Halfway! But Can We Make It?!?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- We are halfway through the farm season, and this year has both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, sales have been better than we hoped, and within reach of our long term sales goals for the farm. These strong sales show us that there is a viable business and a future for our farm, and it seems like streamlining the business model to focus on flower sales was the right move for us. On the negative side, we are falling behind on all of our infrastructure projects, and farm expansion. Our summers are short here in Canada, and if we are going to get some of this stuff done then we need to make time for it. So this week, that's what we are going to do, we are working extra hard to make time to do the farmers market with a full selection of flowers, and we are going to find the time to work on some of our projects.
__________
Ian and Serina of YOU CANT EAT THE GRASS feel that every small change can make a big difference to the world we live in. Every garden planted leads to a better future. We hope to inspire and motivate others to make positive changes in their lives by sharing our journey towards greater sustainability as we build our family farm. It's hard work to build a life worth living, and completely worth it!
Contact us at: iancolbeck@gmail.com
__________
SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram | / you.cant.eat.the.grass
Facebook | / you.cant.eat.the.grass
Website | www.youcanteatt...
__________
SUPPORT US
Check out our Merch
you-cant-eat-t...
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @youcanteatthegrass
Amazon Wishlist
www.amazon.ca/...
Paypal
www.paypal.com...
__________
OUR AFFILIATES (we get a % of sales when you use our links)
West Coast Seeds - a great Canadian seed source!
bit.ly/3u0ydFe
Growing For Market Magazine - 25% off any new subscriptions with this link
growingformark...
Our Amazon Favorites:
Affordable LED Grow Lights
amzn.to/3fZFAo8
Heavy Duty Storage Shelf
amzn.to/3H1U42F
Our Camera
amzn.to/3qZrl99
Our Mic
amzn.to/3u4kCNc
Wish some of us lived close by so we could have a WORK WEEKEND helping put up the greenhouse an shelter..you bring so much joy to us in your videos 👏👏
Exactly. Some other homesteaders/gardeners I follow live near each other and often times help each other out with some big projects. Maybe they should put out an SOS for volunteers. I bet lots of folks would be willing to volunteer.
The kids running from bedtime/ while I run towards it, love it. :)
"Why dont you get a job like your brother john, sorry dear please come back"🤣 totaly cracked me up!
I still say that this year's bouquets are the BEST you've ever made! The quality, variety, and bouquet design of your flowers has suddenly exploded. Loving that you are getting to grow as a floral designer due to the lack of sunflowers this year. I think your gorgeous Rudbeckia is a welcome site for anyone burned out on sunflowers in bouquets at this point. I personally like them over sunflowers!
We are celebrating your success right with you! I can go on with a hour long video of this kind, where your snap dragons steal my heart and soul! You have made science out of an art of making bouquets ♥️♥️ the color palates are heart warming .. the pink and white, the coral and orange .. the blue purple yellow… like an ocean of colors .. you two did it!!! I will say again flowers can feed a family and thrive beautifully ♥️♥️♥️
I could watch it too for a hour
‘Why don’t you get a job like your brother John’ 😂😂😂.
Can’t help but think how a Gator would come in so handy for you guys. It’s been a game changer here, major time saver.
Best of luck at todays market. 💕💐
Right. I keep thinking the same thing. Would save so much time & steps.
@@judithjohnson2111 I just cringe watching Ian push the wheelbarrow and Serena pull the wagon. One. Step. At. A. Time.
What is a Gator?
Pang... Like a golf cart.
Yes, similar in style to a golf cart. BUT…. It has a dump bucket, a low gear, four wheel drive, a winch, etc.
Hey, local JD dealer in Kelowna. Hook them up!
Hi! I wanted to thank you for your true stories, for your youtube work. Our family (two kids as yours) is growing organic flowers and veggies. We sell at the market, stores, do weddings, florists. We have one employee. And we are tired, angry, to do list long... and your stories always shows me that it's worth it. That we are not alone. That you have the same troubles. Thank you once again. Greetings from Czech Republic!👋
Hi Anna, wishing you much success with your flower business, happiness, good health, a long life and honey in your heart all the way from the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico.
I love the way you have taken your absolute passion for flowers and turned it into a business that can support your family. I love it when a new video pops up on my notifications, each episode of "You can't eat the grass" feels like I'm visiting a dear friend :D
3000 a week are insane numbers! I´m so happy for you guys 🥰
It is a crazy number of bouquets
I loved it when you talked to the camera about which job you wanna tackle next and cut straight to picking cherries 😂. First things first.
Nothing better than 2 episodes in a week 😍💪
It is that time of winter where I need to come back and watch one of your summer videos with lots of flowers! 😍 Anyone else doing it end of December?
Same!!
Y'all grow the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen!! Serena makes gorgeous bouquets. The kitten sure has grown!!🐱 Great video.
The John Deere joke had me rolling laughing!!!
I have no doubt that you could train your smart, energetic children to clean flower stems (for money, of course!)
I think they can just do it. No money exchange needs to happen. Sometimes we can learn to do things for many reasons other than money. Love, sharing, caring, good sportsmanship, fun, learning etc etc. please know I’m just pointing out money’s not always the answer.
@@slavicadimcevski9585 I was born in Easter Europe... you were expected to help no $ 😆
@@y.peffle2802 same. I don’t think I was ever paid to do anything at home. But I do feel if the kids are doing their own enterprises like making cards that’s something the kids should get all the money. My daughter made bracelets and she kept all the money she made.
Yes, yes the rudbeckia really is frickin' AMAZING! 😂 Serina shaking and rustling the straw flowers! 😂 Oh dear, a DEER! So pretty. So destructive. Love the white bouquets! Awww....Bo and some kitty lovins! I tell ya, if you didn't love your cats so much, I couldn't be a subscriber! The colors are fantastic, of course! The color in those snapdragons are just incredible!! All that cleaning and tilling that Ian did sure spruced things up, made them look so neat and tidy! You guys are doing so very well, and you're confident. It's beautiful to see! Good health and happiness to you and the whole family!
This has to be one of my favorite channels on TH-cam. It’s so fun rooting for you guys and watching all your struggles and successes. thank you so much for sharing your lives with us! The flowers look incredible this week by the way. It’s probably a good thing I don’t live by you because I would stop at that flower stand every single day.
We feel that we are doing something unique with our videos. Sometimes I wish I could view them from an outside perspective, by the time I have edited them, I have seen the footage so many times that I know it inside and out.
A study in time management and priority setting would be super. Imagine getting the structural building all done during the winter months. But you manage to produce a beautiful product in spite of being massively behind in getting things done.
Any volunteers?
If I lived closer...
The stand needs a wipe down too 😂 your bouquets are getting more beautiful! If only you’re near me !
So wonderful winding down after a long night at the hospital watching you guys and your precious children and fur babies making farm magic. Absolutely you guys are a success!! If nothing else, at keeping a smile our my faces 🙂 but of course, at so much more.
Yes I knew having my nephew that wakes up early sleep over lastnight. Your video is much needed this morning!
I don’t see how y’all do it. I’d be so sleep deprived, I wouldn’t be able to function. Every week, the flowers are beautiful. Keep up the good work ❤️. You two deserve all the success.
We are both low on sleep, but we sacrifice our social lives to make content and build the business, plus we are both highly motivated to make the farm a success
@@YouCantEatTheGrass you are truly doing a great job. I love the videos and appreciate your hard work.
I am so envious of the people in your commumity as they have the ability to buy your flowers. you have the most beautiful assortment of flowers. they are gorgi
They are lucky lol
Your strawflowers make me swoon to no end 🤩🥰🥰
The bouquets are awesome.
I love your flowers. Your kids are great… the kitties are so cute… you are working so hard. Thank you for sharing…
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for emphasizing the value of reflecting on what has been accomplished rather than drowning in what needs to be done. We all need to hear that once in a while.
Love it that this is the second vid of the week!
Love it too that the snips are part of the flower ensemble ☺️💗
Maybe you could put an awning in front of the flower stand. Maybe it would help with the sun and keep the flower stand cooler.😁
Great idea
the bouquets are gorgeous!
thanks
Congratulations for another successful sales. 🎉🎉🎉
I honestly love these market videos. I love the format, i love ian's intro voice, i love serena's chuckle, love the kids and cats...
You guys are an inspiration! Congrats on making 3k a week! At first I didn’t fully understand the “working at night mainly” workflow but since these heat waves we have started doing that… its way better!! Except here we get really bad bugs at night. Our farm is also falling apart even though we have been doing well with sales so its nice to see it isn’t just us!
Hi i love your lillys. Hope you can show more of it when you are harvesting. Ive been watching you from a long time and i love it when you arrange flowers in a huge one. I so love it very much.
Thanks for the feedback, our lillies are slowing down but I will try to get them in more vids
I just purchased 2 bouquets of straw flowers at our local farmers market and I’ve started the drying process. Thank you for teaching me about different flower types! We out in YT land celebrate your farm’s success right alongside you. I hope you consider getting some of the improvements done by hired help. It is well worth the money to have projects done and off your mind.
What an inspiring video. I love to see your flowers, your hard work and tenacity. You have a beautiful family making a beautiful farm
Congratulations on beautiful flowers & great sales. 👍 So fun to see your farm.
”Get a job like your brother John.”
This is why I love your channel so much - gorgeous flowers and dad jokes!😂 Never stop, guys!
the dad jokes never stop
Your bouquets are exquisite 💐💐💐❤️
💐
As always, love your flowers! So happy you are making money selling your passion🤗🤗🤗
Another great video flowers are gorgeous. To increase efficiency you need to cut down on steps. Ever time you start a new task figure out how to cut down on walking. Thus is what I do at work. Cuts down on wear n tear on your body too
A gater would be super helpful. Keeping the buckets closer.
Get a camera for the stand.
I would hang some sheer curtains in the doorway , would cut the sun, but still be inviting.
My parent has their own flower farm in Kansas City Kansas. We pick and process all of our flowers in one day. A good tip that I would give you is to strip your leaves off your stems as you go. Yes it hard work up front but it’s a time saver in the long run.
Your flowers are so beautiful--same as you for bringing beauty to people.
This was a great vlog! Glad to get a bunch of harvest footage, plenty of Ian jokes, crazy kids, cuddly cats, and getting stuff done! Congratulations you two. You are so talented and special and Successful!
So happy to see you have such a fantastic week of sales! The bouquets are looking more beautiful every week, and I personally love the straw flowers as a focal flower 😉
Sorry Ian that you are just now realizing that being a farmer is also being a maintenance person. Its also being a mechanic, welder, veternary assistant, pilar of the community, friend to your neighbors, butcher, plumber, Dad and husband. Farmers wear a lot of hats. You're doing great!
I really feel that just your roadside stand with flowers AND Veggies would make you as much or more money than the marathon market weekend.
The market is fun, and it makes enough now that even if we had to hire an employee to do it, it would be worth it. But you are correct about the stand, there is so much potential in it.
Hi, guys. Just testing out a marketing idea for you. Branding your bouquet of flower by sticking a small but visiblle red roof sticker with a small youtube logo. on each bouquet. As the customer walks away with you bouquet of flowers. Prople around would see those beautiful bouquet and also would have a glimps of your red roof brand sticker. And recognize that its from a local hardworking famous youtuber. Im sure people would search for you store just to have a collection of your flower...... But its just an idea to crank up more marketing sale.
you have done so good on the farm! teamwork is what keeps you going...serina and ian are a team!
So fascinating to see how your business plan has evolved and the building of the Red Roof brand over the years. Just makes me excited for my favorite video of the year, the farm recap video!
Lol the recap videos are fun to make
Gorgeous bouquets 😍😍😍
Visiting your farm is a weekly pleasure. I love how you work together and nice seeing the children in this one. This is as good as life gets. I hope you have enough moments to take a breath to appreciate it all.
PS I wrote that comment halfway. I see you ended the video exactly on that note. Cheers!
Serina's jungle jumper is AMAZING!!
My kids woke me up to tell me you had a new vlog out. Guess who binge watched all your old videos this summer!?! So 2022 has been very impressive. Well done guys. Also, ian thanks for the laughs - normally serina makes me laugh but you nailed it this week!
Ian that was very very relatable. We bought a tractor in beautiful condition so that we wouldnn't have to put a lot of work into it and I called it my employee, and it had the gear shifter break 10 min into a big job, which we have now completely...by hand....sigh. It never ends, I'm just learned to embrace it and prioritize.
It is so typical, lol. All we can do is keep grinding away.
Your kids are so adorable. And Ian's deer diatribe was really funny.
The music selection was excellent and fun!
thanks so much
I could watch Serena make bouquets for days. Your flowers are so beautiful! 🙌🏻
Do you leave the stands door open with the A/C on? If so, wouldn’t it be better to put a storm door installed on the inside of the door frame? Then you could hang a shade cloth to prevent the sun from shining in and keep the flowers fresh.
Please bring a small towel/cloth to clean the table top of your roadside stand. I believe that many people just like fresh flowers. I love your videos 😍🥰🤩
What a great video! All the flowers are so pretty and healthy- looking and your bouquets are always so beautiful! Good work!
Serena, y’all have the most beautiful flowers I’ve seen! My strawflowers have really THICK stems. I’ve cut them back and they are blooming some, but nothing like yours. Y’all are my measuring stick for my cut flower garden. Would you consider an in-depth video or series on growing? Like what kind of compost, fertilizer, etc. you use. I also watch your bouquet making to try to hone in on your skills. Hi to Ian. I didn’t mean to leave him out.
new inspirational video again..more hardwork and patient for a running a farm..love you both😍😍
Maybe sell straight bunches (for example, of snapdragons and delphinium)? They would sell and be much faster!
You guys should get a ring camera or equivalent for the stand. Then you can check without making that walk. Also bonus security 😎👍
Great video loved it congratulations on your success
Happy healthy kids and cats, a strong Happy marriage, beautiful flowers, cherries and $$$$$$....thanks for sharing your WONDERFUL story! BEST SERIES ON TH-cam!
I don’t know if this is a thing in Canada but I really think the two of you should apply for a government grant for small businesses. You could hire either a full-time worker or two part-time workers. This will get you caught up and allow you to focus on your big projects rather than just the date to day.
Canada doesn't have anything like that unfortunately
Those orange dreamy snapdragons!!! 🧡🧡🧡 Then you turned them and shone a light on them! 😍
I watch your videos and look at all the lovely flowers you grow, then on special occasions you share your lovely family and they sure have grown! You both are pretty great.
It’s a lot of variety of work for sure!! I can’t help thinking a huge amount of time and energy would be saved with a gator or golf cart or even a bike with a pull cart - something….. Erin from Floret has a great video on assembly line bouquet making. You could still do many different variety bouquets doing a few recipes…. Maybe check the college or high school or just advertise for an intern - free help for the experience…. Hang in there🤗💚❤️
Maintenance is part of it! Prange's Florist Gainesville FL. We are constantly maintaining so many wedding pieces (arches, pedestals, etc.) And the beat goes on. The longer you are in business, utilizing an abundance of materials to support you (coolers, racks, tables, etc.) the more you will see maintenance issues popping up. I am so grateful to be maintaining the materials that give us support for our and our employees families!!!!
Your flowers look amazing. Your bouquets look amazing. And your videos are super entertaining to watch!
Well done 👍 make sure you celebrate your smallest success 😃
So lovely to see you having fun with the kids. Sometimes it seems to be all work and no play but you're doing great xx
Muchas gracias chicos!!! Recién los descubro y me encanta el contenido que comparten, pero mi Inglés no es del todo bueno y estaría feliz si pudieran subtitular al Español, estoy segura de que toda la comunidad hispanohablante también estaría en cantada!!!!
Yeah! Celebrating your success alongside you. Great job.
This summer Ian is a "Cherry Based Life Form" :)
My Grandparents lived in British Columbia and I have fond memories of being told to go to bed in the Summer but it was still light outside and my siblings and I would giggle and talk in bed, LOL
The flowers look Fabulous. Have you ever thought of connecting with the local Colleges and Universities or High Schools as Agricultural and Business students need clinical sites to get experience. That way you can get help and the students would get experience. Also, if all those students got together they could probably get the Green House/Tunnel built in a weekend or something like that🤗
I also wonder if you got a glass door for the road side stand, that way you could Keep the air conditioning on but the product would show through the glass door and that way you could have more Bouquets in the stand. Of course still keep the regular door for when you need to lock everything up.
I’m glad to hear your idea Focusing on the flowers this year has surpassed what you thought it would do
I like to eat baby cherry tree when its in season too lol
Baby cherry tree lol 🍒🍒
Congratulations on your successful week.
Keeping it real! Love hearing your successes, your challenges, the realities of pursuing goals/growth yet ultimately having to make triage decisions due to finite time!
I love white and cream colored bouquets 💐
Since last week, my favorite bouquet is PINK. They are gorgeous!!
And so happy your business is thriving. You can't eat the grass, but you can sell it and turn it into money
Thanks yall. I ended up going and ordering strawflower seeds. 😅
I feel ya!! I'm at the end/beginning of my season. End of 2022 season, beginning of 2023 season. Sooo much to do and not nearly enough time!
I'm so excited for yall! It's awesome that the flowers are selling so well.
#TEAMFLOWERS 💐
I have to start planting for 2023 now too. Flower timelines are crazy, lol
Congratulations!!! So happy for you and your family.
Woot woot! Told ya it was going to be a boom year. 👏🏻💐 Blessings 🙏🏻
Yes! Thank you!
💗
You grow the most gorgeous flowers! They are marvelous!!!
I sell at a small town farmer's market. I was thrilled to sell 8 bouquets and 2 herb bundles.
Haha ! My cutting garden is tiny by comparison and I am 60 yes old and single.
But you inspire me and I'm having a gas and killing myself with hard work. When I'm tired I just think of you Serena. Thank you !
harvesting early in the morning / at night is the best you could do ...for long lasting bouquets. I admire your courage and dedication.
I think straw flowers should be your flower of the year! The color on them is incredible and they’re so versatile. I would take it entire bouquet of just those
Love watching you guys, you work so hard and always have a positive atittud. Greetings from Guatemala.
I defiantly think farming is constant maintenance. Something no matter how new or old is needing to be replaced or fixed or something. You both are so awesome. Have a great rest of the season. -
My dad has farmed for 50 plus years. What he would tell you is this: it's all about maintenance. 😂. Every year when he gets started something breaks and needs repaired. Especially when it comes time to get out rhe harvester. Always. Broken. Down. My mom says her yard ornaments are whatever dad has that needs repaired at the moment. But it's worth it! Love your channel and all you guys share with us!
You definitely need to keep the cherry trees because I noticed in many videos all of you snacking on them, For added energy.
Do you grow Gladiolus in crates? Do I see that right? It seems to work obviously, but you could talk about your experience with it in coming up video, just an idea. Love following you guys the farm looks amazing 😍😍😍Greetings, Judit 🙋😊
i have suggestion regarding the sun coming through the front door of the roadside stand. i keep my front door open now because i bought an extension rod and a long white shear curtain to put up in the doorway. now i keep the door open and my plants get nice filtered light. 😉
Congratulations on your continued success! I am a 1st year grower and need to get the timing for snaps figured out- mine have slowed down now in July.
they sell great at my market so I would advise going hard on them next year
So happy you're seeing the results you wanted to see and even exceeding your expectations! I remember the planning from last year and it's amazing to see how far the farm has come!
Congratulations, for all your hardwork you deserve it, I envy you guys I wish I could do the same fulfilling work that you do, thank you and be safe.
Thank you so much!
You two are my heroes... That's all I can say. 😊