March of 2018 began with a simple plan: buy some seeds, trays, and dirt. Grow some easy flowers. Cut some flowers. Sell a few flowers. Sounds easy enough, right?

But where? At the time we were living in a densely populated neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was high rent and high brow with neighboring homes within an arm’s length of each other. Lawns were generally the size of a postage stamp.

My mother lived about 20 minutes away on an acre of land that hadn’t seen compost… well maybe ever. She agreed to let us plant whatever we wanted. It was free and reasonably close to our rental so what the hell, we went for it.

We rented a sod cutter and removed the grass from two plots roughly 20x40 feet. We started seeds in an unused shed in the back yard, hooked up lights, and every day after a full day of work, we would get in the car and drive to my Mom’s property to check on our plant babies and water them. We had no idea what we were doing. We followed some Floret advice, read the back of seed packets we purchased on Amazon, and were reasonably shocked that anything germinated. When we saw the first signs of life in those zinnia trays, we practically jumped up and down.

The first season was a blur of learning, failing, and connecting. We immersed ourselves in learning about growing cut flowers. We watched the Floret modules, we read books, joined the ASCFG (Association of Cut Flower Growers), researched other cut flower farms in our area, and then contacted them. We volunteered on their farms so we could ask questions and do some hands-on learning. We loved the time outside, learning a new skill set, and creating a project together. Each new opening flower bud was celebrated. It was clear by early summer, just a few months into this “project” that a new way of life was developing. We began discussing what our life might look like if we created a business and tried to flower farm full time. How in the world would we do it? Could we ever make enough money to pay the mortgage? We’d have to buy land, how could we move when the kids’ school placements couldn’t be disrupted? It felt like the obstacles were insurmountable.

We really needed change. We were starving for more meaningful work than our full-time jobs could ever offer us. No matter how hard flower farming was (and believe me, it is REALLY hard), no matter how many bug bites, sunburns, sweaty outfits, backaches, shoulder, and neck aches, we never wanted to quit. It would have been easy to give up. The obstacles only made us more determined. We became mildly obsessed with creating a life around flower farming and we remain just as attached and in love with this way of life as we were when we started. We never expected to love it so much and we really didn’t expect to meet so many kind and generous people along the way. There are many “takeaways” from our first growing season but I think the most surprising was the people, not the flowers. Flower people are just amazing people. We found a new tribe of friends and colleagues and that has changed our lives.

Next week on the blog…

Building a new tribe