heads we started to work together on all the different aspects of the business. Willingly working together and it has made all the difference. Last season, we learned we had to work together, embrace each other’s thought processes and ideas without getting defensive. That is when things started really coming together for us. I am excited to see what we can do putting that into practice for an entire season.

For years we have been talking about a giant chalkboard to list all our goals, tasks, orders and ideas. Finally, we made it a priority and it is up. Though Graham and I balance each other out, part of that is because we are polar opposites. Our brains, thoughts, processes- everything differ. This has more positives than negatives but has created communication struggles over the years. With Graham embracing the flower farm as much more than a “row-prepper” and bystander there’s been a shift. We’re talking planting straighter rows and well… he is an accountant and it’s time to treat the business as an actual business. Having the chalkboard and seeing each other’s priorities and thoughts has already been so helpful! In thirty minutes we came together and re-structured the business. Something on my own had me paralyzed but between the two of us progress is happening. We have some big goals and many of them do involve investing in ourselves to become better growers, florists, business minded and being more present for our children.

With the New Year I challenge you to listen to your heart and find the word that is placed upon it. You may find that word is needed for yourself, your business and your relationships to blossom.

Farm Update: Setting the tone for the New Year

Sierra Flower Farm

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