January Farm Update

Being the non blogging blogger was not was I envisioned people. I had high hopes to write at least one blog a week but then *life* happens and *time* flies. And poof it's almost been a month with zero farm updates. Oops. Onward and upward. We have a seasonal creek that runs through our property that our dog loves to swim in, yes even in winter. If you squint you'll see a tiny Boston Terrier fetching his frisby, and our giant pile of soil that was recently dumped off for the 2023 growing season.

No longer holding myself to any standard or mental blogging due dates. Hopefully with that, I'll be able to pull up my boot straps and start to freely express and share this journey again. For the reason why I want to document this beautiful mess in the first place, to encourage others to be stewards of the land and enjoy nature. To share the beauty of local seasonal blooms with my community. To cultivate curiosity with our son right in our own backyard. I want to document this journey of our family starting a cut flower farm and sanctuary so we can look back and appreciate how far we have come. Here's Myles in the dump truck with Uncle Kyle. I can honestly say, he has never been happier in his entire life. So cute, I never want to forget this memory!

Isn't it so annoying when you get in your own head and start over thinking everything? You KNOW that little freaking jerk 'self doubt' stopped by for a visit while I was quiet and had me wondering if I was capable of all this. Evaluating how much hard work and TIME this is all going to consistently take, adjusting priorities and learning to say no to things that don't align with my goals. It's been challenging. We propagated two Rainier Cherry Trees pictured below, and I toodled around outside in a flowercrown all day the other weekend. Because I can. Boss always follows me around with a frisby.

Thank god for the Floret Workshop giving the encouragement and focus to knock me back into my senses. Kicked off the year being featured in Fine Gardening Magazine GPOD series. That experience has connected me with so many people, drove hundreds of visitors from all over the world to my website and gave me a boost of confidence and the validation that this is all very real. I felt SEEN! Wow! Working my way through the Workshop has been incredibly intense, setting goals, working them backwards and even creating a vision board. I've never made one and it was really powerful! Even oddly emotional. I have it somewhere I see all the time, and it reminds me to keep pushing forward. Here is my 2023 vision board. No BS and dreaming with my eyes open!

I've been laser focused - working through each and every methodical step. The workshop has me facing things I've been too scared to address as a woman building this business. But damn it feels pretty good to look those goals dead in the eye and claim the victory of even trying. Finding a way to suceed in this industry has been so fun, just learning and pivoting my business along the way. Because it's mine and I have the Freedom to do that you know? The sunrise view pictured below of our backyard from our master bedroom isn't horrible.

Letting the thoughts of what you think other people think get in the way of your dream and passion is downright silly. Sometimes it happens, but you gotta shake it off. *Here's me metaphorically shaking it off* Here is Myles shaking stuff up and playing in the leaves - dude is 18mo now!

Anyways now that my emotional highway is cleared we can talk about the dirty stuff. The dirt. The nitty gritty of this farm. The cornerstone of our success. At Freedom Flowers we choose to be stewards of the land and are spending time during the off season replenishing and nurturing our Mother Earth. Mulching beds with leaf mulch, composting and tucking everything away properly over winter, nourishes the soil and gives us a head start into spring.

We ran a soil test a couple weeks ago. It involved digging a bunch of holes in our front growing field and collecting a generalized sample of about 1cup of dirt from all the various locations to send in. I was a little nervous to find out the results, but from first glance at the soil other growers indicated it was likely Tokul Loam, PNWs native soil - Score! It apparently is great for growing flowers and vegetables. Here is a copy of the official test. It was EXCELLENT news, really more than I could have hoped for. Soil just needs amendment of some organic matter (hello leaf mulch) and nitrogen.

Before we got the results about 30yrs of soil, heavily ammended with organic Nitrogen goodness was dropped off. We scored the dirt all for trade and it was a helpful head start for the season. Very thankful for what this dirt will do for us this season. Thank you Iris & John!

Next weeks module in Florets Online Workshop is Farm Planning. It intimidates the living daylights out of me to crunch those serious seed to space numbers. But I'm going to keep my head down, and get it done. Because I want to continue sharing the joy of local, seasonal flowers with my community. Oh and lots of herbs this year too, I just love a deliciously fragrant bouquet so we will be serving up much more of that!

I'll probably be an anti-social hermit through these next months of school, seed sowing & planning but just know I'm happy at home with my family and if you need me I'll be knee deep in dirt until spring! Trying to figure out where social media fits into all this achieving stuff if I want to stay focused. I'll let you know what I come up with, but thinking these Blog updates are a great way to keep everyone involved and not be such a time sucker, ya know? Here is my 12yo nephew Gage playing with Boss in the creek.

Dreaming up the vision of our new growing space, how I want to share it with you, and how I will include my family. I have a boat load of rad ideas, sure to blow any flower lover and kids mind. I can't wait for this summer to watch my son be curious in nature, learning to lean into seasons, growing up on a farm appreciating the land and really, really hard work with a heck of a beautiful reward.

Hoping in the next couple weeks I'll be able to complete development on my site for A La Carte Weddings for any brides curious, hang in there. Creating a website on your own is no joke. I needed a little break and hope to knock that off the old to-do list soon. My pals at Floret wrote me a special note on my seed order! *Swoon!* means the world to have the support of that MAGICAL place.

Faith, Freedom and Flowers my Friends!