AdAgrA Conference 2025: Growing Better

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Flowers

Ed O’Connor

Starting Out with Flower Farming

So I'll do the best I can, but like I said, if you got specifics, you really need to know nuts and bolts, we'll go there.

So our story, why are we, why are we doing flower farming?

Okay, so I'll try to talk loud for just a second.

Anyway, our story, so started probably about 2020, so during the height of COVID.

We've gardened a lot over the years and my wife is an avid gardener.

She's happiest when she's out working in the dirt.

And we had a lot of just like vegetables and stuff was kind of her forte.

Then 1 day my daughters wanted to plant some seeds and they're like, Mom, can we plant some flowers, whatever, can it make things pretty?

You know, because they just couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do much.

So she decided, sure I'll give you guys this little segment of the garden over here you can plant stuff in.

So they planted a bunch of flower seeds and those flower seeds came up and we had a lot of zinnias and stuff that came up at the time.

We shared a few with some of our neighbors and stuff during that time.

But the next year after that, all those zinnias had dropped seeds.

And so, in fact, they were so prolific because their garden was really rich, they started kind of taking over her garden.

And so it got to the point where she had to start basically weeding out the zinnias and she was complaining to Vivian like, I got all these all these flowers in my garden, I'm trying to get rid of them so I can actually test 1 2 so I can actually get rid of them so I can make room for to plant my beans and stuff like that well anyway she got rid of some of them and the rest of them Vivian's like why don't you start try to sell some of them.

So lo and behold Kelly decided she started getting some, I'll just hold it, so lo and behold, there we go, can you hear me, is that better?

Okay, so lo and behold she went to a couple florists, took some zinnias and they loved them.

They love zinnias because again, it's a lot of times they have to buy, a lot of the flowers are shipped from South America, different places and so they don't really get the best quality flowers.

So when you bring fresh cut flowers, she would cut them that morning And then she would take them and basically go to the florist.

And so the first year that she started selling flowers, this was, I think, year 3 or 4 for us, She made about $1, 000.

And we kind of joked and said, it was a gift from God because we didn't plant those eniums.

The next year, she started, well, maybe we can do this.

I said, hey, we're going to become flower farmers.

Because someday, as I look at transitioning from flight nursing actually we want to start a flower farm together and we have some property in Alabama we're working towards that on a much larger scale but right now we just we have what we have at our home.

And so she started doing a lot more research and doing a lot of different things and over time she's you know done really well and so this last year I think went from a thousand to 5000 dollars and like 10000 dollars this last year.

So and again there is a market there but we'll go into that a little bit later on but that's kind of why we got started into this.

So when you're looking at starting a flower farm or flower farming There's a lot of initial planning you got to do ahead of time.

We kind of got into it willy-nilly, but as we got into it, there's a lot of things like, oh, we should have done this, we should have done that.

So we kind of learned over time what things that we needed to do.

First thing was, you know, planning your crop year.

What are you going to plant in the ground?

What type of flowers are you wanting to grow?

So the time you spend, can you kind of take a step backward to gain 2 forward?

So if you spend a lot of time researching and stuff, figure out what for your zone, you know, if you some of you live farther north, you might not be able to grow the flowers that we can we grow, at least in a certain time.

So you know that may have to change for you.

You need to understand, you know, daily chores, tasks, what things you need to accomplish, you know, but if you set up goals and stuff, what do you need to do to accomplish these goals?

So a lot of pre-planning, a lot of research and stuff is going to help you in the long run.

Okay, so your market strategy when you think about planning, go ahead.

I have a soft voice anyway, so it's kind of a I'll try to do better.

Okay so market strategy again what things do you need to do to figure out your market?

Really you need to decide what if you want to become a flower farmer what type of flower farmer do you want to be?

And I'll tell you, for us, historically, that's what we've done, is that just marketed to local florists, and it's been really a good deal.

You make really good relationships with them, it's a good sharing time too.

So again, you think of trying to share your faith, that your way to share your faith with others.

You want to become a wedding and event florist and grow specific flowers to support weddings.

You want to go to farmers markets, now grocery stores possibly if you have a local grocery store you could contact and say hey we've got local grown flowers Would you be interested in selling them in your store?

And doing a farm stand, selling flowers there.

Do you want to make bouquets and sell bouquets?

I will tell you, typically, you're going to make more money probably selling bouquets at maybe a flower stand or if you're dealing with like wedding event florist or farmer's markets.

But it comes at a cost, a cost of your time.

So if you're gonna spend a lot of time and energy growing stuff and trying to get your flowers and picking them and stuff, now you got to spend another you know 4568 hours at a stand somewhere so you can actually try to you know sell them at that point.

Again it's a time commitment so decide you know what what are you willing to do What are you willing to give up on your time?

Do you want to do this full time throughout the year?

Do you want to do it just like initially we started just mainly the summertime?

All those zinnias came up, and it's like, hey, it worked for us.

But then it's like, hey, can we get a winter crop in too because we would sell our last crop to the florist around October time frame around the time of the first freeze and you know they're like well I guess I'll see you again this spring or you know almost early summer or you know again if you want to expand that you know think about the type of flowers that you want to grow at that time.

Do a lot of research ahead of time to figure out, you know, A, what you want to grow, how you're going to grow it, where you're going to get it from.

These are just some of the things that she's actually used over the years.

She's got floret, really good information.

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a pretty popular flower farmer.

She's got a lot of research material up here.

These are really good, good resources that Kelly's used.

Sometimes they're a little pricey for their prices.

The Gardener's Workshop, Florette, YouTube channels.

I will tell you, there's 1, the Gardener's Workshop's good, but Regenerative Gardening with Blossom and Branch Farms, that's a really good website.

There's a lady, she's out of Colorado, her name's Bree.

But I like when, a lot of times Kelly's watching a video or something like that and I'll go there and I'll just kind of listen to the background or watch it.

Exploring, Growing, and Marketing Flowers on a Small Plot

For those of you who weren't here in the first meeting, as we just got done, I'll introduce myself.

Unfortunately, she would have loved to have been here.

So some of you that were here in the first 1, you know, like I said, my caveat is that I'll try to go through this the best I can.

I'm doing my best to try to cover stuff that she had prepared and presented.

So our goal is to, we wanted to create a flower farm, basically, that we could hopefully eventually, I work as a flight nurse, so eventually we're going to be able to work you know full-time together So that's kind of a kind of our goal.

We're working towards that so Anyway if you have specific questions, or if I speak something out of turn just bear with me like I said I'll do the best I can The first talk was kind of over the business aspect of flower farming a little bit.

This kind of gets more into some of the blooms and the flowers and stuff like that.

Like I said, she's really, I say she's the brains.

I do a lot of the digging and whatever stuff she needs.

She kind of does a lot of the research and covers how she uses plant flowers and stuff like that.

So with that in mind, if you've got questions let me know as we're going through this.

I guess I need to repeat those questions, so try to make sure we get them on audio verse or whatever.

But anyway, without further ado, I'll go ahead and get started.

This is kind of exploring flowers on a small plot.

So when you're looking at growing flowers, you need to kind of think about what type of flowers you want to grow.

There's, if you're making bouquets, there's something called focal flowers, which is like a main flower that, you know, in your bouquet that's going to really stand out.

Usually they're a little bigger than your average flower, so they're really, like a dahlia, dahlia, I was trying to think, other, lilies, stuff like that, that really are gonna jump out.

And then you have other filler stuff that goes around them.

They're also gonna bring the higher prices, so sometimes they may cost a little more to invest in to try to get your focal flowers.

If you have blooms, it depends if they require corms, if they require bulbs, stuff like that.

Support flowers, they're medium to large.

They don't take the center stage in a bouquet, but really they kind of help add to the color and the stuff in the bouquet.

And they're very important to provide balance in your bouquets.

When you're, we didn't mention this I guess in the first talk, but if you're interested in flower farming, 1 of the things to have as well is that flowers are great, but you need filler to actually help make your bouquets.

So don't negate trying to have some kind of fillers that you can take if you're going to sell into a florist or if you're making bouquets, you want some type of fillers to add to your bouquet.

But just try to think about, you know, small flowers, you know, greenery, stuff like that are gonna help make your bouquet as well.

And I mentioned the first talk, this is really kind of the mainstay of our flower farming business.

Zinnias, I mean, they're really easy to grow and they have very large prolific blooms.

I mean, there's a giant variety and so you can have bigger ones or Kelly's used ones called, they're called a queen series, like queen limes, they're kind of smaller, little petite, little zinnias.

Florists like those, they come in different colors, varieties, but then you get the really big, showy blooms that they like, because florists can use these, and when they're making bouquets and stuff, they can substitute some of the flowers with the zinnias and stuff.

Varieties for focal flowers, support, filler.

When you're growing these, you can either direct seed them or you can start them indoors.

We've started some indoors typically because if you want to get them to bloom a little earlier, you need to have a little bit more of an advanced plant by the time you plant them out after the frost and stuff.

So, because typically if we, when we started doing zinnias initially, they just kind of started growing.

My daughter's planting some and then they reseeded themselves.

But it wasn't until probably mid to late June that we really had a thriving crop And it's kind of when we first started was around the beginning of July 1 year Zinnias also it says pinch cut deeply for the first harvest So they're going to keep growing and producing And 1 good thing about zinnias is that they're very forgiving typically You know, you may, you want to cut them back some so they will start branching and stuff like that and It's really hard as a you know flower farmer, whatever It's like you just don't want to cut too deep you know but you have to because if you don't You're not going to get the the production off of them, and they're going to continue to grow and they're going to you know spread and stuff like it over time, but definitely Pinch or cut for your first harvest and then be patient because they're going to grow back.

They'll be stronger They're going to put more blooms on and stuff like that And she's got no lighter shade blooms are more prone to insect damage.

I'm not sure why maybe something she read or whatever but In the way way you harvest the news You're going to harvest when the stems are stiff and we do it via, there's a, we call it a wiggle test.

So you get your stem in, kind of shake it, and if your flower starts doing this, it's not quite ready.

If, and if you do it, like I said, in the flower, you know, kind of it's, you'll know basically but there's been times I'm like oh that's you know when we go to pick that's pretty close I think that one's okay and lo and behold when we go to bunch them and stuff we go to sell them some of those the stems aren't quite hard enough and they'll bend over but I will tell you sometimes that some of the florists even if there's a bent stem, like I said we'll typically bunch them in groups of 10 and usually we'll put a couple extra in there just for reasons like that But the florists actually, they can put like a little, they put something inside of them so even if they have a wire, yeah, they'll kind of wire, put a little wire stem or something like that with them as well to kind of, to make up for that.

But anyway, we always try to give them a little bit extra just to make sure that you know, it can, you know, they can use it basically.

It's kind of a, I think there's another name I've heard for it, kind of a feathery, what's that?

Cock's comb, cock's comb, that's what I was thinking of.

3 main varieties, You get kind of the weed kind, which is on your left, then you get the, can't remember what the other 1 is, I'll go with it.

The 1 on the right is the, they call it the brain method.

So you can grow them as a single stem or branching kind.

We've had celosia that's got like this tall before.

And I mean, what'll happen, they just, these blooms, when you go pick them, they're gonna branch, the branching kind, they'll just keep branching out the sides and those are ones you can clip off.

So if 1 celosia plant, sometimes the stems can be a couple inch, inch or so in diameter, maybe even a little bit bigger at the base.

They're just gonna keep growing up and they'll keep branching off.

Normally we do 2 pickings a week, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Those will actually, you know, You can pick a few on Tuesday and then you have a few more on Thursday that will be ready as well And then they have the weekend to recover so you get another pretty good picking on the following Tuesday These you want to start indoors For transplant Succession plant every 2 weeks for single cuts and once a month for branching varieties And the reason again succession planning and it basically means you know every couple weeks You know you're gonna start a new batch of these things and you're gonna plant them out, so they're in different different Yeah, different heights basically do you know in Readiness basically to be picked basically so once you pick 1 in the next couple weeks later you've got another flush on the single kinds to actually pick.

Use a humidity dome for better germination.

Someone asked about humidity earlier a little bit.

I don't have 1 here, but out on the Adagro table, There's a raffling off a set of these Kind of a set of these are a little bit bigger than these actually but they've got the humidity dome that you can actually put Over it as well And in pinch your van your branching varieties again If you pinch them early and by pinching you're kind of cutting off the top of it when it's smaller.

So you're gonna force it to start branching lower.

Mint is another filler, it's kind of a filler that we use.

And we had, I mean, just a flower bed that we had some mint growing in, and then we started to take it to our florist and they loved it.

Some of their patrons actually, you know, don't want scent on their flowers.

So Different kinds of mint you can add to your bouquets I'm trying to remember the different kinds that we've had but we've had different kinds of mint that we've grown But it's really nice, like I said It's very prolific and it's a great filler and the clip, it just keeps coming back Dealing with mint, it will take over an area if you leave it by itself.

Otherwise it's going to take over some areas.

Okay, it's a vigorous grower, you know, planting contained areas, harvests when the base of the stems are becoming somewhat woody, and when blooms are formed.

You'll see little flowers, little flowery blooms on them.

Those are good, the florists like those because it's something they can put in their bouquets and it'll add a little bit extra.

They are prone to wilting, so when we harvest these normally in the mornings, you immediately, bless you, you immediately wanna get it put in water and keep it out of the sun because they will wilt.

In that early, the first talk we had a little bit earlier, we used something called Quick Dip.

You can dip the stems in quick dip and usually it'll help them perk up a little bit You dip them in quick dip.

It's like an kind of like an alcohol based solution Dip it real quick and then put it back in in water We mentioned earlier that we want to you can put these in hot water too.

And it seems counterintuitive, but it actually helps with the absorption of water.

So it'll help your mint if it does get wilty to kind of perk back up a little bit.

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Flowers

Starting Out with Flower Farming

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Starting Out with Flower Farming

1h

Exploring, Growing, and Marketing Flowers on a Small Plot

1h

Sound Doctrine