You should do c s a’s and offer ready to buy bouquets for those who don’t walk around and pick flowers. Not everybody wants to walk around in the heat . You can sell at the farmer’s market in the morning and have hours after that for those who want to pick flowers. Also offer story hour for the little ones all about flowers, bees gardening. Then they can go pick the flowers after story time. Wishing you much success in your business.
I own a nursery up in South Berkshire Massachusetts a small nursery in my yard and it's very hard to make a living when you're competing against all the grocery stores and big box stores and that are selling flowers perennials cut flowers everything and I give you so much credit and admiration for what you're doing. You're very talented and very beautiful along with all your flowers keep up the good work no one understands how hard it is but you will do it good luck to you and your adventure. Best regards, Rick Curiss
Local restaurants and businesses having a weekly/ monthly subscription? 💐 I love and respect what you are doing. I have tried, on my own and I'm not there yet. But you are reinspiring me. ❤
Expanding your hours to afternoons during the week like Tues n Thurs for Moms n Tots would give you a Boon. Many look for afternoon Activities say 12-3. They would love picking flowers, having a snack in the Cottage Garden, then picking up their school aged kids on the way home.
Agree. The weekday things a good idea. School vaca’s, maybe birthday parties and possibly longer weekend hrs beyond 4 hrs a day. She may have tried already.
I just wanted to say I love what you are doing! I have an idea for you. I went through some marketing courses with a previous business and was taught this. Up the value of what they are getting by something to enjoy. You’re cottage garden was a great idea! How about picnic tables? They could bring their lunch and enjoy the farm. A few fruit trees that they can pick from would be awesome! Maybe some natural play equipment for kids like old tires, dirt piles. Think about how pumpkin patches attract people. Also, the more perennial beds you put it the less work you will have to do following year. And mulch is so great for weed suppression and mitigating watering. Have you seen the back to Eden method? Check out Charles downing videos. Wish you all the best!!!
Thank you so much for the ideas, they are awesome!! I have been wanting to put in fruit trees!! I actually had gotten old tires to do that for the kids and never got to it! I will check out those videos!
Great tour of your U-pick farm Claudette! I guess you can't use flower support netting cos the customers would probably get tangled up with their flowers. I hope your season is very successful 🎉
Great info! I like some of the choices you've made to delegate and automate. Totally reasonable. I love how you label the rows. What a pleasant space you've made. Wishing you all the best!
Maybe a food stand at the farm or at least snacks and beverages? Grow veggies to save a bit of money? Rent the space for weddings and events? I didn't know such a business existed. Thanks.
great but you should use your farm for other usages such as studio for taking photo, in this case , your costumers should pay entrance or even you can sell some products which is made by flowers such as soap. Good luck!
I've got to say that I'm going more and more to perennials. I don't even like the zinnias really and almost never choose them for bouquets. The only thing I use cosmos for is foliage. Maybe plant some mints, echinacea/rudbeckia, yarrow, sedums, fancy daisies, lillies, scabiosa, lavender, foliage shrubs. I guess really it comes down to your farm being so far from where you are. I love the wholesale idea and wedding diy! Keep your head up. I feel like your TH-cam will be growing too😊
I thinned out enough chocolate mint pieces to fill a whole row. If you ever want some just pay shipping. I'll need to thin again. Also have a couple of different kinds of mountain mint
Thank you much for the advise! Yes I want to try the mints and that new variety echinacea and rudbeckia when it comes out! Being far stinks bc I could be selling more bouquets for subscriptions but I am limited with time. Hopefully one day we will be closer. Thank you so much, fingers crossed :)
Are you familiar with Charlotte M Smith? She helps farmers get to profit. She has some free resources like a podcast and farm marketing weekends, but also a year long course. Her podcasts are great. When we get a farm I'm totally going to do her course.
Just out of curiosity, why don't you sell at farmer's markets? I just started selling flowers this year at the farmer's market and it's going okay. It is a lot more work though and i see you have your hands full! Beautiful farm 😍!
What do you do for security as you don’t live there? Just thinking of buying land about 30mins away but worry about how you can protect it when not living on site?
The person we lease the land from is always on the property so that is a huge plus! We also have a large gate that is locked so no one can enter. Video cameras as well.
Why don't you start seeds instead of buying plugs? Farm looks beautiful. And while I like Serena and Ian, they spend waaay too much money to have a profitable farm, and it's crazy they're still struggling in year 5. I wouldn't look to them for inspo, there's plenty of other highly profitable, successful farms!
Growing 12,000 seedling was a lot my first year and it was a game changer to order plugs. The extra $800 investment in plugs didnt break the bank and I think it was well worth the time saved. I did still grow around 3000 seedlings which was manageable. Having 3 young kids plus two other jobs besides the farm leaves less time for those things lol Yeah I really believe by year 3 I can be profitable! Thank you :)
Totally understand the other jobs and kids! You said you'll start doing weddings, maybe DIY buckets? Or florist/wholesale. All those lovely flowers that don't get picked would sell easily during the week!
Hello from Southern British Columbia! Im a bout 5 hours or so away from the "You cant eat the grass" folks, in growing zone 5. Were hoping to get a u pick flower farm/ u pick veggie started in the next season ourselves. Glad to find your channel!!
I like to use mostly annuals which are cut and come again. They bloom until the frost. I have tried different flowers and learned what works best for me. If you are just starting out I would grow, zinnias, cosmos, celosia, ageratum
@@hortonsflowerfarm5098 thanks for the info! I’m decent with potted plants/flowers but know that mid scale farming will be drastically different. So I was curious if care was taken into account. I’ll be purchasing in the next year and plan on allowing an area for a small farming flowers and an assortment of other plants. So I’m trying to learn all that I can.
As entertaining as they are to watch, Ian and Serina should not be the model to follow to be a profitable farm. They should already be profitable in year 5 and still aren’t close to it. I enjoy watching them but we don’t follow any of their advice on our farm.
I think a lot of their money went into big investments. I definitely dont need those types of large investments. I spent a lot of money on Facebook ads this year and while they were actually very successful in marketing terms I havent seen the return yet. 800 people gave a name and email for a $10 coupon and commented how excite they were and I have only seen 2 coupons used! Thats a crazy low rate for 2 weeks open. I really feel they key is marketing somehow. I did contact a local news station and they did agree to come to my farm in August! Hopefully that will get the word out.
I love them too, but they're pretty frustrating in some ways. They leave so much money in the field. 😩 If they grew a 20th of what they grow they'd probably be more profitable. They just can't possibly process and sell all those flowers themselves.
@@hortonsflowerfarm5098 We have 3k followers on FB and that is how I drive all the interest to our flower farm. I haven’t spent too much on FB ads tho since I don’t see much return there looking at the metrics. Maybe try building your FB presence organically more between now and next year?
@@ambethk77 We are going to sell close to their amount next year in year 3 of our farm and we grow about 1/2 the amount in our fields. So yeah…things are way off there.
@@Flowersanonwow! I have 85,000 on one app and 2400 on another and I still can’t push anything but I’m in Los Angeles I cannot compete with the dirt cheap LA FLOWER MART PRICES 😢
Location is usually key how close are you to the city that might be well populated and how far do people have to travel The types of advertising you might not be that beneficial promoting your business is a good idea and you can actually let florist in the area now because there might be something that they're looking for that they cannot acquire something that is grown locally so it has a longer life span And I would learn some forestry if you haven't yet things like corsages and boutonnieres and grow the flowers that are predominant used for that I'm not everyone chooses to go their traditional route Like spray roses babies breath Variety of roses as you mentioned for those who want to DIY their wedding flowers or they might have a friend who's very good with arranging flowers who might be assisting them could even be a family member I don't really think wholesale is profitable to be honest with you and I would keep that because you're going to make more money if you're selling direct to the public what you can do is you can personally cut a specific amount of flowers that you take to a farmers market and offer them buckets for sale and if you know how to arrange bouquets you can also do that on the spot when I mentioned promotions you could have an Instagram account where you are constantly offering pictures of the ingredients that you're offering and you can also do a raffle where some lucky person is drawn from a group of submissions It also offer a slight discount for people who come as a group or a party And put those advertisements out to the schools and the administration offices there colleges the high school Like cultural classes might wish to do a field trip And maybe don't know that isn't possible because they're not aware of your existence you could also give classes which is why I mentioned the corsages in the boutonnieres because if you learn how to make them then you'll be able to teach class where you have a group of people who are possibly coming upon prom season and they want to make their own and you can charge a certain amount of money per person they can freshly cut flowers And you can create a package around all of the items that they would need and provide those things this is building community and that's really what you want to do those people are all going to go tell their family and friends and maybe even people they meet along their way might mention need for something of that nature You can also do you can appeal to those who are having their own flower farm by sharing the things that you have learned like you're doing here on your channel which will also eventually be profitable if it isn't already And I also think that that was probably not a good idea but if people can't come to the flower farm or not as much traffic as you would like don't let that stop you Bring the flowers to them Here is a flower farmer in Quebec who is appealing to wedding designers planners and local florist as well as some large grocery chains and I have heard this from other flower farmers I know this information will be extremely helpful to you because it won't spark ideas th-cam.com/video/kHOfVbwSb5Y/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-kjC0I5Z3FZ8oZ3O
You should do c s a’s and offer ready to buy bouquets for those who don’t walk around and pick flowers. Not everybody wants to walk around in the heat . You can sell at the farmer’s market in the morning and have hours after that for those who want to pick flowers. Also offer story hour for the little ones all about flowers, bees gardening. Then they can go pick the flowers after story time. Wishing you much success in your business.
I own a nursery up in South Berkshire Massachusetts a small nursery in my yard and it's very hard to make a living when you're competing against all the grocery stores and big box stores and that are selling flowers perennials cut flowers everything and I give you so much credit and admiration for what you're doing. You're very talented and very beautiful along with all your flowers keep up the good work no one understands how hard it is but you will do it good luck to you and your adventure. Best regards, Rick Curiss
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much, this is my dream but I keep having so much doubt. Your video has inspired me. THANK YOU
You can do it! Start small and you can grow from there!! Even if you only sell a couple bouquets a week!
A perfect place to go with family and friends. Most of all it is perfect to vet to see if your boyfriend is a good match.
Thank you!
Local restaurants and businesses having a weekly/ monthly subscription? 💐 I love and respect what you are doing. I have tried, on my own and I'm not there yet. But you are reinspiring me. ❤
Thank you so much, I am so glad :)
That was a pretty good amount of information, helpful video to an aspiring flower farmer.
Glad it was helpful!
Lovely! I absolutely love your setup and decor. We're about to start a Pick flower farm in PA. Wish us luck!
Thank you so much! Good luck with your new farm!
Expanding your hours to afternoons during the week like Tues n Thurs for Moms n Tots would give you a Boon. Many look for afternoon Activities say 12-3. They would love picking flowers, having a snack in the Cottage Garden, then picking up their school aged kids on the way home.
Agree. The weekday things a good idea. School vaca’s, maybe birthday parties and possibly longer weekend hrs beyond 4 hrs a day. She may have tried already.
I just wanted to say I love what you are doing! I have an idea for you. I went through some marketing courses with a previous business and was taught this. Up the value of what they are getting by something to enjoy. You’re cottage garden was a great idea! How about picnic tables? They could bring their lunch and enjoy the farm. A few fruit trees that they can pick from would be awesome! Maybe some natural play equipment for kids like old tires, dirt piles. Think about how pumpkin patches attract people. Also, the more perennial beds you put it the less work you will have to do following year. And mulch is so great for weed suppression and mitigating watering. Have you seen the back to Eden method? Check out Charles downing videos. Wish you all the best!!!
Thank you so much for the ideas, they are awesome!! I have been wanting to put in fruit trees!! I actually had gotten old tires to do that for the kids and never got to it! I will check out those videos!
Great tour of your U-pick farm Claudette! I guess you can't use flower support netting cos the customers would probably get tangled up with their flowers. I hope your season is very successful 🎉
Yes you are correct! I didnt have any issues last year so I am hoping to is fine this year too. Thank you so much :)
Great info! I like some of the choices you've made to delegate and automate. Totally reasonable. I love how you label the rows. What a pleasant space you've made. Wishing you all the best!
Thanks so much!
Good job
Thank you
Love your name. It's also my mom's name. Beautiful farm. 🌻
Thank you :)
Maybe a food stand at the farm or at least snacks and beverages? Grow veggies to save a bit of money? Rent the space for weddings and events? I didn't know such a business existed. Thanks.
Great idea!
great but you should use your farm for other usages such as studio for taking photo, in this case , your costumers should pay entrance or even you can sell some products which is made by flowers such as soap. Good luck!
Great idea
I've got to say that I'm going more and more to perennials. I don't even like the zinnias really and almost never choose them for bouquets. The only thing I use cosmos for is foliage. Maybe plant some mints, echinacea/rudbeckia, yarrow, sedums, fancy daisies, lillies, scabiosa, lavender, foliage shrubs. I guess really it comes down to your farm being so far from where you are. I love the wholesale idea and wedding diy! Keep your head up. I feel like your TH-cam will be growing too😊
I thinned out enough chocolate mint pieces to fill a whole row. If you ever want some just pay shipping. I'll need to thin again. Also have a couple of different kinds of mountain mint
Thank you much for the advise! Yes I want to try the mints and that new variety echinacea and rudbeckia when it comes out! Being far stinks bc I could be selling more bouquets for subscriptions but I am limited with time. Hopefully one day we will be closer. Thank you so much, fingers crossed :)
Are you familiar with Charlotte M Smith? She helps farmers get to profit. She has some free resources like a podcast and farm marketing weekends, but also a year long course. Her podcasts are great. When we get a farm I'm totally going to do her course.
I havent heard of her but I will definitely check her out! Thank you so much :)
Just out of curiosity, why don't you sell at farmer's markets? I just started selling flowers this year at the farmer's market and it's going okay. It is a lot more work though and i see you have your hands full! Beautiful farm 😍!
Yeah it is a good idea, I just don't have the extra time to go to farmers markets.
i would make u pick for florists... smth like from 5 to 9 am twice per week
That's a really cool idea!
What do you do for security as you don’t live there? Just thinking of buying land about 30mins away but worry about how you can protect it when not living on site?
The person we lease the land from is always on the property so that is a huge plus! We also have a large gate that is locked so no one can enter. Video cameras as well.
@@hortonsflowerfarm5098 ah, that’s lucky. I think I’m going to have to get my own.
Nice place. I’d like to see your drip setup! I’m installing mine using IBC totes. Also, did you cover crop between your beds or is is grass?
Thank you! It is just grass between the rows. The first years we put down seed to make it nice and full.
Hi, Claudette. LOVE your flowers and the setup! What size Mason jars are you offering? Is the large quart size? Thanks!
Thank you! I offer the 16oz for kids and the 32oz for adults
Why don't you start seeds instead of buying plugs? Farm looks beautiful. And while I like Serena and Ian, they spend waaay too much money to have a profitable farm, and it's crazy they're still struggling in year 5. I wouldn't look to them for inspo, there's plenty of other highly profitable, successful farms!
I completely agree! Our flower farm is profitable in year 2 and our farm YT channel is showing how we got there
Growing 12,000 seedling was a lot my first year and it was a game changer to order plugs. The extra $800 investment in plugs didnt break the bank and I think it was well worth the time saved. I did still grow around 3000 seedlings which was manageable. Having 3 young kids plus two other jobs besides the farm leaves less time for those things lol Yeah I really believe by year 3 I can be profitable! Thank you :)
Totally understand the other jobs and kids! You said you'll start doing weddings, maybe DIY buckets? Or florist/wholesale. All those lovely flowers that don't get picked would sell easily during the week!
@@FlowersanonWhat is your farms channel?
@@ambethk77 Coram Deo Flower Farm
Hello from Southern British Columbia! Im a bout 5 hours or so away from the "You cant eat the grass" folks, in growing zone 5. Were hoping to get a u pick flower farm/ u pick veggie started in the next season ourselves. Glad to find your channel!!
Thats wonderful! Good luck :)
How did you decide what to plant?
I like to use mostly annuals which are cut and come again. They bloom until the frost. I have tried different flowers and learned what works best for me. If you are just starting out I would grow, zinnias, cosmos, celosia, ageratum
@@hortonsflowerfarm5098 thanks for the info! I’m decent with potted plants/flowers but know that mid scale farming will be drastically different. So I was curious if care was taken into account. I’ll be purchasing in the next year and plan on allowing an area for a small farming flowers and an assortment of other plants. So I’m trying to learn all that I can.
As entertaining as they are to watch, Ian and Serina should not be the model to follow to be a profitable farm. They should already be profitable in year 5 and still aren’t close to it. I enjoy watching them but we don’t follow any of their advice on our farm.
I think a lot of their money went into big investments. I definitely dont need those types of large investments. I spent a lot of money on Facebook ads this year and while they were actually very successful in marketing terms I havent seen the return yet. 800 people gave a name and email for a $10 coupon and commented how excite they were and I have only seen 2 coupons used! Thats a crazy low rate for 2 weeks open. I really feel they key is marketing somehow. I did contact a local news station and they did agree to come to my farm in August! Hopefully that will get the word out.
I love them too, but they're pretty frustrating in some ways. They leave so much money in the field. 😩 If they grew a 20th of what they grow they'd probably be more profitable. They just can't possibly process and sell all those flowers themselves.
@@hortonsflowerfarm5098 We have 3k followers on FB and that is how I drive all the interest to our flower farm. I haven’t spent too much on FB ads tho since I don’t see much return there looking at the metrics. Maybe try building your FB presence organically more between now and next year?
@@ambethk77 We are going to sell close to their amount next year in year 3 of our farm and we grow about 1/2 the amount in our fields. So yeah…things are way off there.
@@Flowersanonwow! I have 85,000 on one app and 2400 on another and I still can’t push anything but I’m in Los Angeles I cannot compete with the dirt cheap LA FLOWER MART PRICES 😢
Why not advertise to hen parties (i think you call them bachelorette parties in USA) as a daytime activity?
Location is usually key how close are you to the city that might be well populated and how far do people have to travel
The types of advertising you might not be that beneficial promoting your business is a good idea and you can actually let florist in the area now because there might be something that they're looking for that they cannot acquire something that is grown locally so it has a longer life span
And I would learn some forestry if you haven't yet things like corsages and boutonnieres and grow the flowers that are predominant used for that I'm not everyone chooses to go their traditional route
Like spray roses babies breath
Variety of roses as you mentioned for those who want to DIY their wedding flowers or they might have a friend who's very good with arranging flowers who might be assisting them could even be a family member
I don't really think wholesale is profitable to be honest with you and I would keep that because you're going to make more money if you're selling direct to the public what you can do is you can personally cut a specific amount of flowers that you take to a farmers market and offer them buckets for sale and if you know how to arrange bouquets you can also do that on the spot
when I mentioned promotions you could have an Instagram account where you are constantly offering pictures of the ingredients that you're offering and you can also do a raffle where some lucky person is drawn from a group of submissions
It also offer a slight discount for people who come as a group or a party
And put those advertisements out to the schools and the administration offices there colleges the high school
Like cultural classes might wish to do a field trip
And maybe don't know that isn't possible because they're not aware of your existence
you could also give classes which is why I mentioned the corsages in the boutonnieres because if you learn how to make them then you'll be able to teach class where you have a group of people who are possibly coming upon prom season and they want to make their own and you can charge a certain amount of money per person they can freshly cut flowers
And you can create a package around all of the items that they would need and provide those things this is building community and that's really what you want to do those people are all going to go tell their family and friends and maybe even people they meet along their way might mention need for something of that nature
You can also do you can appeal to those who are having their own flower farm by sharing the things that you have learned like you're doing here on your channel which will also eventually be profitable if it isn't already
And I also think that that was probably not a good idea but if people can't come to the flower farm or not as much traffic as you would like don't let that stop you
Bring the flowers to them
Here is a flower farmer in Quebec who is appealing to wedding designers planners and local florist as well as some large grocery chains and I have heard this from other flower farmers I know this information will be extremely helpful to you because it won't spark ideas
th-cam.com/video/kHOfVbwSb5Y/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-kjC0I5Z3FZ8oZ3O