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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Cut flower planting schedule

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  • From: Shawnee Flowerfarmer <farmingflowers AT hotmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cut flower planting schedule
  • Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 20:01:12 -0500




This is a very big topic, as you can tell from some of the posts.  

I have been growing cut flowers commercially for various venues since 1980.  I have never needed a license to do this although I have been down the road of ....a)organically certified greenhouse (MOSA),  b)Illinois nurseryman's license and c) Illinois nursery license.   To simply grow, cut and twiddle the flowers into market bouquets, no license has ever been required in my experience.

 

I plant hardy, half-hardy and tender annuals, perennials, bulbs and harvest lots of other things too as emergencies occur.  Most often, I prefer to cut early in the day and put the flowers directly into buckets of H2O and a professional preservation solution.  Whenever possible-given various resources-the flowers are then put into a cooler quickly and bunched into bouquets later.  (I just wrote that sentence easily...but this means that I-and sometimes helpers-drive out to the fields with a pick-up truck full of buckets of water, sharp pruners, cut flowers and then charge back out of the sun)  I frequently then put the bouquets into five gallon buckets with a fresh preservative solution to go to market.   Often, I have been up late, long after the veggie harvest has been processed, bunching flowers into bouquets for tomorrow's market.  (I sit the buckets in wooden crates to disguise the plastic)  (At one market I had shiny galvanized tubs filled with water, a piece of fencing over the top to support the bouquets.  A very nice look)

 

Sometimes, premade bouquets sell very well.  Other times, people will line up for a custom made bouquet assembled from buckets of individual stems.  If you can figure out how to predict the desires of the general public on a regular basis, you will be a rich man.

 

Some of my favorite things.....shrubs than I can harvest for filler foliage....bridal wreath spirea is a good one for the entire season, forsythia, Nanking Cherry, pussy willow for early spring when people crave flowers and we crave cash flow; hardy annuals that I can sow into a flat in January/ February, put outside the greenhouse for cold scarification and then transplant into the fields in early spring....buplerum, Bells of Ireland, larkspur, Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate, snapdragons, Covent Garden Baby's Breath, nigella, and many more;  Ammi majus, Bishop's Weed which looks like Queen Anne's lace but has a lovely green scent;  Cilantro flowers, which also resemble Queen Anne's Lace; and of course, Queen Anne's Lace itself, which city folk love combined with sunflowers, golden rod and Big Blue Stem flowers.  (Even bean flowers look good in a bouquet.  Try it!  No one will be able to identify the flowers.  Okra pods-too far gone for eating- can sell well with sunflowers, too)

 

Eucalyptus is easy to grow from seed and makes a good filler.  Verbena bonarensis and Jewels of Opar, both of which will provide good stems all season, are excellent also.

 

The biennials help you get a jump on the season....have lovely market bouquets early on, perhaps mixed with bulbs and peonies,....sweet william, Canterbury bells etc.  My approach is not so much succession sowing as it is knowing how to grow the flowers in their season of best bloom.

 

I usually only grow the large zinnias...Benary's, State Fair, Oklahoma...individual colors in beds...seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds or Stokes, and don't succession sow them.  Constant cutting keeps them coming along regularly.  Dahlias, ditto, seed grown also.  Celosia, ditto.  I always plan to have beds of cosmos, all colors and sizes, but planted just once after the last frost. 

 

I rarely succession sow anything.  Instead, I plan to have flowers blooming in season and make the bouquets accordingly.  Annual rudbeckia-gloriosa daisy-I plant varieties with different bloom times.  Sunflowers...usually so many colors and types that the bloom times adjust themselves for my supply.   The earliest blooming sunflowers may go into a bouquet with zinnias and cosmos while the latest bloomers might be combined with kale leaves, big blue stem flowers and goldenrod.  Customers do  pay for novelty.

 

 

Props for the bouquets can make a lot of difference in sales.....bouquet wrapping, a piece of cheap ribbon, your card, or tag included.  I have also done a cut flower CSA/type program....4 weeks of cut flower bouquets for the going price.  Worked out very well because I was near a large metropolitan area.

 

At the moment, I am in the nursery business and one of biggest  ornamental sellers this season in bedding plants and containers is.....wait for it....Swiss Chard, Bright Lights variety.  A couple of years ago, I was cutting this all the time for a veggie CSA, developing yummy recipes to sell it and now everybody wants the plant in a pot for decorative purposes.   Go figure.

 

Shawnee, zone 5 on this planet  

 
Andy,   I can help you with some ideas....but first, your growing zone, space etc? Also storage/cooling facilities?
 
Shawnee, zone 5 mostly

I have 10 acres in Zone 6, South East PA. I uses to old refrigerators for cooling. This is my first year growing bedding plants and cut flowers.

 

Andy King

Sunflower King's Farm

 


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