If I Were Starting a Flower Farm Today // 9 Things I Wish I Would Have Known Sooner

hey guys and welcome back to our channel getting started building a flower farm growing a flower garden whatever you want to call it it's such an exciting adventure and i think that there's a lot of great advice out there on youtube already teaching you how to get started growing cut flowers both if you're wanting to grow for yourself or for profit i actually have a few of those videos up my channel right now like in this video right here where i walk you through our planning process or in this video where i walk you through how i grow seedlings without a greenhouse and so i wanted to do something a little bit different specifically today i want to talk about what i would do differently if i were just starting out in 2022. i've been growing cut flowers for four years now and i've worked hard to expand our farm to offer a variety of seasonal offerings everything from spring tulips all the way to evergreen porch pots in the winter now more than ever i'm able to recognize what mistakes i've made getting to this point and i really want to help you get started the right way you know by avoiding the things that i did wrong way back in the beginning that's why today i want to give you some tips for becoming a flower farmer and share with you what i do if i were just starting out now [Music] now i think this first tip is going to sound a little bit harsh but i think that while you need to set large goals and keep your ambitions high what you really need to do in the beginning is lower your expectations now to be clear i absolutely believe in dreaming big i believe in setting big audacious goals that empower you to grow well beyond your comfort zone but i think where so many of us get discouraged is when the reality that we're faced with doesn't match the expectation that we set for ourselves it's easy to set out on this journey and think that growing beautiful flowers is going to be all rainbows and sunshine but starting out is rarely as glamorous as we think it's going to be when i first started i envisioned the process being so easy i was just going to plant some seeds i was going to watch all these flowers grow right before my eyes and of course these flowers were going to be so beautiful that people were just going to want to buy them right out because who doesn't love farm fresh flowers but what really happened that first year is that most everything i grew except for my zinnias my sunflowers and one row of basil it all died it never even made it to harvest because i didn't know the first thing about growing flowers when your results when they don't match your expectations that's when it's easy to throw in the towel that's when we convince ourselves that what we're doing isn't working when the truth is that big things they all have to start somewhere and sometimes you just have to let the start be whatever it needs to be for me that failure of a year was what i really needed in order to understand how much i didn't know about growing flowers and i think it's where my curiosity and my desire to learn about flower car farming really began now tip number two is to know your strengths and your weaknesses this is where you have to be really honest with yourself and this can be a little bit difficult because no one likes to admit the things that they're not good at but when you're starting something new you increase your chance of success when you not only focus on what you're good at but also when you're able to recognize your weaknesses so that you can work to minimize those flaws that would otherwise cause you problems when i first got started i was great at the planning stuff i loved being organized and so i could map out our flower field and plan it down to the very last detail but my big vision often didn't materialize because i sometimes lack the follow through that it needed to make it happen it became apparent to me early on that i needed systems and processes that would make certain jobs easier so they actually get done for instance my first year flower farming i didn't use any sort of weed barrier because i wanted to save money and i decided to just keep up in the weeding myself besides everyone on instagram was talking about how therapeutic it was to spend nights in their gardens tending to the weeds and so i mistakenly thought that i that i'd grow to love the job and it seemed easy enough as long as i kept up on it the problem was that i didn't keep up on it and in no time at all the weeds outpaced what little flowers were growing in the first in that first flower garden it was a hard lesson but i've since invested money into things like weed barrier you know drip irrigation half even my girl life they're on automatic timers that they are turned on and off in a consistent schedule these are all tools that make the process of growing flowers lower maintenance so that i can spend time and tasks that i actually enjoy doing and so what i would recommend for you is to invest your talents and your energy where they'll be most effective now i have to move into my office for a minute because tip number three it's a bit more practical than most of the other tips i'm sharing in this video but it's to really it's to take notes lots and lots of notes one of the biggest slides that i tell myself every season is that i'll remember exactly what i did i remember when i sewed different flower varieties now remember which garden tests have to be done when but the truth is that by the end of this season everything is one blurred mess taking notes and trust me it doesn't have to be anything fancy most of the time i just jot down like handwritten notes in this simple notebook but it's helpful for two reasons first it helps me not only to repeat successes that i've experienced but it also helps me to avoid costly mistakes for example i've shared my experience growing sweet peas on instagram before and how i really struggle to get it right by keeping track of what i've done i've been able to deduce much faster what's not working and correct those mistakes secondly my journal has reduced the amount of time that i have to do planning every season while the rhythm of the year it does get more familiar with time there's plenty that i still haven't committed to memory quite yet and because i'm doing so many of the same tasks over and over again year after year my notebook it really serves as a reminder to when all those tasks need to be done so it cuts down the time that i have to spend planning every year because i can use my records as a starting point and adjust accordingly rather than starting from a blank slate each year so moving on to number four which is to simplify now this one is so easily said but not easily done it's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of taking on such a fun project as growing cut flowers that you find yourself wanting to grow and do it all i can relate to that feeling wholeheartedly but i also know from experience how easily overwhelmed can set in when you're trying to juggle too much i think you'll find growing flowers more enjoyable and it will serve you more in the long run when you choose to limit your focus so you can really excel at doing a few things well rather than trying to do a lot of things in a mediocre way it's easy to look at someone else's success and assume that that that's where they've always been but no one ever starts the top here at two sisters flower farm it's taken us four years to grow to the point where we could offer four seasons of flowers to our customers we didn't start out growing pumpkins and mums and creating pork pots and breeze we started with just summer annuals and if i'm being honest we didn't even do it that well that first year in my opinion doing less is often the solution to accomplishing more because it allows you to focus your energy and truly make more progress the next thing i do if i were just starting out flower farming now is i learned to be more flexible believe it or not one of the things that i'm most grateful for is that two sisters flower farm was built on a shoestring budget because it meant that we didn't have a lot of money early on to put into big investments we didn't buy fancy equipment or put money into more permanent infrastructure like heated greenhouses we've always just worked with what we had and that has been such a big blessing because it's allowed us to shift and evolve our business as our vision has changed through the years we're just four years into our flower growing adventure and already our vision for our business has grown in such a different way than what i had originally imagined i'm so thankful that we've been able to make those pivots because we didn't pigeonhole ourselves into one thing the reality is that you can dream about flower farming like all you want and you can research all the different ways to go about it but you're never going to truly know if that dream is right for you until you actually get your hands dirty and gain some experience i've mentioned this quote in previous videos but it's worth repeating because it's so good clarity it comes from taking action so you have to take some action to really figure out what it is that you want to do what you learn may take your flower farm in a completely different direction than you intended and that's all right now number six is sort of along those same lines and it's my reminder to you that you have to pave your own path i know it's tempting to want to copy other successful flower farmers obviously they're doing something that's working and our quest to become successful ourselves it makes sense that we want to do similar things but my encouragement to you is that while it's all right to draw inspiration from others you should always be mindful to put your own unique spin on things what it boils down to is that you have to embrace your uniqueness whatever it is that makes you you the best way that i can explain this is to share with you yet another quote yes i'm a bit obsessed with quotes but it goes like this in order to be successful you either have to be the first be the best or be different now it's no secret that i'm not the first at doing any of the things which we're doing at two sisters flower farm and honestly i don't consider us the best at it either but i've learned to lean into what makes us different that can feel scary you know trying to do something in a different way than everyone else because it's human nature to want to feel safe and we like proof that things are going to work out but being different is what sets you apart from the crowd i think in flower farming and you know it's easy to think that we're just sharing flowers with other people but really what you're doing is sharing a bit of ourselves people want to connect and experience part of your flower farm because they want to support you and when you can offer them a unique experience that they don't necessarily get anywhere else well that's what's going to drive them back for more okay number seven you have to be willing to fail i am about as risk adverse as they come so of course trying something new well it may come with a bit of a thrill it's honestly outside of my comfort zone so i'll share with you my secret for embracing failure it's to never risk more than you're willing to lose and i wish someone would have told me this earlier in my flower journey i remember that in the beginning i used to agonize over every decision i used to research the heck out of everything before i did it because i was so fearful of things that could go wrong i really was always thinking of the worst case scenario but i've learned that by never risking more than i'm willing to lose then even if i don't reach my goal my failure isn't the end for my flower farm this was very much my attitude when i decided to host our first holiday market last winter now if i'm being honest winter was one of the most challenging seasons for me to tackle because it required such a different mindset as a farmer i am very much used to growing our own products with our holiday market though while everything was my design i sourced a lot of our material the fresh evergreens the winterberry those curly willow branches from other farmers it was such a different experience than what i was used to that i really second guessed if i could even pull it off most people probably wouldn't believe it but that first year winner offerings my only goal was to break even with the money that we had spent anything above and beyond that was just icing on the cake for us i truly just wanted to prove the concept that we could do it i knew that once i had that once i got over that initial fear i could always go back and finesse things later you have to give up on the idea that anything will ever be perfect on your flower farm no matter how hard you may try it's normal for things to go wrong with your flower journey well i hope you hit it out of the ballpark like right away the more likely scenario is that you're gonna hit a few bumps along the way but it's always possible to recover from those hiccups especially if you're mindful of taking healthy risks now to follow up my next tip is to trust your gut making decisions it requires you to put yourself out there in a way that you may not be used to now i don't know about you but i am a rule follower give me something to do and i'll do it and that's why it felt different for me to be the one making the rules with my own flower farm you know some people they naturally thrive when you place place them in that position but i don't i really had to get over that feeling of like needing permission to do something i battled with overcoming imposter syndrome like who was i to offer all these things that we were doing you have to trust that you know what's best for your situation and the decisions that you make will be best for your farm regardless of what everyone else is doing okay last but not least my final tip for this video is that you have to take yourself seriously no matter where you are on your flower journey you have to give yourself some credit i really wish that i would have been more confident in my abilities much sooner and that i would have taken my business more seriously especially early on instead when i talked about the things that i was doing i often belittled my actions telling my friends how i was working on this like little flower garden i think of the biggest mistakes a lot of us make when starting something new is that we wait to reach like a certain level before doing the things that we know are going to make us feel legit and what we fail to realize is that it's actually the reverse you have to act like a professional flower grower that you are before you actually level up and like become one you don't do the things and then become the flower farmer rather you become the flower farmer by doing the things i mean does that make sense so there you have it these are all the things i would do differently if i was just starting out in 2022. as you can see a lot of these things they really are dealing with the mindset of starting something new rather than the actual practical advice that comes with growing flowers i think that this is proof that being successful is much more of a mindset shift than anything else and if you can overcome a lot of these mental blocks then there's nothing stopping you from enjoying success with your own flower farm now i hope that you found this video helpful if you did i'd love it for you to give it a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button below i just want to say thank you so much for tuning in and as always i can't wait to see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Two Sisters Flower Farm

Views: 61,426

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Id: WVJFdAQ9e4Q

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2022