I recently recorded the first episode of my new podcast, reflecting on the flower farming advice I gave in this video three years ago.
Now that I’m in year five of my business, do I still agree with what I originally talked about? Let’s get into it. And for those of you who’d rather just listen to the podcast episode, check out the YouTube live below. (Once I’ve recorded a few more episodes, I’ll upload the audio-only version onto all the major podcasting platforms!)
How It All Started: The Backyard Days
My flower farming journey began in the Nutana area of Saskatoon, where I had a garden advantageously located in the middle of the city. This central location made it convenient for customers across the city to buy flowers. My initial garden was modest—approximately 12–16 feet by 20–24 feet, plus a few raised beds. From this space, I managed to produce 3–10 bouquets weekly. (I could have pushed it to 15 if I wasn’t saving flowers for content creation and social media!)
Transitioning to the Acreage
We’re now in our third year at the acreage, a move we had anticipated for some time. We were fortunate to start gardening here before actually moving, which gave us a head start on soil preparation. Our current growing space includes:
- A main area of 40×90 feet
- Four 4×8 raised beds in what I call the “glamour garden”
- Three additional raised beds behind the house (my low-pressure experimentation space!)
Business Evolution: Then vs. Now
My backyard flower farm started during the COVID era, primarily focusing on pop-up sales. The timing actually worked in my favour. During the pandemic, you could post bouquets for sale online, and they’d sell almost immediately. Even as that initial surge slowed down, sales were still strong.
From my backyard garden, I gradually expanded into events and weddings. I completed orders for my first six weddings using primarily flowers from that small space! While I did need to supplement with additional flowers for these events, the smaller order sizes matched perfectly with what my backyard could produce.
Our business model has grown significantly since moving to the acreage. Here’s what we currently offer:
- A farm stand (launched last year and still growing)
- Seasonal markets (approximately 10 per year)
- Weddings (we did 20 last season!)
- Bouquet subscriptions (serving 15-20 regular subscribers)
While some aspects are still developing, we’ve come a long way from those early backyard days. This year, I’m focusing on increasing our flower production to better meet the growing demand, especially for our farm stand operation. My word of the year is abundance!
Revisiting My Old Advice
1. Lower Costs at a Smaller Scale
Do I still agree with this? Absolutely.
I’ve struggled in the last two years with trying to manage how much I need to spend on investing versus how much profit that leaves me with. When I was in the backyard, my seed costs were maybe $300-400. We didn’t even have any irrigation or sprinklers! I just hand watered everything. We had a rain barrel, so we got half the water we needed from that, and watering the garden didn’t make that much of a difference on our water bill.
Now, we still don’t have an irrigation system, but we do have sprinklers. I try to save as much water as possible by hand watering, but I’m still using the sprinklers regularly. (Plus, I’m on city water even though I’m on an acreage, so our water bill definitely goes up by about $200 a month just from the flower farm!) This also depends on what the weather is like. Last year it wasn’t that bad, but we had a leak, so that made our water bill a little more expensive.
Even building a well has associated costs. On this property, there is an old well, but it’s not currently operational. To get it operational, I’m sure it would cost at least $1000. When you’re able to use rainwater, it’s just so much simpler. Setting up an irrigation system, if we chose to do that in the future because of the scale we have, again would be another $1000 or so.
Even if I’d chosen irrigation in my backyard, that would probably be more like a $200 investment.
Regarding amendments, in a backyard it was so much easier to find the amount of compost I needed or to get grass clippings or leaves from someone nearby. I didn’t need much, and it was pretty easy to source everything.
Now, if I need grass clippings or leaves, I don’t need just two or three bags, I need like 1-4 dump trucks full! For a while, we didn’t have a decent truck, so it was difficult to find someone to come out to the acreage and provide us with what we required.
That’s another thing when you scale up. If you’re on a rural property, getting people to come to you–if you don’t have a truck or trailer to pick things up–becomes so much more complicated. As I said before, when I was in the middle of the city, that really wasn’t an issue because everybody delivered to me. Even if I only had the car, I required fewer resources at a small scale. And even if we did have a truck, chances are I could at least fit half of the bags of compost or whatever I needed to work with in my garden in the truck bed.
2. Less Space Equals Less Risk
This is still so true.
When I would lose crops in the backyard, it sucked. But, because my orders were smaller, we weren’t spending as much money to replace seed packets, try to regrow, or buy from other flower farmers.
This spring, I just couldn’t for the life of me get stuff to start from direct seeding. It was just a bad spring for it. I probably bought an additional $200-300 worth of seeds just to try to regrow what I’d already lost. Because of the scale I’m at now, it’s that much more expensive. I feel like I haven’t got my financials completely done yet for the whole year, but because I lost so many seedlings, I had to buy from other flower farmers. I feel like at the end of the year, we might have profited, but it’s not going to be very much. We might just be past the breakeven point. If I hadn’t lost all those things, I feel like we would have had a decent profit.
Again, when it’s on a smaller scale, it just doesn’t hurt so much.
3. Small Space Mistakes Prepare You for Scaling Up
I don’t know if I agree with this anymore.
I’m going to amend this to say you’ll learn from the growing mistakes you make in your first garden. If you’re brand-new to cut flower gardening, doing it in your backyard is great because that is the time to mess up on the seed starting, to mess up on the growing, to mess up on all those things. Plus, like I said above, if you have to rebuy seeds, try to redo things, or, God forbid, go to the greenhouse and buy starts, it’s not so terrible at a small scale.
When you scale up, going to a greenhouse and buying what you weren’t able to grow is probably not an option because it’s just so expensive. When that does happen to me, I will still buy a few things from Patti (the owner of Mother Earth, a greenhouse I can literally walk to, I live so close to it). Every so often I’ll buy 4-6 eucalyptus or lisianthus starts, just so I have them for pictures, but if I had to do it for flower farming, that wouldn’t make as much sense for my budget.
A Reality Check on Income
For context, a backyard operation producing 10-15 bouquets weekly at $35-40 each might generate around $3000 during our short growing season on the Canadian prairies. This is perfect for supplemental income—think swimming lessons or family vacations—but it’s not mortgage-paying territory.
The beauty of starting small is that it allows you to learn, experiment, and grow at a manageable pace while minimizing financial risk. Whether you stay small or eventually scale up, those early lessons in backyard flower farming are invaluable—just remember that each scale brings its own unique challenges and opportunities.
Final Thoughts on Starting Small
Looking back at my advice from three years ago, I stand by most of what I shared, with one key revision. While small-scale mistakes are valuable learning experiences, the consequences of errors at a larger scale are significantly more impactful. It’s not just about learning from mistakes, it’s about understanding how those lessons translate to different scales of operation.
There’s Never a “Perfect” Time
One philosophy I’ve come to embrace is that there’s never going to be a “perfect” time to start flower farming, or anything else for that matter. Whether you’re juggling young children, waiting for ideal circumstances, or hoping for the “right” moment, that perfect alignment rarely comes.
Instead of waiting for your children to reach school age or for all conditions to be perfect, consider starting small and growing gradually. A messy flower farm now could evolve into a thriving business by the time those ideal conditions arrive. The key is to start somewhere, even if it’s not perfect.
The Staffing Challenge
As you scale up, hiring becomes a consideration that brings its own complexities. While I’ve been fortunate with excellent staff, finding trustworthy and reliable help can be challenging. Even with great employees, there’s a significant training investment:
- Most new hires need about three months to become confident in their role
- Skills like weeding, seed starting, and harvesting all require specific training
- The real payoff comes in the second season, when staff return with experience and need minimal guidance
Resources for Your Flower Farming Journey
As I rewatched the video, it was so interesting to see the resources and books I’d shared in their first iterations. Over the years, I’ve developed several comprehensive guides based on my experiences, and they’ve evolved significantly from their first editions! These resources reflect my journey from backyard gardener to acreage owner, and each has been refined based on real experiences and lessons learned along the way.
Whether you’re starting small or dreaming big, there’s something for you here. Plus, since making that video three years ago, all the books below are available in digital and physical copies!
Cut Flowers Made Simple
Perfect for beginners and backyard growers, this guide provides foundational knowledge for starting your flower growing journey.
Bouquets Made Beautiful
An expanded guide to creating stunning arrangements, now including detailed “recipes” and project instructions for various bouquet styles.
The Frost Proof Flower Garden
What began as a modest 20-page guide has grown into an extensive resource, detailing cold-tolerance information for numerous flowers—knowledge gained through years of hands-on (and sometimes unfortunate) experience with frost-hardy varieties.
The Cut Flower Seed Saving Companion
This is the first book I ever wrote! It’s a visual-rich resource perfect for both backyard gardeners and larger operations, with expanded content and practical stories from my years of experience with cut flowers.
Flower Farmer Garden Planner
I didn’t have this resource back when I first recorded my advice, but this is a perfect planner if you’re running a cut flower business on an acreage or farm-scale!
Business Basics for Flower Farmers
Also a newer resource, this content was originally offered as a course, but is now available as a comprehensive self-paced guide covering essential marketing and business management skills for new flower farmers.
If you liked this blog post, find me on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram for more cold-climate gardening tips, delicious recipes, and cut flower goodness! I also make weekly videos over on my YouTube channel. I hope to see you there!
Want to start your own cut flower business?
Marketing is the core of a successful flower-farming business. This bundle will teach you the basics of running the back end of your business, targeting your ideal customer, making money as a flower farmer, pricing your work, standing out from the competition, and so much more! Plus, at the end, we bring it all together and show you how to make your own plan that you can easily implement–so you don’t forget about your main goals as the days and months slip by!
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