Cultivating a Dream
Hello, it's nice to meet you!
My name is Jodi and this is my husband Aaron. We live in the beautiful little town of Olalla Washington, where I grew up. We have both lived and visited a lot of places but we love Kitsap County and hope to always call it home.
A few years ago, after taking a Flower Farming course we were inspired to jump in and start a long held dream of growing massive amounts of flowers to share.
Digging In
Even though 2021 was our first official year as farmers, we hit it hard and carved out a farm field where there had previously just been stinging nettles and blackberry brambles. In just the few short months we had this patch growing more flowers than we could harvest and share! Our goal is to use sustainable, chemical free, and water-wise growing practices. We want to keep our soil, our woods, and our waterways clean and safe for future generations and the creatures that call it home. We want to leave this corner of the world better than we found it. The beautiful byproduct of using sustainable, clean farming is an exceptionally fresh and chemical free product to send out into our community. We want our flowers to be safe to handle, smell, and love for everyone from small children to floral industry professionals.
“Our hope is to use sustainable, chemical free, and water wise growing practices.”
Signs of New Life
The first couple years growing have been a giant experiment in seed starting, planting, soil amendments, and optimum harvesting. We have been keeping our work pretty low key as we learn the ropes but we will be offering fresh bouquets at a few local markets as well as DIY wedding and event options. We also will be doing some fun pop-up flower sales throughout the season too!
Behind the Scenes
In the beginning there was dirt....and it wasn't the best dirt either. Walt's Organic Fertilizer Co. in Seattle recommended their "Rainy Pacific NW Blend" to get us on the right track for growing flowers.
Our first seeds were started on the kitchen table in February! Humble beginnings to say the least. BTW- I overwatered all those trays and had to start over. But man! I was excited to get those first trays going!
The seed starting enterprise was expanded into the laundry room. Sooooo many seeds! And so much to learn. The subsequent trays went better. Still working on mastering the watering preferences of these tricky little seeds though.
Each of the different plants had such unique seedlings! These are the first sprouts of "Bunny Tails", which are a really cute decorative grass that has little fluffy white seed heads.
These little seedlings are for a nice filler green called Cress which interestingly can also double as a spicy salad green. These little seeds won the race for quickest to sprout! After the seeds went in the dirt, it was only 3 days until we had seedlings popping up.
It's starting to look like a real farm!
Spreading compost with Norman. He thinks he is helping....he was not helping.
Such lovely little seedlings.
We use landscape fabric over most of our rows for weed control so we don't need to use chemical weed management measures. What the landscape fabric doesn't control gets pulled by hand.
Some of the biggest investments are the least glamorous. Landscape fabric and low hoops are boring but important. The hoops can be used to support tall plants and also be covered with plastic sheeting for frost/weather protection and to extend the growing season.
Planting in progress...
Baby Bachelor Buttons coming along nicely.
Our little farm in the forest.
Our very first flower! This is a Cosmos 'Xanthos' variety.