Aug. 31—ROCHESTER — Carol Nelson finds her happy place in a 70-by-30-foot bed of flowers. She loves their smell and giving bouquets peppered with herbs to people she loves.
Nelson has been growing and selling flowers for four years at her home in Pine Island, but this year her business, The Little Flower, has “exploded” as more and more people look to buy flowers in their own (metaphorical) backyard.
“It’s a more personal touch,” Nelson said. “It’s not a mass production kind of thing. Every flower is looked at almost every day and they’re handled with a lot of care.”
Domestic flower farms are on the rise in Southeast Minnesota and the United States. In 2017, there were 22 total floriculture farms across Olmsted, Goodhue and Wabasha counties. As of 2022, there are 36, including 10 in Olmsted County, seven in Goodhue County and 19 in Wabasha County.
Across the country, growers reported more than 158 million square feet of protected-culture flower and green production in 2022. That’s the equivalent of more than 2,700 football fields, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But why has there been an increase in the number of flower farms in recent years?
“Sustainability is at the heart of all these little flower farms popping up,” said Deb Majerus, owner of the Iron Butterfly Farm in Rochester.
The so-called Slow Flowers Movement follows the Slow Food model, which encourages locally grown food products with a focus on sustainable practices.
The flower industry isn’t that different from the vegetable industry, Majerus noted. There’s a huge variety of vegetables, but when you go to a big box store there’s a small amount to choose from because big growers — often located outside of the United States — are planting in volume based on what ships best.
“And with flowers too, there’s a lot of things that local flower farmers can grow that florists or people can’t get from Colombia or wherever because they don’t ship well,” Majerus said.
With about 80% of cut flowers imported into the U.S., Majerus said farmers have a “big niche” to fill. In 2022, the U.S. imported $3.3 billion in cut flowers, plants and nursery stock, with Colombia, Canada, Ecuador and European Union countries producing the highest amounts.
Local flower farmers said there are enough opportunities for different business models, from making bouquets to hosting you-pick events, selling flowers to florists, offering DIY wedding buckets and selling at farmers markets.
While near the end of this year’s growing season, flower farmers said one of their strengths is specialty flowers. The flowers change throughout the season, whether ranunculus in June, celosia in July, solidago moonlight glory in August or blue sage in September.
Nelson’s dark-centered, light-centered, green and yellow sunflowers are a constant joy for her. She said some of the flower farmer basics are zinnias, cosmos and celosia.
“Every year it seems like people are understanding that … there are different kinds of flowers than what you can get in a typical florist shop and why they’re good and why they’re unique,” Nelson said.
While surrounded by beauty, flower farmers aren’t frolicking through fields of flowers. They’re digging, weeding, planting, watering and cutting to see how the flowers will blossom.
At the start of Iron Butterfly’s flower farming story, one thing was clear: “We didn’t set out to have a flower farm.” She and her husband Joel MacDonald found the 6-acre property just outside downtown Rochester after Majerus’ home was destroyed by fire. They planted new life around them while building on Majerus’ longtime interest in gardening, native plants and permaculture.
During “flower time,” as MacDonald said, they’re stopping to observe both for the well-being of the farm and themselves. Time in the garden is good for the soul, Majerus said. She added farming is about working the land, observing and developing practices that fit for your farm, such as a grapevine for beetles to eat instead of the dahlias.
“Part of gardening, I think in general whether it’s flowers or food, is like the novelty is fun for gardeners. There’s so many things I’ve never grown before and I had this big sunny place I could grow things now. I just started growing all kinds of things to learn about them and try to figure out what would fit with our lifestyle,” Majerus said. Their 1-acre field includes fruit trees and flowers, from apples and peaches to sunflowers, morning glory, mock orange and peonies.
Majerus enjoys selling weekly community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription bouquets early in the spring when people are particularly excited to see new signs of life. People are surprised by the variety of flowers, such as peach and pink-colored daffodils and tulips that look like peonies.
Nelson and her daughter, Annabelle, originally sold bouquets at the Zumbrota Farmers Market and then opened CSA subscriptions and their weekly farmstand. The CSAs, mostly purchased as gifts for moms, are delivered twice a week to areas 30 miles around Pine Island. People can purchase a full CSA for 10 weeks of bouquets, or a half CSA for six weeks in the summer. They have about 30 CSA customers.
With buckets of flowers dotting their front porch, Annabelle Nelson searches for the color combinations that will help brighten people’s day at church. Carol Nelson said delivering flowers to people in the community who are ill or grieving has become a ministry.
They hope too to share about the Carmelite nun Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who is honored with their business name. The Catholic saint compared flowers to people’s relationship with God, Nelson said.
“I feel like I’m a part of creation because I’m growing all these things that are so beautiful that God made but I’m able to grow them and keep them going and keep them alive. I think all small growers can do that, we can grow things that larger growers can’t and we can keep heirloom and specialty varieties alive,” Nelson said.
People can email Nelson at [email protected] or call 763-321-5016 about bouquets, flower arrangements and events for the remainder of this season.
Farms in the area, such as Berry and Bloom and Bleed Heart Floral Farm and Design, also offer events including yoga, painting, photography sessions and picnics. While people’s excitement about seeing the farm opened Iron Butterfly to the public, flower farmers too face questions like what will bring people to the farm? Will people purchase these flowers?
“It’s a healing space and so I think by letting people start to come on the farm it might be turning into more of a healing space for other people too,” Majerus said.
After starting her Plainview flower farm Fischer Hill Flowers in last year’s drought, Sue Shea is happy to water less than three hours a day. She walks her you-pick rows with scissors in hand, deadheading flowers along the way.
“I look at seed catalogs like I used to look at going to the GAP (for shoes),” Shea said with a laugh.
The ribboned lines of celosia, or “brains” as Shea calls them, are just one of the varieties she introduces people to. Whether billy balls or strawflowers, Shea said “if it’s non-traditional they want to see it.” She said the varieties of flowers will always be an experiment, including facing the weather.
“My main crop is zinnias and anything that keeps blooming is what I’m looking for. I like the color,” Shea said. On their family’s generational farm, their traditional crops are corn, beans, rye and wheat. “I like cut and come again stuff, the weird stuff too. I love finding something no one’s seen before, like that’s my kind of jam.”
As more people choose sustainably grown flowers, Majerus hopes to expand the offerings of native cut flowers. The native options, such as prairie smoke and obedient plant, require less water. Shea noted her current experiment is a no-till area with a meadow.
“There’s a little bit of a void in the flower farming community about what kind of native flowers do well as cut flowers. Like if you cut them, how long are they going to last in a vase? Can you transport them well? What stage do you cut them at?” Majerus said.
Iron Butterfly will eventually have 10,000 cut flower peonies for florists, wholesalers and the public. For a seasonal variety bouquet, people can email Majerus at [email protected] or call 507-202-0925.
With people coming to Fischer Hills for you-pick flowers, the varieties need “tall, texture, color, just all the elements of a fun bouquet,” Shea said. She invites people to relax from their daily lives, bring a picnic, meet the donkeys and enjoy the flower-picking experience.
In the fun environment, Shea said people don’t need to have bouquet-making experience to leave with beautiful bunches. The farm at 11098 Fischer Hill Drive in Plainview is open through the end of September from 4 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays and from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Saturdays. An end-of-season Bloom Bash is also on Sept. 13.
“They sat at that table and all four of them were picking bouquets and laughing,” Shea said of a group who visited the farm, “and to see these group of women, there was lots of different ages, they were just smiling the entire time. Like who doesn’t love going and picking flowers?”
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66d355d80bac4cc2bb66a7d51af14876&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Flifestyle%2Fsoutheast-minnesota-business-blooming-flower-171800587.html&c=17023162040989936728&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-31 06:18:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
