Real Talk: Rolling with the punches
Are you a go with the-flow-person who can handle rolling with the punches?
Or rather, are you a planner who hates it when things start veering off course?
When last minute changes occur in life, do you tackle those changes head-on or find yourself paralyzed? Big changes, small changes: what is your knee jerk reaction and emotion to them?
I’ve always been a “planner”… I say planner loosely. I like handwritten lists, goal boards and more handwritten lists. Although that doesn’t mean I have always executed those plans all that well, but I have always enjoyed the process of planning. However, when life started deviating from my intentions I struggled to cope with the reality of the situation. Going with the flow, if it wasn’t going with what I had planned in my head or on that list, was a no-flow. I would shut down and sometimes find myself almost angry at the deviations. Even slight ones.
Of course, with those natural inclinations what do I decide to do with my life?
Become a flower farmer! Such a grand idea.
Several years ago, when I first started down this rugged path of flower farming, I had some difficult lessons before me… let’s just say I had to really learn to roll with the punches. This meant becoming comfortable with letting things go and being willing to re-strategize on the fly. I really didn’t have the best coping skills in the beginning of my flower farming journey. If you have read my blog Farmer-Florist, it’s a Thing then you know the bumpy beginning and emotionally raw state I was in during those first steps of my flower farming journey. This emotional beginning also inspired me to write another blog post Advice for First Year Flower Farmers and Dreamers to help other aspiring flower farmers to not be so hard on themselves. If you are familiar with these blogs you would also know I had no experience, and really no “business" taking on this new venture. I was clueless, but ignorance can be bliss. Some things you must experience when you feel called to, even if it’s insanely challenging. Had I known the challenges I would have thrown in the towel from the start, thank you ignorance.
The upside to this crazy ride? Well, I have gained coping skills along with problem solving skills galore, at least when it comes to flower farming. Meal planning dinners and laundry during peak season… getting there. Throw your tips my way, seriously my husband would be your number one fan.
In all seriousness though, flower farming helped me grow as an individual and a critical thinker. When changes or misfortunes happen, I now am a lot more go-with-the-flow which has lead me to be a more happy person in general, which makes me more pleasant to be around. If this sounds like some of your struggles you are battling to overcome, know you are not alone!
Stuff Happens!
Unpredictable situations arise! Over time, with practice and exercise, your problem solving and coping skills will get stronger and better as you use them more.
In life, especially these last couple years, it’s safe to say: life is unpredictable.
This is especially true when you are working with nature and depending on those natural products for the success of your small business.
Enter flower farming.
There is a reason big agriculture corporations have dumped absurd amounts of money into tech, specialty seeds/crops, fancy greenhouses and chemicals upon chemicals… Anything and everything to lessen the brutal force of nature, while making sure to achieve a high yielding, quality crop.
Being small scale and more interested in healing the earth rather than depleting it, we have a very different approach than big agriculture and much less funds to work with. We must face the whims of nature as it comes and take action that is within our abilities and means. However, it also makes us more capable of handling those same deviations in the future or at least being more comfortable with the potential outcome (unlike big corps).
The 2021 season weather-wise has not been kind. Spring was incredibly volatile with major temperature fluctuations and insane winds with really low moisture. After the third time pulling a low tunnel out from our tree we threw our hands up and left the crops exposed despite the freezing temperatures. If that wasn’t enough, we suspected we were in for a challenging summer due to those blustery conditions and lack of moisture but didn’t think it would be as bad as it was. Early July through about mid-September our Valley was covered in a blanket of smoke. Nonstop. We didn’t see blue skies for months. Heartbreaking and depressing to say the least. We currently field grow everything so we could never escape it nor shelter our plants from it. The crops were constantly getting smothered by ash. Our sinuses were inflamed and our lungs were on fire. The game plan was to just try to get what we needed harvested so that we could rush back indoors. Sadly, that’s not where it ended, we still had to deal with debris on the crops (scented geraniums loved hanging to that ash). Doing the minimum to keep the crops going resulted in a domino effect: leafhoppers taking over, disease spreading, plants not harvested hard enough, missing planting successions, and wasted time trying to get as much debris off the flowers without ruining them. Truly fun times.
What do you do in those situations?
Situations where things just happen. Seedlings die. There will be crop failure. There will be infrastructure failure. There will be drought, too much moisture, wind, freeze, evidently wildfire smoke; basically situations can become fairly out of our hands. There will be situations that are self-caused. Our mistakes, and perhaps even hasty decisions made in a moment of panic or impulse, can cost us. There will be life events, injuries, deaths and illnesses. This past season sure seemed to throw all those at us too from loss of loved ones to severe allergic reactions and illnesses. There will be disgruntled customers as you are trying your best to stay afloat. The good news is there will also be those “cheerleading” customers (and usually more of those than the others!).
Basically, there are plenty of gut wrenching moments that can lead you down the path of questioning your sanity for ever flower farming. Much of our planning and plotting of running our flower farming business depends on us running at a 100% and the forces of nature working in our favor. When it feels like all the odds are piling up against you…
…What do you do in those situations?
You learn to roll with the punches.
Don’t let these hiccups bring you down or upset you too greatly. It is part of the gig. Face the problem, solve the problem as best you can, then move on.
There are a lot of moving pieces when you are flower farming, but when you stop and think about it: it is kind of magical how it all comes together.
How we handle the mishaps is what separates us commercial growers from the hobbyists.
Let’s dive into some ways to help better prepare for when the season seems to start going sideways.
Back up plans
If there is one hard lesson I have learned over and over again, it is to not put all my eggs in one basket. We do this a few different ways.
Seed Purchasing & Sowing
Purchase more seeds than you think you need and sow extras.
Typically, I skip over buying a single “packet” amount. Other than some drool-worthy varieties that I might custom grow for a wedding that warrants the increase of cost, I buy most in bulk. As you purchase larger quantities of seed it becomes more cost effective. Even if you won’t use all the seed in one season, we have stored seed for multiple years and haven’t seen much decline in germination. For the most part, you would be safe holding seeds for two seasons, perhaps even longer, depending on the variety, when kept cool and dry in a dark location. Pelleted seeds tend to have a shorter “shelf life” but I have still gotten decent germination from year old ones.
With seed shortages that seem to keep circling around, it’s better to have your stockpile and face a slight decrease in germination than not having the seed at all. Having more of a stockpile also allows you to have the seed on hand in case you need to start an emergency batch. Seedlings just germinated and a naughty mouse decides to feast upon them? You can start again and set some mouse traps without trying to hunt down those seeds or wait for the order to arrive. Logistics on getting orders have also been a wreck lately. This tidbit seems kind of no-duh but those seed orders as you are placing them add up, which may lead to your decision on being leaner in your purchase amount. Pay the extra cost and have some extra seeds on hand. It is less cost (packet for packet) and time than to have to reorder.
Don’t bank on getting 100% seed germination and don’t bank on keeping 100% of those seedlings alive till you harvest from them. There will be seedlings that come up just as weaker plants without anything you did (just the nature of that seed). There will be missed waterings. There will be lost plants at transplant due to shock or other mis-handlings. I assume, for the most part, with myself being a wreck and life, that whatever I sow 70%-85% will mature into a harvestable plant. Some varieties I know can be higher such as bachelor buttons and some varieties will be lower such as lisianthus. Plan out how many plants you ultimately want to harvest from and assume a 70-85% survival rate so bump up the amount sown by 15-30%. When in doubt of the amount of seed to sow, a good rule of thumb is a minimum 128 tray for each variety and color you intend on having.
Diversify crops
There was one year we were banking on snapdragons, we made a salty mistake in our soil and that has been dubbed the year of zero snapdragons. We had other varieties that we were able to substitute as that design component thanks to diversifying our varieties. Larkspur, foxglove and bee balm substituted as spike design component that year. Especially if you are experimenting with a new variety or a new plot of land, have back up varieties on hand just in case. Whatever the reason, diversifying crops is something that you will thank yourself for down the road whether due to loosing something else and still having harvest-able components or just getting to play with more variety in the end.
Succession Sow
Not only does succession sowing help to provide a more premium product, but it also works as a backup plan. Succession sowing can make it so you’re not completely without a crop for the whole season. You may simply just be delayed a few weeks. The idea of succession sowing is to sow the same crops in multiple intervals. For example, it is common to sow sunflowers weekly and cosmos monthly. If a freeze wipes out your first round of cosmos, at least you already have the next round going and should only be a few weeks behind at that point. A few weeks is better to survive without a crop than months. To learn more about this topic check out our post on that here.
Keep quick growing varieties on hand
Fast growing crops can save you, especially during the active growing season of summer. You may not have 90-120+ days to start a new batch of a variety over, but varieties that take 55-65 days can save you and finish off your season. Single stem sunflowers, bachelor buttons, calendula, bouquet dill (not my favorite but in a pinch it’s a filler!), garden gypsophila and German chamomile are just a handful of varieties that are good to have on hand for emergencies. I can’t tell you how many times German chamomile has saved me in spring as filler, especially since we don’t have any reliable perennials at the moment. Sunflowers have saved me to finish off the season many times, plus they can hold in the cooler when harvested at the correct stage for weeks with still giving a great vase life. Sunflowers definitely saved us when we got a harder than expected frost in September that put our dahlias to rest for the season.
Have supplies on hand and order early
Keep a reasonable stockpile of frost cloth, irrigation supplies, twine and duct tape on hand. Have the tools you need to be able to fix a situation as it arises as best you can.
With mailing logistics being a mess and shortages at every turn lately, much like the seeds, make it a habit to have extra on hand. Don’t bank on it all being in stock and ready to ship within a couple days. As you see things come available that you know you will need, order it to keep some on hand just in case. We had opened additional ground this season banked on our supplier getting us what we needed within a week, like they have every season before… we were left hand-watering for over a month and it hurt our crops, along with our sanity.
Place your seed, corm, tuber, bulb orders earlier than you think with our current climate. Also, it doesn’t hurt to diversify your suppliers just in case. If you are in spring, you should be ordering fall planted crops (tulips, peonies, ranunculus, etc.). If you are in late summer/fall, you should be ordering spring planted crops (dahlias, gladiolas, roses, etc.), get it?
Communication is key
Have you heard the saying that business is really just the art of communication?
It is true! Communicating your gratitude to your customers and the happenings of the flowers with your customers is a great habit to create. There’s also times when communication on not fun happenings is a necessity.
Communication with customers on crop failures and gaps is a tricky situation which deserves an entire post on its own.
If you are also selling direct to customers, containers and such have also been difficult to snag and that may need to be communicated. The quick version is communicate openly with customers if it will affect deliveries or product. Being open and upfront on what is happening and what this means for the customer. Then thank them for their support and explain the next steps, this is important, especially to those subscription members. Even if you don’t take pre-orders, be up front with your market customers. The open communication reminds your customers of the human behind the flowers and it also helps them understand the fierce nature we combat to be able to hand them those beautiful blooms. A majority of the customers will rally around you, giving you encouragement that you didn’t even know you needed (but did!).
However, with wedding couples, try not to unless you absolutely must. Wedding couples are stressed enough, they don’t need to know every crop failure you had, in fact I try not to mention any kind of crop failures during the growing season where brides could happen upon it, especially on social media. There’s enough happening and adding a panicked bride to your list won’t make anything better.
Knowing we are working within uncertain perimeters as flower farmers, never guarantee a specific variety, color, or anything on any given date. Sure try, but never promise. Default back to back up plans on varieties and successions or network with a community of other flower farmers/wholesalers if needed. Focus on the overall color palette, look and feel when consulting with wedding couples or other event florals.
Don’t get discouraged: you are not a failure
You are not a failure. No matter the circumstance or mishap: your business, your farm, your flowers are not a failure. Get that out of your head right now and don’t let it back in. That self doubt can be toxic and eat you alive!
You only fail if you refuse to get up and try again. Take a few moments, feel the disappointment then put on your critical thinking hat and move forward. You can handle it. Take it one task at a time. One hurdle at a time. One customer at a time. As Graham’s gross saying he likes to use go: “how do you eat an entire elephant? One bite at a time.” Not the nicest visual but we all have what feels like an elephant we have to tackle, you do it one small step at a time.
Be okay with what happens throughout the season. Take notes on what went well, what could have gone better. Learn from the mistakes. Watch your mental health and take care of yourself, especially during challenging times in the peak season. Burnout is a thing that can quickly turn into full blown depression and it impacts farmers heavily. Set up yourself for success as best you can during the off months when your brain is running at full capacity.
Know that you are not alone. Each of us flower farming business owners have our own struggles we are dealing with. Some seasons will be amazing and some seasons will push us to our limits.
At the end of the day, if something didn’t go as planned roll with the punches and know you can always try again, if not this season then the next. As the punches come, you will get better at dodging them and getting back up stronger and faster.
You got this!
We are looking forward to helping you hand blooms soon!
Jessica & Graham