Small Farm, Big Dreams
We are a tiny family flower farm. We live and farm on a 1/4 of an acre here in Northern Illinois. This used to be such an awkward topic for us. We’d share about our farm, and you could see the vision building in others eyes. The rolling hills and barnyards with chickens are what we generally think of when it comes to farms, but we’ve learned that’s more rare than you’d think in the flower world.
Most large scale growers of flowers with hundreds of acres are commercial growers, providing flowers for large companies and chains of grocery stores and online retailers. When you look around you’ll see small farms like ours are more common, around or under and acre with the majority under five acres. Being a first generation farm is not an easy task. There is no handbook or generational guidance for daily life, or problem solving how to take something that doesn’t exist… and grow it.
We started small. we read every book we could find in our local (amazing) library. We researched others online looking for guidance and lessons learned in their journeys. We reached out to local friends and family to learn more about what plants are native to our area. We threw ourselves into wild Friday nights of take out and documentaries about composting and farming. If we didn’t know how to do it, we found a book, watched a video online, and adjusted our plans accordingly. One thing I absolutely love about gardening is that it is so forgiving. You can place plants too close together, you can forget to water for a day, you can grow vegetables in pots on your balcony, and tomatoes hanging upside-down in a bag on your deck. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and to me that is perfection.
We are a farm focusing on growing and learning. We are constantly gaining the knowledge of what running a farm day to day actually looks like for us. We fail… a lot. We have cried over lost tomato plants to toxicity, struggled with seed starting, and felt defeated time and time again. Farming can be difficult, on any size property. However just like our flowers, we keep on growing. We have a lifetime ahead of us to learn, and we are excited for it. We do plan to relocate the farm in the near future, and to grow our land. Until then, our tiny little farm will be the setting for us as we work toward our big dreams.