What do you do in the winter?

One of the things I always am asked when people learn that I'm a flower farmer is “What do you do in the winter?”

Mostly, I am all mom during the winter. John works a lot - he's gone 5 or 6 days a week from 6am - 6pm. So I do all the juggling that having three little kids entails. Sometimes it's exhausting. More often it's the best job and greatest privilege. (Usually both!) I do tons of baking and always attempt knitting projects that I hope to finish before spring (fingers crossed, ha!)

Aside from mom-ing, there is always so much to do for the flower farm, even in winter. I try to squeeze in work time whenever I can - usually quiet times or on the weekends when John is home. Here's what some of the big winter projects are on our little flower farm: 

Ordering Seeds:

It's a big one! I am feeling really relieved this year, because I've learned what works and what doesn't from the past three years. We are simplifying things and I couldn't be more relieved. We use a few different seed companies, but our favorite is Johnny's! 

Field Planning:

In order to purchase seeds, I also need to plan out the field and decide what plants will go where. We need to calculate how many plants can fit in each bed or partial bed, how many successions we need and what colors we want depending upon the variety and season. For example, I generally don't want bright reds in early spring or super light pinks in late summer. I like lighter toned sunflowers for earlier in the season and classic bright yellow varieties for the bulk of summer. 

Seed Starting Calendar: 

I then take all the flower varieties we plan to grow, consider their specific growing requirements, when we want/ need them to bloom and decide when we will start each variety and color. I fill in the weeks on a huge calendar which we hang it up next to our kitchen (it's lovely decor, really…) This is our map for the season and we refer to it weekly until July (when most of our seeding for the season is complete) 

Professional Growth:

I read books, take classes set goals, learn quickbooks/ accounting, review articles and try to generally better myself as a cut flower grower and business owner. I am starting a business-related class next week that I am super excited about! 

Nuts and Bolts: 

Website work, making flower sleeves, claiming our business on google, quickbooks maintenance, looking into new CSA pick up locations, shifting from a sole proprietorship to an LLC, etc.. a little of this, a little of that … 

 Dream and Plan: 

What worked well last year? What didn't work well? What do we want to cut and what do we want to try? What do we want to spend more energy doing? What are our goals for 2024? What new things are we going to try? What fits for us, and what doesn't? 

Soon … 

We will be waking up our first flowers and planting our first seeds!