Community is Key
Sarah Daken, Tom Precht, and Debra Prinzing in October of 2019 just before recording our podcast interview.
Just as we were about to start off on our flower farming adventure, Sarah happened upon a movement that has since shaped our business and attitude about farming. This movement is the brainchild of one of the sweetest and sharpest people you will ever meet, Ms. Debra Prinzing. Debra is an accomplished journalist with years of experience writing about the floral world, author of 10 books including the 50-mile bouquet, and her mission in life is to promote American grown flowers, but more specifically seasonal and local blooms, otherwise known as “Slow Flowers”. It was pure serendipity that we decided to attend the annual Slow Flowers conference in 2018 (it helped that it was in Washington DC and close to our home). A piece of advice that we have gotten from more seasoned farmers and we often give to other new farmers is “show up”. It pays to just go to events, visit farms and farmers, and in general make a personal connection. When we “showed up” at the annual Slow Flowers meeting we met a slew of wonderful, generous, kind people. It solidified a feeling we had sensed from the beginning that was now confirmed; the floral community is a special group!
Since attending that first conference we have attended other meetings and every experience provides us with more connections, more knowledge, and a greater feeling of belonging, which when you are first starting something new is so important. If you are a cut flower grower, it’s mandatory to be a part of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG). This community was created to support, educate, and provide resources for all levels of cut flower growers. They hold workshops throughout the year as well as an annual conference. We’ve attended these events and learned so much about how to run a cut flower business, how to grow flowers better, how to market ourselves, and in general what it takes to make it in this business long term. There are also local factions of ASCFG which are sometimes more helpful because they deal with farming issues that are more regionally problematic, like pests and weather. We are a part of and attend meetings of, the Maryland Cut Flower Growers group (MCFG). The level of institutional knowledge present at these meetings boggles the mind. There are sometimes as much as 200 combined years of Maryland flower farming experience in any particular meeting. I wish we could distill all that down and put it in a book for the newbies!
One of the aspirations we had early on and predicted would make us feel like we had “made it” was to be interviewed on Debra’s Slow Flower podcast. Debra has been a prolific podcaster, with over 400 episodes, showcasing all manner of floral enthusiasts and jobs in the floral world. It’s a nationally recognized show, and we did finally realize that dream when Debra came to our farm for an interview in late October of 2019. Debra was so gracious and inviting in her interview, it instantly gave us more credibility but also just gave us the confidence to keep going with this farming endeavor. We’ve had so many more encounters like this throughout our short 3 years of farming. It makes the back breaking labor tolerable to know there are people out there rooting for you and wanting to see you succeed!
Sometimes it can sound cliche’ to spout the well known adage that “No one succeeds alone.” It’s a uniquely American idea that we all are self-made people. And there is nothing wrong with believing in your own ability, but we KNOW that without other people, other farmers, other floral artists, other businesses, we would not be where we are or even be able to succeed. Our company's motto is “Local. Sustainable. Collaborative.” We know what it is to be local and sustainable and we practice it regularly, but what does it mean to be collaborative? Some might take that as we are not so much a business as we are a non-profit or a charity, giving away our time and product for nothing more than a positive feeling in our hearts. While we do get that feeling, we also believe true, genuine, committed collaboration actually makes a business better, more profitable, and in the end beneficial for the owners and for the community that it operates in. If you are skeptical of that, just keep following along. We intend to demonstrate it!