Freedom Forage Farm & Flower

Today I'm talking with Amber at Freedom Forage Farm & Flower. You can also follow on Facebook.

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amber, Freedom Forage Farm and Flowers. Good morning, Amber. How are you? I am great this morning. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. Absolutely is.

00:26
And you're in New Prague, so you're only about a half an hour from me, I think. Yes, I am. If you're in Lees Center. In LeSore. LeSore. Oh yes. Yep. So not far. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you do. Um, well, I am a stay at home mom. I homeschool my three boys. And during the summer months, we grow cut flowers. We also have on-farm events called happy hour in the flowers where

00:56
We have our flower friends come out and learn about growing and harvesting techniques and build their own bouquets, watch the sunset, take pictures, all the fun stuff. Nice. Speaking of taking pictures, do you let like photographers come in and take photos of, I don't know, engagements and prom pictures and things like that at all? Yes. Or graduation pictures? Yep. Cool. Yeah.

01:25
How did you start doing this? Like a lot of other people, COVID, we were at home. We had a positive test, so we knew that we were stuck here for at least 20 days. And it had been something, you know, throughout the years, we would just walk around our pasture and think of all the things that, you know, we wanna do. And it was like, hey, we have the time. Should we just do it? And he was like, yeah, let's just do it.

01:55
Yeah, there was a lot of why not and let's just do it when COVID happened because people had so much time for self-reflection and so much time to actually pursue something they had thought about. Yes. Yeah. And it was like, when are we going to get this time again? And you know, what's the worst that could happen? We're here now. Let's just do it. Yeah. That's, that's kind of how we ended up where we are too. Amazing. And.

02:24
Like I've said to everyone who has mentioned COVID, you're not the first person to take a leap during a very uncertain time. And honestly, I feel like part of what COVID did is reminded us all that we only have a limited amount of time to be alive and pursue our dreams. And some people didn't get that. So we all who did decided to do something else. Yes.

02:54
So are your kids young? We have a 10 year old, soon to be seven year old and a four year old. And did they, are they into the growing flowers too? They love the flowers. They love to help. Except for when I asked them to help, then they're not fully on board, but they are just as much involved as, as any of us. Yeah.

03:24
They definitely prefer when the flowers are in bloom though. They like that work a lot better. Yeah, well, it's really, really pretty. And I'm sure that draws them to help. So what kind of flowers do you grow? Do you grow native flowers? Do you grow hothouse flowers? What do you grow? Mostly annuals, field grown. We got our first hoop house. Actually, we got it two years ago now. And this is the first year. It's actually up.

03:53
It has flowers in it. I was really scared to do a high tunnel because I had just that we're going into year four and I felt like, okay, I know what I can grow. I know what grows well. And I didn't, I kind of didn't want to mess with that because there's such a steep learning curve with season extension. And so it's a lot of, a lot of annuals. We have a few perennials. I'm starting to.

04:21
lean more towards perennials and every year I grow less and less things. More colors, maybe different varieties, but less actual different crops. Okay. So in particular, what do you grow? We have dahlias and snapdragons, tons of zinnias, forget-me-nots. We did, what else did I put in the ground? Buplerum, tons of basil.

04:50
What else? Celogea status is down there. Rubbeckia, feverfew, delphinium, eucalyptus, and lisianthus. You can grow eucalyptus here? I started from plugs, but you can, absolutely. It loves the hot and humid. So I didn't, last year was the first year that I had like a really nice big crop and I didn't let anybody cut from it. Like almost all season I wanted to do.

05:19
Dahlia, Lysianthus, and Eucalyptus bundles. And my dang Dahlia's just were so far behind for some reason, lack of rain, who knows what it was. And at the end of the season, I was swimming in it. Swimming in it, and I really was kicking myself because I could have been cutting from it all season long. And so in October, I sold just Eucalyptus bunches last year because it just was going nuts. I had no idea you could grow Eucalyptus in Minnesota. I need to do that.

05:48
You 100% do. Yes, there's a lot of like Queen bees in Prior Lake. She's got, I know that she has, well, the last time I was there, Dahlia, or not Dahlia starts, Eucalyptus starts. They're big, they're beautiful and they're like bushes. So they don't make it through the winter, but they, they're like when I was trying to yank them out of the ground this spring, because I left them, they were the last thing that I was harvesting from.

06:18
They were in there. I had to have my husband come and help me rip them out because they were pretty sturdy. Huh, okay. I'm so glad that I'm talking to you because I would love to grow that. And we are almost done with our heated greenhouse build. So might actually be able to grow it into December. Oh, for sure. You protect it from frost, absolutely. Awesome, oh my God.

06:45
I'm so excited. I have had more good ideas thrown at me in the last three days than I can stand. Like my heart, my heart's going to explode if I get any more good ideas today. Okay. So what do you, I again, brain full, words not working very well. So you sell bouquets, you have events. What else do you do? We

07:13
So we do subscriptions. I have two pickup locations. One is in downtown New Prague at Cedar Press Coffee and then one is at Moose Winery in Jordan. Oh, yeah. Yes. And I always bring extra bouquets there for anybody who just drops in and sees flowers. The events, I have started doing weddings this year. We also have a flower wall we rent out for events.

07:43
fun. We have something we call the foragers table where we set up just in our open pasture and it's like a little picnic spot with all the fun things. For special events we had a 10-year wedding vow renewal that we did. We set up, it's like a yurt, a big canvas tent for them to have a little picnic in. They had

08:13
a photographer come out and photograph them exchanging their vows again. So that was pretty special. That's really fun. I've had a few one-year anniversaries to have me set up for a little picnic for them. Sweet. That's adorable. I love that. Yeah. Okay. Do you... Okay. Valentine's Day is off the books because it's February. It's cold. You're not doing anything with flowers at your...

08:42
at your place for Valentine's Day. Right. So you said you do subscriptions. Is that kind of like based off of the CSA model or how? Yes, absolutely. So we start selling, I'll do a fall release right away after the season because there's a lot of people that are still just super flower hungry and they want to get on it right away. And then I'll do like a spring Mother's Day release. And then we close it down.

09:12
I find that I take less and less subscriptions each year. I want to make the bouquets way bigger. And since I started doing the happy hour and the flowers, I just love the events so much more. So are you an extrovert? Do you love being around people? I think I'm an introverted extrovert. Okay.

09:42
Yes, I'm not shy. But if I'm out of my comfort zone, we tend to go on our shell a little bit. Uh-huh. Yeah. I am a terrible introvert. I do not handle groups with people well and I know it, which is why I do a podcast, because then I get to talk with people all I want, but I don't have to be across a table from six people. It's great. Or standing with a microphone in front of a whole room.

10:11
That too, yeah. I just get terrible stage fright in those situations. And realize how bad it is because we were at a fire pit gathering with friends. And I was talking with two people who I knew really well, trusted, and they had asked me a question. I was telling them a story about what they'd asked about. And all of a sudden I realized that everyone...

10:39
was listening to my story and there were like 12 people there. And I literally locked up. I had like a chill go on my back. I broke out in a cold sweat. I was like, oh my god, I am, I don't know what did this to me, but I wish it hadn't, you know? Yeah, for sure. That's so, so I'm really, I'm really glad that you can do events like that because I could not. It's not my thing. Oh, I still get nervous every time.

11:09
Every time, like sometimes I know that there are other flower growers in the group and that especially just for like I, every gardener does things different. There's no one way to garden correctly, right? We all have our own microclimates. We all have our own soil. Yet I feel like somebody's going to tell me I'm doing something wrong. You know? Yes. Yes, I do know.

11:36
I mean, when we only have 12 to 14 people out here at a time, it's a really small, intimate group and it's still, every time I get, I just get super nervous and I let everybody know. Sorry if I fumble over my words. It's not my, yeah. I can talk to the flowers really easy. It's the people that are, that are hard for me. Yep, exactly. I love my dog for that reason because I can talk to her.

12:01
all day and she doesn't yell at me, she doesn't tell me I'm wrong, she doesn't do anything except cock her head and say talk to me more. So it's great. I love her. I love my dog and I'm not going to say anything else about her because I have talked so much about her on these episodes that it's getting sickening. So I tried doing a couple small wildflower gardens over the last two summers.

12:29
And what I didn't realize is that a lot of wildflowers don't take well to being cut and put in vases. They don't last long. Yes. So we end up just taking really pretty photos and sharing them with people. That's what we do with those. What we did learn is that sunflowers grow really well. In anything you put them in. They just want to grow and they will.

12:59
Yup. And so we, we planted sunflowers two summers ago and had no idea how well they would do. And we had, we had like double the size of a dinner plate sunflowers and they, they were gorgeous. I believe you. Yes. Yeah. And, and, and learn that there are small sunflowers too. Yes. Well. They didn't know.

13:25
there's a branching sunflowers and then there's the single stem sunflowers. But you can also, even if they do have the big heads, if you plant them super close together, they can't, they won't grow really big either. So that is, that is a lesson that I learned as well. Big, huge sunflowers aren't awesome for bouquets. So no, but they are awesome for the seeds. Oh, absolutely. But for cut flowers, you don't want to use pollen.

13:55
Like we try to use pollen lists, so people's countertops aren't all full of pollen. Yeah. So those ones actually don't even produce seeds. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. So we plant a little of each just so, you know, we want a thriving ecosystem. So we plant for the birds, but a lot of the sunflowers I grow, they don't have seeds.

14:20
didn't know that there were different colored sunflowers either until we started looking at getting seeds and I was like, oh, there are burgundy ones. There are no blue sunflowers. Got suckered on a package of blue sunflower seeds. They don't exist. But they do grow into sunflowers and they were pretty. They just weren't blue. And there are cream colored sunflowers. My favorite. Uh-huh. Yeah.

14:49
We're going to be doing some more of those this year too. Notice about your cream sunflowers though, that the bugs are attracted to those a lot. No, no, didn't notice. Yep. Huh. Okay. Good to know. Is there a reason why? I'm not sure. I think just a majority of white flowers just get decimated first. No, if it's because of how, how bright they are, I'm not

15:19
I don't know the scientific explanation for that, but I just know that that's a fact. Okay, and since you said you don't know the scientific reason for that, that leads me to my next question. Do you have a background in raising flowers, growing flowers, or was it just something you wanted to try doing? It was something I wanted to try doing, something that in my mind was like, this will bring me happiness, and there's no doubt in my mind, and I was right. Uh.

15:45
But no, no background whatsoever, other than my mom's peonies and clementis in my backyard. That's it. Okay. Just wondering, because some people are like, I went to school for 25,000 years to be a horticulturalist. And some people are like, I threw seeds in the ground and they grew and it was fun. Yes. So, and I'm the latter. Same. Yep. And peonies. Do you grow peonies? We do.

16:15
So just we had, when we moved out to the farm, Marla, who lived here before us, she had a peony bush that was, oh, it was like 20 years old. That was the first one. We divided that and placed it strategically in the landscape around. And then two years ago, we bought 100 bare root. Ooh, fun. We get a random, you know, last year we got a random few that bloomed.

16:44
I've been out there already and they're starting to bud up a little bit. I'm currently trying to decide if I should disbud them or not because you want them to, you want the roots to be super healthy and strong. So you're, you're, you're told not to cut from them in the first two years. Yep. You know, but they're peonies and how can you not? Yeah. You put them in last year? Yes. We put them in, well, last fall.

17:13
last spring. When did we put them in? Two falls ago. So we, this will be the second bloom year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I am a, I'm a peony fanatic. So I'm going to tell you what I think about whether you should disbud them or not. Give it to me. If you bought that many plants, I would, I would disbud some of them, but I would let some of them bloom. So you can have some of the blooms

17:43
The deal with peonies, the saying is the first year is sleep, the second year is creep, and the third year is leap. Yes. And we moved here for almost four years ago. And so this is our third spring because we brought peony plants from the old house in the fall of 2020. And we have so many buds coming right now.

18:11
And I am so excited because we had hundreds of blooms at the old house on a little tiny city lot. So this will be the first spring in four years that I will have peony flowers whenever I want them again when they bloom. Have you ever cut them in marshmallow stage and put them in your fridge? I have not. I've read about it. Yes. Got to try it.

18:40
Yeah, I just, I always miss the marshmallow stage. I go out and they're still hard like a marble. Yeah. And then I don't even think about it and they've bloomed. So I always miss that smushy stage. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's just like tulips, like all of a sudden they're just open. So you got to be on it. Yep. And honestly, we don't have enough to make it worth like selling to anybody right now.

19:09
Yeah, we will probably have some peony blooms for the farmers market June 1st and the Saturday after that and maybe the Saturday after that to sell some open blooms. That's a lot. That's enough Saturdays. Yeah. And we have the early blooming varieties and we have the later blooming varieties. So we should have a staggered set for the month of June and then it'll be over. Beautiful.

19:37
And then it's fleeting. Yeah, it's unfortunate that my favorite flower on earth is a month long bloom and then I gotta wait another year. That's why we love them so much. They're special, yeah. It's kind of like rhubarb. Rhubarb grows in the spring and sometimes you get a second crop in the fall if your fall has the right conditions. Right. And so when the rhubarb comes in.

20:03
We make strawberry rhubarb sauce. We have it over ice cream or scones, and then we freeze some bags of it. And then we have some in the wintertime. Yes. And I'm current. I'm right there with you right now with the rhubarb. It's my second. I have a rhubarb cake in the oven right now. I made a coffee cake. Not yesterday, but the day before I've got some in the fridge to chop up for the freezer. All the things. Yeah. And the great thing about freezing rhubarb means that you don't have to blanch it.

20:33
What? My mom used to blanch rhubarb, like fresh rhubarb, she'd chop it up in pieces and then she would put it in hot water for a minute and then she'd take it out and put it in ice water. And I was like, why do you do that? And she said, because it breaks down the fiber so it's not as stringy. And come to find out if you freeze rhubarb, you don't have to do that blanching step to make it not so stringy. Yeah. Yeah, I've never heard of that, blanching it before freezing it.

21:02
So I told her about it and she was like, I've been doing this my whole life and I didn't have to. Oh no. I said, well, you learned it from somebody. So it just takes one major step out of the equation and, and it means you don't have to heat up your house or your kitchen. So it's fantastic. Absolutely. It's, it's so funny because I feel like I know a little bit about a lot and a lot about a little.

21:32
A lot of the time, a friend of mine was over on Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and she had gone to the extension office in, I don't know, one of the towns around Lesor because she has a shady area in her yard and she's trying to figure out what to put in there for ground cover. And I don't want to say where she went or who she talked to because it doesn't really matter but she didn't really get any answers. And I said, do you want answers from somebody who?

22:01
nose just enough to be dangerous and she was like you and I said yeah. She said what do you think? I said I think that you're sick of hostas but hostas grow in shady areas and she said I don't want to put any more hostas in. I said okay. I said how about violets? How about wild violets? Because they grow in dappled sunlight. She was like violets would be really pretty. I said why don't you do that? Try that. I said do you want to be able to walk?

22:29
on this area?" And she said, no, I just want to fill it in. I said, put violets in, they would be really pretty. And she looked at me and she said, thank you. She said, you don't even have a degree in any of this, but you just gave me a solution. I said, yes, because I read everything and I learn quick. Yes. So flowers, more flowers. All flowers, all the time, please. You mentioned Rudebeckia. Is that the little like low to the ground

22:59
plant that spreads and has little yellow flowers on it? Is that the one? Rudebeckia is a black-eyed Susan. Yeah. Yes. So there's so many different varieties. There's so many different ones. So I'm sure that there is one. I know Rudebeckia tribola has the super small flowers and that is a perennial, eye-grown annual version, Rudebeckia hurta.

23:28
I'm pretty, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. That's what I grow. And they don't, they don't come back every year. They're beautiful. They're a bunch of different colors, salmon, rust, bright orange, bright yellow. You never know what you're going to get. It's a beast's choice, basically. Sometimes they come back. I have three plants from the 38 I planted last year that decided they're going to.

23:58
They're going to come back for me this year. Nice. Yeah. That's amazing. So I asked before, but I think you got sidetracked. Do you grow any native plants at all? I have done a few different varieties of milkweed, but otherwise, no. We've talked to somebody at Prairie Moon a few times about.

24:25
Prairie restoration, we would like to do, you know, we don't want to mow. We only have five acres, but we don't want to mow all five acres. So they have a bunch of different seed mixes that we've contemplated getting and getting it all hydro seeded and all that fun stuff. But that's, I mean, that was the original dream. That's how flowers even entered the chat.

24:55
the native wildflowers. Okay. But we have yet to do that. Yeah, we tried. We tried doing the, I can't think of the name of it, the purpley, lavendery one that grows in the ditches all over this area. Reven- Prairie something, prairie wild. There's so many, there's so many, and they're all purple, I swear.

25:21
Yeah, it's very wild flame or wild flower or something. I can't remember, but it's really pretty. And supposedly it's easy to grow because it's a weed. It grows everywhere. And we bought some and put it in and it died because we had the drought last summer. Of course. And we bought some, uh, cone flower and that died because of the drought. I was like, weeds are supposed to hand, you know, wild flowers, weeds, whatever are supposed to handle.

25:51
drought better than the not native plants and they died. Our coneflower died too last year. Yeah, I was so sad. But it's okay. Yes. Many years. Yeah, I'm hoping this summer is better. I don't know that it's going to be, but I'm hoping that maybe we will have a moderate summer.

26:19
where we get some rain and some sun and some rain and some sun. That would be a nice change. And no hail. And please no hail. Yeah. Yeah, we did not get hail. We got little tiny, tiny pieces of hail twice last summer. So we lucked out. Yeah, you did. We got a few scary ones. And I have a high ton. How do you lose sleep about flowers and plastic houses? It happens. Easy.

26:47
easy to lose sleep over. We lost a high tunnel. I can't remember what was the first summer or the second summer we were here. I think it was the second summer we were here because we had it turn the wrong way and the door was not zipped all the way closed and the wind got up underneath of it and just lifted it right over and ripped it, of course. And it was full of plant seedlings. Oh no.

27:18
The high tunnel needs to go north to south, not east to west. The opening doors have to be north and south for where we're at. And even that doesn't necessarily guarantee you that it's going to not get blown over. Absolutely not. And that a hard-sided greenhouse might have been smarter and that is actually built now. Oh good. Yes, so excited. I've talked about this before on the...

27:44
Yeah, the podcast and I'm not going to get too far into it, but my husband and my son got the doors on it last night. Amazing. Congrats. Yup. And it's gorgeous. I'm so, so thrilled with it. And it still has a couple pieces above the doors to be finished, but we can't finish them until we get the exhaust fans that we ordered in. And they're not coming until the 24th. So hopefully by Memorial Day weekend, we will.

28:13
have it completely done. Amazing. Yep, and the plan next spring, which ties into what you're doing, is to do potted flower baskets. Oh, I love it. To have ready for Mother's Day. Yeah. And to have ready for the farmer's market in June. Awesome. I love those things. I love picking out the seeds or the seedlings, however we do it, and putting those together, picking out what the colors are and what the textures are.

28:43
So I think that's actually gonna be my baby next spring. I think I am excited for you. That is Yeah, um, I just I don't want to get too far into this but I I Applied for a grant from the market entry fund. It's a it's a Minnesota grant opportunity and There were three questions to answer. I spent maybe 15 minutes answering the questions and hit send

29:13
And I thought, there's not a chance we're going to get this grant. And, and we did, we got it back in October and that's what funded the heated greenhouse. Oh, congrats. And I just, I feel so weird about it. Cause I'm like, this greenhouse didn't cost us a penny to build. It's so weird to me. And I, I have been writing off and on my whole life. I have been published in a regional magazine. I've been.

29:42
published in a newspaper and stuff online and not made a whole lot of money ever with it. And it's great to be published, but making money from it would have been way cool too. And it took me 15 minutes to write this grant proposal or answer their questions and ended up making more money from that than I've ever made from writing anything else. And I just have to laugh about it. I just think it's so amusing. Yeah.

30:12
But thankful that they decided we were worth taking a chance on because it's really cool. It's really great. Good for you. That's so cool. Yeah. Weird. I had no idea I was going to do it. And I did it and they gave it to us and now we have a heated greenhouse. Amazing. Oh my goodness. I'm like crazy about this today because everything is, right now everything is coming up roses. It really is. Good.

30:40
I figure next week everything will be coming up black dolly-as or something. I don't know, but today is a good day. Good. Okay. So what is the plan for Freedom Forage Farm and Flowers? Number one, is this your job or do you have a jobby job outside of it? My jobby job isn't really a jobby job. I bartend once a week at the local 105 down in New Prague. It's great.

31:09
The money's too good to quit. I love everybody that works there. I love the establishment. They welcome you with flowers on their patio. I get to take it over and do happy hour with the flowers there. Oh, awesome. Yeah, it's a blast. But otherwise, yeah, I'm home. We homeschool. It's a full-time job, even though it's seasonal. Sure. So are you going to grow it bigger? The farm?

31:40
I at this point, no, I don't think so. It's, um, we might, we might lane change a couple times over the years, but we have, I, we have a lot and it's just me. If I get to the point where I can hire help, who knows what will happen. But right now it's the boys and Kyle and myself and that's, that's good.

32:07
in where we are in life, it's really busy. He's also in landscaping, so his busy season is also my busy season. So it's hard to juggle sometimes. I'm sure it is, that's a lot. Yeah, I mean, the ultimate goal would be to have him here. And, you know, us both doing the farm full-time, but we're not there yet. The plan, I told him this year that we're doing nothing new.

32:35
I'm not growing anything new. I'm not offering anything new. We're just gonna coast this year and see what happens. That is so funny. You are not the only person I've heard that from lately. I just feel like there's so much right now.

32:59
take on more. So yeah, yeah, my husband was chomping at the bit back in January about starting to plan the garden, the farm to market garden that we do every summer. And he said, I think I'm going to cut back on the different things we grow and just grow the things that we know we can sell. And I said, Are you sure? And he said, Yeah, he said, because broccoli

33:26
Broccoli is a crapshoot. We never know if it's going to grow well, and we never know if anybody's going to buy it. Same with cauliflower. He said, so I don't think we're going to grow those this year. And I said, okay. He said, tomatoes always sell, cucumbers always sell, green beans always sell. He said, there are things that people just want lots of. He said, I would rather do it that way. He said, so I'm just, I'm going to cut back a little bit.

33:55
And I said, that's fine. It's your baby do what you want to do with it. And then I had someone else say to me, I'm changing my work paradigm. I'm cutting these things out because they don't, they don't give me enough return on the investment. And then someone else said it to me like a week later. And now you're saying that you're, yeah, this is, I don't know, maybe it's post COVID hangover. Everybody was all excited about their brand new ideas

34:25
their go-get-em spirit and now it's been four years? Yes. And they're like, huh, we might've bitten off more than we can chew or maybe we're just pivoting or maybe it's just time for a reevaluation. Yeah, absolutely. Just to find the things, A, that are the most profitable, like your husband's doing, right? It just makes sense. Yeah. So, I mean, we went from probably

34:55
40 different varieties of flowers down to 15. I could go down to five. I really, I would love to. So it's just finding, you know, what it is that we know grows well and that people love. Yeah, finding the secret sauce to your business. Yeah. So I'm going to say this and then we'll wrap it up.

35:21
Number one, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me because I wasn't quite sure what your story was and I love flowers so I will always be happy to listen to stories about flowers. But the other thing I wanted to say is that the longer I do this podcast, the more I feel like it is a study of people and social norms.

35:49
I keep hearing things and then I hear it from other people. And there's always like a theme for the year or a theme for the season we're in. And I feel like the theme for 2024 is people now having the chance to take a breath from all of the things that started with COVID. Because COVID gave everybody a chance to take a big collective breath and go, okay, what are we doing? Yeah.

36:17
Now, four years later, everybody's taking a big collective breath and saying, what are we doing based on what we've done? How cool is that? Yeah. So I feel like I'm conducting a philosophical social studies experiment here with this podcast. It's been really, really fun. And it's been eight months now. Really? Yep. Wow. Yep. And the more I talk with people, the more I learn. And for me, the more I learn, the more questions I have.

36:47
Yeah. So, so I just, I love this so much and I'm really glad that you had a chance to chat with me this morning. I am. Thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure. All right. Have a great day, Amber. Yes, you too, Mary. Thank you.