Welcome to Rooted Agritourism. I'm Dr. Liz Fidler
-Murgan, owner of Sunny Mary Meadow, a U -Pick
flower farm, wedding florist, and event venue
in central Minnesota. Our mission is to serve
anyone rooted in agritourism, value -added agriculture,
and rural entrepreneurship. The people turning
ideas and raw products into thriving businesses
and experiences. Let's dig in. Welcome back to
another episode of the Rooted Agritourism Podcast.
I'm your host, Dr. Liz Fidler -Morgan. And before
we dive in, I want to be really clear about something.
We're going to talk about crop planning for your
flower farm. If you follow my farm on social
media, Instagram, Sunny Mary Meadow, you see
that I sell my flowers for a lot of different
outlets. And my farm, every single farm is going
to look... unique compared to everyone else's.
We all have different pathways to how we define
success. We all have different ways that we sell
flowers. And something that I've been very clear
on is think of flowers as food. Saying that you're
a flower farm is like saying you're in the food
industry. You grow flowers, but are you a restaurant?
Are you fast food? Are you... a culinary experience.
You can have a lot of different pathways to success.
Whatever that means to you, I want you to just
kind of lean in and learn what you can from this
episode. So first of all, this is not a commercial
for my new platform, Farmers to Florist. Of course,
I'm going to talk about it, but it is a tool
that we use on our own farm because we built
it. for us and i think it's going to be amazing
for the majority of listeners but it's not for
everyone but this episode is about the principles
of crop planning not software you can do all
of this manually in a notebook pen and paper
spreadsheets the platform simply makes the manual
work faster and cleaner and less error prone
which ultimately saves time and money but that's
it you do not need it so we're going to talk
about the basics and if you're curious about
the platform there'll be more information about
it but crop planning isn't about control it's
about alignment it's about aligning your bloom
time with how and when you actually sell your
flowers that's it making sure that your flowers
are blooming, when you're going to need them
so that you can actually sell them. And I'm going
to kind of try to ground this with real numbers
from my farm. I have about a thousand peony plants
that are going on year three. So from experience,
I know that the earliest varieties, usually the
last two years have been blooming May 26, May
27, June 1. So I grow a wide range of varieties
of them. And my peony harvest stretches about
two weeks because I have early bloomers, late
bloomers. And because of this, I can predictably
know that I'm not going to plan on my own peonies
for that first wedding of the year. May 30th
or whatever. It'd be great if I have some because
they'd be really useful. But the three, four
weekends after that, I will definitely plan on
using peonies and dry packing them in the cooler.
And the thing is, peonies are not just flowers.
They're labor, they're cooler space, they're
cashflow, they're customer expectations. For
me, they are a very highly used flower. And I
do have two walk -in coolers. One is my old one
that is in the original. butcher shop that was
here on this farm. And then one is my new one
in my new space. And that is dedicated to tulips
and peonies. I use the old one for, and then
the new one is the one that we're using for our
regular fresh florals. Even before we talk about
sales, the main thing that I start planning on
for the year is crop planning. And it really
just affects all of those decisions. So something
that often gets lost in conversations. is about
the planning. And when you're just starting as
a new flower farmer, crop planning might not
be that critical. So if your business model is
simple, like a you pick. a farm stand, casual
market sales. You can keep things simple. You
can go by your last frost date. You can direct
sow those heat loving annuals, the sunflowers,
the zinnias, the cosmos, and sell what you have
when it's blooming. You can pretty well predict
your subscriptions around. that frost date of
those heat loving annuals. And that keeps it
pretty straightforward. And that's what I did
for a long time until I started booking things
that were not in alignment with those heat loving
annuals and deciding that I wanted to learn how
to serve those customers, enter high tunnels
with or without a heater and really extending
my season and planning for it. In the early years,
you can have that simplicity and That is just
as important to have that strategy in the very
beginning. But once you move into crops like
lisianthus and ranunculus and tulips and dahlias
and snapdragons and bupleurum that are one and
done and you have to have a plan for when they're
blooming, these crops require planning because
they are slow. They are expensive and they are
timing dependent. At its core, crop planting
means two things. When will this crop bloom and
how will I sell it when it does? And so that
includes a lot of succession planting. You know,
you can sit there and grow 200 sunflowers every
10 days so that you always have that focal flower.
Or for me, I just grow about a thousand of them
to be blooming first week of August. And August
10th, I have an event on my farm called Sunfest.
I have a thousand sunflowers that are blooming
and that takes care of it. And then, you know,
I use them in bouquets and there's some still
blooming in the field. And I'm not replanting
them all the time because they're not a flower
that I can use for weddings. They're not a flower
that is desired for that type of work. So they're
just, they're not useful to me other times of
the year. But like it or not, flowers like snapdragons
and lisianthus, they're succession planted. And
yes, snapdragons will bloom. longer they're kind
of cut and come again but if I plant them you
know mid -June I'll have a big three -week burst
of them in September so planning that out. This
year I have my three high tunnels and my biggest
one is 3 ,200 square feet and it has two heaters
and that allows for serious season extension
here in Minnesota. The basic manual process is
write down when you plant everything Look up
the days to maturity. I would say give or take
two week window, depending on sun and conditions.
And then you have your harvest window. And that
experience will come from trial and error, learning
from other growers and Googling the days to maturity
and track what actually happens on your farm
in your zone. And crop planning isn't about predicting
the future. It's about narrowing the window so
that you're not guessing. So why this matters.
from a business perspective is on my farm, about
50 % of what we grow goes into our own events.
That includes weddings, rehearsal dinners, baby
showers, bridal showers, where the colors and
varieties. matter. I'm doing a lot more pinks
and blues because we host at least a couple bridal
showers every weekend on our farm and that's
getting booked out. Rehearsal dinners before
the wedding, sometimes they're picking a totally
different color palette than they're having for
the wedding the next day. Sometimes they're using
the same flowers that they're using for their
wedding and just getting more of them or upgrading,
reusing them two days in a row, a lot of different
options. But then those weddings, of course,
I know that I need those specific colors those
specific weeks. So if I know that I have an all
white wedding in August. I need white flowers
blooming in August. And that means planting them
at specific times for that specific plant, entering
it into the crop planner and looking at when
they're supposed to be blooming. And then that'll
tell me. So that was about 50 % of the flowers
that we grow. And then about 20 % of what we
grow is for other florists. So again, those same
florists need specific colors at specific times.
And that requires planning on both sides. And
then the remaining. 30 % of what we grow. I'm
not gonna say it doesn't matter, but that remaining
30 % goes into market bouquets, subscriptions.
If we are hosting events at our venue, like corporate
retreats, they want beautiful flowers, but...
It's less concerning about what the exact colors
are. And so that mix only works if you plan ahead.
And so they're not necessarily getting the leftovers
for those events. It's just maybe the colors
that we didn't need that week. They're still
very premium, nice, lovely flowers. It's just
if we had certain color palettes those weeks,
this is a way that we can use our other flowers.
And that mix and that business model really only
works if you plan ahead. And that's where...
Tools can come in. You can use pen and paper.
You can use a spreadsheet. You can use a whiteboard,
take a picture of it. I've done it all. We built
Farmers to Florists just to reduce the repetition
and the mental load and get it all on paper.
And it doesn't replace that experience. It replaces
doing the same work over and over again. Because
basically you can enter planning dates once.
see the projected windows instead of guessing.
You can adjust the planting quantities or the
planting dates, and then it automatically adjusts
the harvest window or the projected inventory.
And you can allocate those crops across those
multiple sales channels. And then you can have
planting and harvest lists. planned out. So then
you know exactly what gets planted when, and
you can definitely do all of those things manually,
but that's really what crop planning is. And
so this tool is meant to reduce the time rechecking
and adjusting spreadsheets. Cause if you change
the date that you planted something by a couple
of weeks, then you're going to change the date
that those things are ready by a couple of weeks.
And so in Minnesota zone four B. It's January.
I just booked a $5 ,000 wedding for August. I
just booked it now, literally yesterday. And
her flowers are beautiful. It's a lot of just
garden -y vibes and some green cascade amaranth
and white lisianthus and Queen Anne's lace and
white snapdragons and bupleurum and a lot of
flowers that are achieved with the local list.
We will... Probably have to buy some hydrangeas,
possibly some white roses. I'm really hoping
our own dahlias will be ready at that time too.
And then some greens we'll have to supplement
from the wholesaler. But otherwise, I'm trying
to grow to order for that wedding. So basically,
I'm going to take amaranth. I know that it blooms
in roughly seven weeks after planting it. Lysianthus,
that's been about 14 weeks. I'm going to count
backwards from that. And then I'll enter it in
the... crop planter on the date that I would
plant it. And I will, you know, just work backwards
from when I need to harvest it. And so for those
things, I know that they last a long time in
the cooler. Therefore I will have them ready
to bloom. that projected window about a week
prior to needing them because they can sit in
the cooler. So then decide how to source those,
whether it's seeds, plugs, both, and again, just
work backwards. And that decision can live on
paper. It can live in a tool, but either way,
that decision has to be made. So however you
end up doing it, crop planning is not about being
perfect. It's just about making decisions early
when you still have the options. If you are interested
in learning more or just curious if this could
be a good tool. for you. We do have open office
hours for farmers to florists and it's Monday
nights at 8 PM central Thursday mornings at 10
AM central. If you just go to farmers to florist
.com, there's a banner across the top that says
office hours. You click on it. There's literally
the direct zoom link. You don't have to enter
your email. You don't have to do anything. You
just pop on. It's me and either Caleb or Justin
say, hi, there are a lot of users that are already
using it, that are using it to ask questions
or make suggestions or things. that they want
to change or things that they like or just feedback.
Or if you're curious, if it could be right for
you and you want to see a live demonstration,
you can join that way. So no pressure to buy
anything. Ask questions about crop planning.
It doesn't have to be about the tool. If you're
saying, hey, I'm really confused on how I'm supposed
to do this. How do you know what's blooming when?
You know, we can talk through real scenarios,
whether you use any sort of software or not.
There isn't a tool out there similar to this.
There's some things where you can list your inventory
and there's different plans. platforms for selling
but as far as i know there is not a crop planner
like this which is why we built it so just less
stress fewer surprises use more of what you actually
grow And crop planning does not have to be fancy.
It's just respectful of your time, your labor
and your flowers. Thank you so much for listening.
Another episode of Rotted Agritourism. This weekend,
we have Flower Farmer Forum Conference at our
farm. We've got over 30 flower farmers coming.
There's a couple getting on airplanes. They're
coming across states. I think we have five different
states where farmers are coming from, but just
coming to learn and connect and hear from speakers.
Yeah, I'm really excited for where things are
going and we'll continue. continue chugging away
at Flower Farming. So thanks for listening. Thank
you so much for listening to this episode of
Rooted Agritourism. If you enjoyed it, please
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