Hi! I’m Jeni, the person who decided (much to her husband’s chagrin) that we should start a flower farm here on our 7.5 acre property in Midcoast Maine.
I haven’t always been a grower, but shortly after we bought the property I started researching what it took to be a flower farm. Research is a strong suit of mine, and a real love – I am an academic by trade. I teach writing, both creative writing and business writing. And while I love my job and I love my students, I was definitely craving something more.
Being a mom and working full time didn’t leave much time for my own creative pursuits. I love to write, I love to read, I love to embroider, and I’ve also been learning to knit. But growing flowers at scale brings me such joy. And sharing flowers, and seeing the joy they bring other people, is a deeply fulfilling experience.
So I spent a winter learning about cut flowers, flower farming, compost, no-till and regenerative agriculture, and more. I learned about seed starting and started nearly every plant we grew this year from seed in my basement. My husband found and assembled a host of raised beds, and built a network of what we call “Lego beds” on our farm to house our plants. He also planned and laid the landscape fabric for our new peony field.
And in the spring, we planted.
We grew over 400 dahlias in our first year, along with thousands of annuals, including sunflowers, seed grown lisianthus, nigella, cosmos, zinnias, snapdragons, nicotiana, Gomphrena, and more. 2024 will see the addition of over 500 peonies, a dahlia field of over 500 dahlias, new rose plantings, a bevy of magical sweet peas, and more. We also grow a small amount of vegetables, and a not so small amount of tomatoes, because this girl and a tomato sandwich are besties.
While I personally have never farmed, and my husband is a city boy, I come from a long line of farmers, and was familiar with some aspects, but I felt passionate about pursuing a way of farming and growing that was different. Long rows of a single plant just doesn’t make sense. It’s like offering the pests a buffet and asking them to do a little conga line down it. Growing a bit more than you need to share some with Mother Nature, interspersing flowers with vegetables, planting for pollinator support – it just made SENSE to me. And it’s so much more beautiful to grow that way.
I’ve honestly been surprised by how much growing flowers tugs and pulls at all my skills and former jobs – my ability to research, my history in marketing and event planning, my work with VIP clients in the hotel and tourism trade, my eye for design, and my history as a spin and yoga teacher have certainly prepared me for the physical aspects.
All of this is to say – I absolutely love our flower farm and being a flower farmer, from the dreamy days of planning the crops while snow drifts outside, to the physically demanding days trying to get as many plants in the ground as possible, to the beauty and bounty of the harvest.
It just feels… right. And I’m old enough now to listen to that feeling, to lean into it. I want my boys to grow up embracing the seasons, all of them, and knowing how to save seed, and what a tomato seedling looks like vs a snapdragon seed.
I can’t wait to share our farm with you.
If you’d like to learn more about our core values, click here. To join us for a workshop or on farm event, click here.
And if you’re interested in booking flowers for a wedding, click here.
Other inquiries? Just reach out!