If you’ve ever entertained the idea of starting a flower farm (who hasn’t?), today is the day to dig in a bit more and get the scoop. See below to read the show notes, listen to the podcast, or read the transcript.
Kylie Gray Ailers joins Bailey on The Garden Culture Podcast and goes deep into her journey of starting a flower farm. Kylie owns and operates Gray Girl Farms which sells Dahlia flowers and tubers, as well as peonies now. Kylie walks us through the surprising agronomy side of growing tubers (it’s like growing potatoes!), as well as the details on getting started with purchasing wholesale tubers, operating costs, getting soil samples, the works. Kylie shares about her “do less and get good” philosophy as well as how she avoids staking her dahlias, against the internet’s recommendation. Kylie is motivated by teaching her children to have a strong work ethic as well as leaving them a flower legacy and her story is proof of that, as well as encouraging for anyone looking to jump into flower farming.
085. What It Really Means To Be "Clean" Beauty with Emilie Toups – The Garden Culture Podcast with Bailey Van Tassel
For more info on Kylie, www.graygirlfarms.com or follow her on Instagram at www.instagram.com/graygirlfarms
Kylie’s Book Recommendations:
Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden
For more info on Bailey www.baileyvantassel.com or follow her on Instagram at www.instagram.com/baileyvantassel
Get free downloads and hardiness-zone-specific planting charts at stan.store/baileyvantassel
For more information on Pinetree Garden Seeds, visit superseeds.com with the code GARDENCULTURE24 for 20% off
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Welcome to the Garden Culture Podcast, hosted by me, Bailey Van Tassel. I’m a self -taught gardener, busy wife and mother, and small business owner on a mission to live a garden -inspired life.
Each month, we will explore what’s going on in the garden and fields, as well as get to know incredible people who infuse their own lives with the magic of the garden. For more information on any techniques,
recipes, or ideas mentioned here, please visit us at www .BaileyVanTassel .com /podcast. Welcome back to the Garden Culture podcast.
I am so excited to jump into the episode. I just don’t even want to wait. So just quickly giving you background, I interview Kylie Gray Eylers of Gray Girl Farms.
She is a dolly of farm where you guys, we are getting the inside scoop on what it takes to start a flower farm. And she goes into the details on the different parts of the farm. between growing Dahlia’s four cut flowers versus four tubers and why she decided to grow both as well as her unique approach to growing them,
which is so interesting. Kylie has a background in agronomy and in agriculture from her families like past 100 years of farming.
So she has a really, really interesting perspective on the industry at large, but really different. jumped in with both feet on wanting to have a flower farm, and it is such a cool story. I cannot wait for you guys to jump in.
Hello, beautiful Miss Kylie, how are you? – Hi, I’m good, I’m doing great. – I’m so excited about this conversation. I feel like,
and I know you’re gonna dig into this, but I feel like flower farming is a hot topic. topic and you have been someone who I’ve just loved watching grow online.
You’ve also contributed to my garden club, the kitchen garden society, with your professional advice. I just love how you’ve followed your dreams into starting a flower farm like everybody thinks that they want to do.
And I’m just so excited to dig into it with you today. – Thanks, I’m really excited to be here. I told my husband, I’m like, man, I’m asked to be on a podcast. I got asked to be on two podcasts this year.
Does this mean I made it? – Oh, get it girl? – Yep, I’m like, I’m feeling real blood. So thank you. I’m not sure I’m the best, you know, the best at it or whatever, but I sure will die trying.
So I’m excited to be on it and thanks for the opportunity. – Of course, of course. – So. So before we even dig into the flower farm component,
I would love to hear a little bit about your background. So how did you get into gardening slash farming? Like did you grow up doing any sort of agricultural,
anything, was your family into it, or was this something you came to as an adult? – Yeah, so I’ll touch on both my agriculture background and mine. gardening one.
So I’ll start with gardening. I have gardened my entire life. I have like vivid memories of A, pulling weeds with my siblings, not liking my mom because of it.
And now I make my kids do that. And then also, my mom just planted flowers everywhere and I always loved it. And I have just very vivid memories planting draniums with her and that was her love.
And now in my own life, I love planting flowers outside of flower farming. My container gardens are like my happiness. Like for Mother’s Day every year,
my husband’s like, “What do you want?” I’m like, “I just want you to not ask about how much money I spend on my flower pots.” That’s what I want. Yes. That’s how I get into gardening.
I just always did it with my mom, and then as an adult, I wanted something else to do, you know, pick up a hobby. So I just carried that with me. And then as for agriculture,
I’ve been involved in agriculture most of my life. My background was in commercial farming for my family’s been involved in agriculture for I’m the fifth generation,
so over a hundred. Wow. Um, and… it’s like a long process of I always knew I wanted to farm. And I didn’t have the opportunity to farm with my family.
And then I married a guy who, Cole’s family has been involved in agriculture a lot of his life. And we are involved in agriculture, but not production farming and our other businesses.
And so I always really wanted that portion of it. And I spent a lot, the first, uh, six months. or seven years of my professional career commercial farming and I’ve actually I don’t know if I’ve shared this part of my life online so this is I lost a lot of money and as a first generation farm commercial farming is really hard and so I was growing beans I was growing Timothy hey I was growing buckwheat corn grain
corn different commercial crops where I was renting the ground and I didn’t have a lot of money to start up with, but at a certain time I was farming about 1200 acres of commercial crops.
And after I had my third son, it was just a really hard year. I had just had two babies and who liked two years.
my and that I was going into that portion of motherhood and I was just having a really hard time and I was losing money and And I mean I lost a significant many amounts of money And I just like to my as I was like this just isn’t working and I kind of put the Put the dream to rest basically and I sold out of what I was doing and paid my bank back and moved on So it was,
it was pretty cool when I ended and it was really depressing and I was just exhausted from it and I like took a break and so I would stay at home mom and worked in our,
you know, in our office for our business for a few years and went through a period where I was struggling with postpartum depression. I have five kids that are very close in age and it’s not something I don’t know if I recommend.
I mean, how can you not just be wrecked by that, like your body and your hormones and everything about you changing all of those times? I just,
so I just had to take a moment because I just think about that because it’s like, I’ve had five pregnancies in six years, three actual children, and it’s like, can I get a minute? Girl needs to catch her breath.
Yes, I agree. That’s, I think that in society we live in, there’s just not enough time for a woman to process what she’s going through. And like,
every time you have another kid, your life changes. And so it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t, like, it was just, everything kind of felt like it was spiraling out of control, honestly. like, it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t, like, it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t, like, it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t,
like, it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t, like, it was just changing so fast and I wasn’t, I had a really hard time after that. So, yeah. And I, looking back, I’m very grateful. I don’t know that I will stay away from commercial farming forever.
That’s my end goal. No, I said commercial. That’s my end goal is to be able to have something sustainable that is is something I can build for a long time and honestly my flowers are kind of starting to turn into that where five years ago when I started out I don’t know if I thought that.
I really, I always tell people how I started my flower farm was I called my husband Cole and we lived in a very small house and I think I had just had I was pregnant with my husband Cole.
my fifth baby and Cole was working, we drove wells, we drove water wells for a living and so Cole was working on a well project that wasn’t going great and he was gone all the time and I was sobbing crying and I’m like I’m gonna start a flower farm and he’s probably at that moment would have told me yes to anything to get me to stop crying and he did he’s like great start a flower barb What do you like,
what do you need from me? And that’s kind of how it was birthed. And I very intentionally knew I wanted to start with Dahlia’s. My background has been in agronomy.
I went to school for that. And I had worked in seed sales, I had worked in fertilizer sales. And so,
and my dad had done potato work over the years. also. And so the, the correlation was is that dahlias and potatoes are from the same family. They’re both a tuber.
Yeah. Um, and in my mind, I looked at it and said, if I can grow these dahlias the same way people around me are growing thousands of acres of potatoes, the county I live in produces the most potatoes or is the highest producing potato county in the,
I think the world, like we grow more potatoes. here than anywhere else. Um, and I’m like, if I, including Idaho, which is like where everyone thinks Idaho, no, I’m like,
okay, cool. It’s just cause they got that big potato on wheels. Um, but we grow the most potatoes here in Washington in grand county where I live. So, um, wow, shout out to royal city,
I guess, um, but it’s very cool. Yeah. People never know that. So I, that’s a I looked at it as I said, “If I can do this,” and so I talked to my dad a lot and we kind of went back and forth on it,
and that was my plan. And so when I started out, a lot of people think that you have to grow a lot of things. So one of my number one questions is,
“What filler should I grow for my bouquets?” And I’m like, “I have no idea.” Because I just grow down. dahlia, or I do grow other things now, but when I,
when you’re, I think that one portion of starting a flower farm is due less, like in a society that makes you think you have to do more, just pick a few things and get good at them.
You know, so for me, is when I am selling cut flowers, I just sell dahlia bundles. I sell mason jars of dahlia. I sell buckets of dahlias and people are coming to me for these bars specifically to be their focal point flowers or just for a beautiful bokeh in their house of dahlias too.
And so you don’t have to have, you know, all the things where, because for me and my brain, I can’t even wrap my head around still like, Oh, I’m going to go look at the back of all these seed things and figure out how we’ll grow all of them.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s just get overwhelmed real quick. Let’s just, so then we don’t start at all. Well, a question about your business too, to take a step back. So give us an overarching view on exactly what your flower farm consists of,
like how big is it? What do you grow and who’s your customer? Okay, great. Great. So right now, I grow Dahlia tubers only. I’m getting ready to glue into another type of flower,
but I haven’t announced that yet. Maybe I’ll think I’ll announce that over here. We’ll see. So I just grow Dahlia tubers. And so my business consists of selling the Dahlia tuber itself and selling the cut flower.
And I think there are two really important things of what’s made me successful is because I’m able to generate income two times a year. because when you think of a fresh cut flower business,
you know, your fresh cut flowers are only in bloom from the state to the state. We’ve got no other way to make money on that other six months of the year. And for me, selling the dye YouTubers gets me income more than that one time a year,
which has been a big portion of it. And so that’s the wholesale side of your business. Is the tubers or do you sell direct to consumer on the tubers? That’s a great question. I sell direct to consumer,
Dahlia tubers and flowers, and then I also sell wholesale the tubers and the flowers. So in the summertime, while my flowers are blooming,
I’m selling buckets of flowers to a wholesaler. That has come over the years. That wasn’t when I started out. And then I also sell buckets of flowers.
of flour. So it’s like a lot of times people will contact me and say, this is their color scheme. And then I sell 35 flowers in a bucket. And so I do Friday pickups because for weddings is basically what I’m serving is people show up Friday and they load the back of their trunk with these buckets and they go do their own for.
So I am an awful forest. I do arrange flowers. Do not I would never do it. it. Um, and because, and so that’s I’ve really honed in on is I think,
find what you’re good at and don’t feel like you have to do it all. Um, I went to like a class on how to do a full to be a forest and I’m like, yeah, this is, I have an older sister who’s amazing at it.
Like all older sisters are amazing and everything. Just let those people be good. I love that so much. much. Well, and I think that there is a big distinction between like,
do you wanna be growing flowers or do you like, and same thing with gardening. It’s like, sometimes I actually just wanna like, get the garden set up and produce the fruit and I’m happy to have other people come harvest it and like go cooking.
It’s like, there’s a unique satisfaction in that. – Absolutely. – Yeah. – And so I think– ‘Cause I think there are a lot of opportunities flower farming being a hot topic online,
you see so many things about it, but I really kind of think it’s like this onion that you peel back so many layers and there’s so many opportunities of what you can do. I mean,
there’s a farmer florist. You can grow your own flowers and be a florist and people hire you to do their wettings. Like, I know lots of girls who do that and they’re fat. at it.
I You know, I’ve also thought about how much do I really love doing the cut flowers? Last year I had a really hard year. So I felt like in my life I needed it.
I needed to let myself breathe so I didn’t push my cut flowers as Hard because I frankly just felt like I couldn’t handle One more thing and so I think there’s a lot of portions of it it that you can do and you just need to figure out What it is that you what parts you enjoy for me.
I really enjoy the growing and harvesting of the tubers That’s that’s where I think like the flowers are added bonus So interesting. So did you find it was really similar growing like growing tubers is a lot like growing potatoes and I’m so interested in the back end of How to make it better how to make the planting portion better,
how I can be more efficient in my field. Growing them with fertilizers I can use. One thing here I get a lot of comments on is I don’t stake my dahlias.
So, dahlias are known for growing very tall, like me and my kids take pictures by them all the time and my boys are like, “These are taller than me,” which is 4 .5 feet tall. And, yeah.
the beginning, I, how do you say this? I get overwhelmed easily. And so I’m like, how can I dumb this down to take out the steps that are going to make this,
make this unenjoyable for me. And so in the beginning, I didn’t stake the dahlias and I took the view with potatoes. If you’re planting them deeper, and you hill them up,
so you get them a very sturdy base. base because potato plants get really tall also. And if you do this, you know,
can I make it work? And so that was how I tried it the first year. And then with fertilizer and putting fertilizer on at the right times of root growth, I’ve been able to establish these plants with really strong root bases and I don’t sink dahlias in where we live,
we get winds up to like 80 mile like we get these windstorms in the fall that are insane. And so I get some real hate comments on social media about that,
but that’s been one part that has been correlated directly back to what I’m doing with fertilizer and the agronomy side of it. And that’s like what makes my brain tick. So, I love that though because you’re so humble and I feel like you’re so…
like you’ve so much humility, but I just love that you’re taking something that can feel really complicated and you’re just making it work for you. And it’s really that simple. It’s like, okay, how can I make this more digestible?
How can I make this easier? It’s a lot of, it shows a lot of grit, like I’m going to make this work and I’m going to figure this out. And I think there’s so much to be learned there because number one,
I think people think there’s just the world is so black and white and it’s just not, but number two, I absolutely am mind blown by the agronomy side of it because I do think a lot of people grow for the blooms and they’re missing a big part of the equation and they’re missing a big part of the science and you’ve unlocked what can make things even more successful by just taking a different perspective at things.
Like I’m so interested. That’s so interesting. Thank you. I mean that’s really what got me so Doing it was okay. That was my literal thought I’m just sitting in this little house with like five kids that were like seven or at the time or something ridiculous and I’m like,
okay if I can do this, I’m gonna make it work and I just think that’s one thing I say to people all the time is you’re like Kylie I’m so overwhelmed or how do I where do I even start and I’m just like get off the internet I stop reading everything and thinking you have to do it all.
Because whenever we think we have to do it all, we actually do nothing. And I figured that I have to go back to the drawing board with myself all the time, or I’m strung out trying to do too many things.
And then everything sucks. And so yeah, that that part of it is for me, I love the flowers. But then at the same point of it, I’m like, wow, that is it’s overwhelming.
There’s lots of parts of it, just keeping track of all the varieties and keeping it organized and researching new varieties and researching what people like. I think there’s another portion of Adalia businesses.
So someone sent me a email recently that’s like, you don’t have any varieties in your sale that look or that are sought after varieties is what this lady told me.
me. Then I was like, “Okay, I’m so sorry you feel that way.” Because I grow a lot of common Dahlia varieties, which are amazing, beautiful, wonderful varieties. But there’s also this whole other portion of the Dahlia business that there’s breeders who are every year releasing these new varieties.
And so when they release them to the public, maybe there’s 200 tubers that go out. These are, quote, unicorns. And so people,
and then they charge very high premiums for them, you know, and they’re fabulous. And I, I grow up to you. I don’t, I don’t really take part in it. I think what I grow is amazing. But I think there’s a whole nother business to be made there and people are doing it where you just get those unicorns and then you mean you’re selling them for 30,
$40 a tuber. Well, because they’re new varieties that have been read directly here in the United States by home gardeners,
which is really fabulous. So okay, tell me more about the, so you’re getting started. I want to showcase what it’s like. So let’s say we’re going to start all over from scratch with a flower farm and it can be a dolly farm for sure.
But like how much land do you need and how do you even begin? Do you like buy the land? Do you rent the land? Do you need to make sure the soil is a certain way? Do you need to invest in the tubers?
Where do you get those? Like run me through the beginning stage, like year one. Yep. Okay. So year one, I actually pulled people on my Instagram. What are some things that I could talk about with you?
Oh, fun to hear. And they said, how do I start? Give me the baby. And I think that number one thing is people think you have to have so much space. You don’t. I am growing dahlias a certain way and it’s taking me a lot of acreage.
And it’s all based on how I’m harvesting them. It’s mechanical. It’s just how I imagine how I want to do it. But there’s also growers with phenomenal growers that are growing on quarter acre.
They’re growing. in raised garden beds that you know. Yeah, or like crates. I’ve seen people in like crates or grow bags. Yeah. So I think that the basic thing is start where you’re at.
What do you have and go there. For me, when I started out, my first year was miserable. I planted them next to our little rental and we were renting it at the time and the farmer that we were renting from had a guy guy that would kind of come take care of stuff.
And he accidentally sprayed them all out. I was sobbing. Again, postpartum depression. I was just like, this train was going to blow up your rails. – That’s amazing that you didn’t give up right then and there.
I would have been like, and we’re done. – Husband, I actually think that I was like, it’s all, it was a waste. This is a dumb idea. And, but anyway, so then after after that I my first year I rented a field that was close to my home and That’s how I did it because I didn’t have a lot I didn’t really have any gardening space that I could do it in So I don’t think there’s a difference of whether you’re growing
them directly in the ground or in a raised garden Do okay for you do it. You you know, don’t feel like you have to do more Do what you have is my startup. So that’s my best goal is because people think that they have to build beautiful garden beds.
- Yeah. Well, how did you calculate, so like not to get too granular, but I do kind of want to, how did you calculate if renting the land was gonna be worth it?
Did you know like, okay, if I, like how many flowers do I grow per square foot and it’s gonna equate to this much money? Or were you just like, I’m just gonna rent this land, seems like a good deal, I’m going on instinct. instinct. I’m gonna like jump into things kind of gal.
So there was not a lot of calculated risks when I did it. But in the years since then I’ve worked backwards and so I don’t know that I have it down to like a cost or you know exactly what I’m getting purple than these types of things.
I would say if you you were starting out, I wouldn’t go, again, big on doing it. My first year, I didn’t make a ton of money because I had rented the land.
I had a lot of weeds. So I had to hire help weeding. I had to hire help just maintaining everything. So my best advice is I think that I would start with what you have as a growing space.
So say you have two flower beds that are four by two. 4 by 10 feet long And you can grow doubt dahlia’s need 12 inches apart is what I think because Or is what’s known for is because if you put it too close together You’ll deal with a lot of powdery mildew later in the season because there’s not enough ventilation And so if you four by 12 you can plant four across in 12 down is about,
uh, just of it. And then I go from there because the other part about jolly is it’s great is they’re cut and come again flower. So the more you cut them, the more they bloom, um,
and people will ask, how many flowers is this tube are going to give me? And I’m like, it’s up to you really like you can get 50 flowers, 70, you know, I don’t know. Um, you,
they produce, they are work courses.
I think starting with the space you have and getting a year under your belt of like how to do it and you know kind of test running.
I think that is a good bet because I’ll see you won’t have a ton of overhead and with Dahlia’s is great if you choose, some people do this and some don’t. If you choose to,
you can dig them up in the fall and then hand divide them. and they multiply themselves. So then you divide them and then you have more for the next year and it’s a natural progression whether you want to grow for more flowers or if you want to sell off some YouTubers.
Yeah. So every single year after the flowers bloom, you can cut them back just like you would a potato, harvest the tuber, just like a potato, and then separate it. And then when you plant it that year,
it’s going to. replicate underground, right? I can’t remember the word for that. – Yep, so the part about that’s interesting between potatoes and dahlias is so you plant the tuber in the spring,
and then they are growing, and dahlias don’t start to flower for about 90 to 120 days, depending on the season. the variety. And then it’s so interesting because while you see everything flowering up top,
that’s when the tuber production is happening below. And so that part of it is really, you know, so while growing the dahlias, like the flowers are just this added bonus because potatoes flower also,
they’re just not as beautiful as like what you’ve learned from dahlias. Okay, so. that’s incredible. So we start out with the space that we have, invest in obviously some good tubers.
So did you buy yours wholesale? I did. And you just chose variety, like how did you choose the varieties you wanted to grow based on appeal, based on tuber quality? Was there like, was it for your hardiness zone?
Like how did you choose those? Okay. Yep. So when I started out, I spent a lot of time googling like wholesale, doubtful. um, distributors. I don’t,
I mean, I spent hours. You’re not like, where do you buy these? Um, and there’s not, there’s options, but the part that’s really hard when you’re getting started is, um, that the majority of Dallas wholesalers are going to require you to have a really,
um, high minimum order. So for me, when I started out, that’s kind of why I went all in. in is because or why I went so big is I couldn’t find anywhere else that I was going to be able to get tubers and only get 10 or,
you know, 10 or 20 tubers. Like I was having to buy 75 tubers of one variety to get set up. Yeah.
Florida. She has an amazing online library of where she has taken and pictures and has a whole library of Dahlia varieties and some that I grow or will be on hers and some won’t but when I would go through and look at the ones that I have available that I can purchase I just go through and do a simple Google search or I go through the American Dahlia Society and type in the name of the Dahlia Tuber.
and then just type in so like Cornell Bronze Dahlia and then you can look at the picture of it and see what it looks like and that’s how I did a lot of my market research honestly was just,
was it selling here in the United States, do people, you know, are people buying it? What I, I grill or I bought a lot of mine based on Dahlia’s that were good for cut flower growing.
Because when I first started, I was doing, primarily actually, I was selling a lot of flower bouquets, like my first two years. And so I wanted to pick out flowers that were incel to other people that are going to have great base license,
that people are going to be able to arrange bouquets with them easily. Dahlia’s are not good. they don’t have a long base life, and they’re known to be a show flower.
And so they’re known for their beauty and the magnificent like being that they are. And so, you know, we’ve for years of inconditioned that flowers last for two weeks that we buy at the grocery store.
And so it’s, there’s that hard disconnect of when you buy fresh flowers locally and you sell someone a bouquet of Dahlia’s, well, they last five days or four days. you know, and that’s just the type of plant that there’s nothing else you can do.
That’s just who they are. They’re their bread and born to do to be a show flower. Yeah. Okay. So startup costs for you getting started,
it’s really obviously the path you chose was to rent the land and then buy the tubers and then obviously you pay for water like irrigation. Yep. and then did you invest in the beginning in fertilizer,
or would you recommend that somebody does or doesn’t? I want to, how do you say this, go into this a little lightly because I just launched a fertilizer that is mixed here on my farm and my dad was a certified crop advisor and me have been working on it for years.
But I want to preface this was saying I didn’t Fertilize my dahlias in the beginning and I don’t believe you have to Okay, I think every you know all plants love food. Everyone needs to be fed.
We’re all well beings But I also think that in an economy where There’s not always extra money for things and sometimes we’re doing things for pure joy I think I it’s be very respectful of people’s extra funds.
And I know not someone to think they have to have all the things to have something that makes them happy because you just. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, so in the beginning, my first year,
I didn’t do any fertilizer application now. Got it. And but I do now and I have a very rigorous plan schedule that we do it.
And I see a lot of benefits from it and it’s I tell people mostly it’s just a big portion of why I don’t have to stake the flowers here and I think that’s probably the difference in scale too right like if you are trying to scale something bigger and bigger bigger you need to have plants that are more resilient you have a higher susceptibility for pests and disease and so your soil needs to be extra extra good
good to sustain and overcome like any issues. Absolutely. But to touch back on how you asked in the beginning, so things to get started is one of my best recommendations for people.
And you don’t have to be a farm, you don’t have to have anything. I don’t know if you touch on this with your gardening is doing soil samples is anyone can get one anywhere. If you just Google soil sample lab near me.
And it’s one of my best best if you’re interested in soil health and if you’re interested in like how to make your plants thrive. I’m getting ready to launch some really cool products where I’m trying to help people get better access to soil samples just because it’s really interesting.
If you want me to get out on it I can but I will not today. But you do that and a lab will send you back this very simple simple paper that tells you what your soil is lacking and what it needs and then you can plan from there.
And I think that there’s really like people asked right now with my fertilizer, is it going to give me XYZ? And I said, hey, like this is a base for what will make your plants thrive.
But if you really want to fine tune what you’re doing, that’s the only way to do it. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because those those soil samples will tell you like macro and micronutrients and like how much nitrogen and all that yeah Yep,
and that’s it’s really cool. So that’s one portion of it and I didn’t do that in the beginning And now it’s a big portion of I think my success And so to touch on startup costs Do you want me to answer like what I my startup?
costs are what I think someone needs to, you know, what you need to. – Whichever you feel most comfortable with, both or one. I guess I would love, like if someone’s listening and they’re like,
okay, what’s realistic for me if I want to, I mean, ’cause it’s all, it’s all relative, right? Someone might be like, I just wanna make $50 ,000. Someone might wanna make $100 ,000 of their flower farm.
I’m like, I guess, I don’t know. if there’s like an average I was gonna ask you about profit margins like I want to know the scoop get the 80 gritty Okay, so I guess I’ll share a little bit about some of my startup costs and then yeah I think that they all need to be taken with a grain of salt Yeah,
I don’t know Well, I how I started wasn’t realistic for a lot of people and I don’t know who would recommend doing it Yeah, yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So I think really if you want to get started, so like I have a wholesale program where I sell value tubers. So I had that problem where I had to start out with 75 of each variety.
Like that, no one needs 75. So now I have a wholesale program where I sell tubers to small farms or to farmer forests where you buy them in increments of 10 to 20.
from me, you know, and I love that. Yeah. And I sell and ship them. And so you can get 10 tubers for like 60 bucks from me.
I think it’s $65. And so that, and I think I would recommend on your first year, starting with maybe 10 varieties like that. So I think that startup costs on like your for your input.
of your growing stock. I mean, you can do it for as much as is little, but I think between five and six hundred dollars can really get someone a good start in what you’re doing.
And if you’re wanting to grow for cut flowers, and I recommend doing that, I think if there’s money to be made, you should know,
you find these flowers that are good for face life and then you go, you know, plan those and sell them and then say, okay, I got that under my belt. I’m going to try and dig and divide these dahlias and storing them.
Storing them is a very tricky little dance. Make it because that was, I think you’re bargaining a lot. If you want to grow the dahlias for the tubers, like you’re bargaining on,
I got to grow them all season, then store them to see if I can have them make it till March so I can ship them to people. And so my first year, I didn’t have, I didn’t do a great job storing them.
I had a little, some issues, so that portion of it. When I started out, I want to say I probably spent about, my first year,
I probably spent about $15 ,000 between growing stock, my rent, my water bill, my labor bill, because I was,
I was and still am, pay people to come and hand weed. So that was, that was probably, I would say, yeah, around 15 grand my first year was what I used.
Well, and I think that’s, first of all, for the startup cost of a business actually, like, I don’t think that wild. It’s a lot when you’re given the conditions though of your life too,
you know, like depending on all like out of context, of course. But when you think about like, you know, like the tech cost for like a startup, like a business, you know what I mean?
Overhead. Absolutely. But I think with that, you know, so I think there’s a two types of people starting this business. Okay. I’m going to start. it and see how it goes or I’m going to start and I’m going to do it.
And so it’s just speaking to their. And I think if you’re going to start it up and do it hats off to you and I’ll be your biggest cheerleader either one is great.
And I wish I could be more of the other kind of person like just did my toes and type of gal. And so the portion of like that first year, I probably lost,
I don’t know, 5 ,000 at least on poor storage because you have, you know, when you’re growing that many plants, you have to have a place to store them. And for me, the first times I was doing it,
I live in potato country, so I was using potato sellers to do it. And I think that, and then one, but my first first year, I stored them in our, or just like in our shop.
And I had mold, I had things drying out, temperature regulated and so I did. – I have a question, yeah. – No, well, and sorry,
I don’t mean to interrupt you. The storage issue is an issue I’ve had ’cause I live in Southern California, so it’s hot, it’s humid, it’s like really, we don’t have cellars. So like curing and storing onions,
potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, all those things is always like mass chaos. and I have a hard time. But how much, I just don’t want to forget to ask you, how much if someone’s growing dolly is for cut flowers,
is it per stem to sell those typically? And then how much do they sell the tubers for direct to consumer? Because that’s what I was trying to think too. I know you’re going to circle back to like profit margin,
but I just don’t want to forget. Okay, you know, that’s great. I think so. It’s there’s lots of different ways you can struggle. structure it so I don’t think I get the best bang for my buck out of my dahlias just plot out simple I’m not um dahlias are again a show flower and so a lot of people love them in their bridal bouquets like the most a ton of bouquets you’ll see these gorgeous dinner plate dahlias that
are at the focal points of it or in all the things so my stems or my buckets are 35 stems stems. I sell for $65 a bucket.
I cut the farm and they pick up at my farm. But with that, it’s very unspecific. They don’t get any certain amount of dinner plates, they just give me a color scheme and I cut it,
they come get it. For each dahlia, I probably am getting an average dahlia plant, I get about $2 .50 a bucket per stem. stem and then the big dinner plates,
I’m getting between $5 .75 and probably $7 .50 a stem, but that’s direct to florists and florists are great. That’s just not the…
I haven’t been… My part of my business plan hasn’t been going around and like hunting out florists to sell to. I really am working with people who… It’s like for floral shops or things like that.
I’ve got a lot of people that come… to me are kind of like a DIY style person. Sure, sure, sure. Very cool. That’s like my ideal customer. Yeah,
which I think, I mean, and that’s getting into a whole other side of it, and we won’t have time today to talk about like marketing and client avatars and like all that chaos, which is amazing and super important though,
but kind of back tracks to what you said, which is like, there are so many ways to be a flower farmer. where you can be a farmer florist, or you’re just growing tubers to go to wholesale or direct. Like, there’s so many ways to cut it.
So if you’re interested, there’s a path for you based on what you’re passionate about and what you can absorb financially, of course. Right. And that’s going to be another part I want to touch on is, I think, for me,
that’s changed you every year. Like, you don’t know. Oh, I love that. Oh, like, you might not know exactly what you want to, you know, what you want things to do. look like. Um,
so I think for me, it has changed every year. Or I say, okay, I made enough money this year doing this. I want to make more money because for me, I’m, I’m, this is,
I’m scaling this to be something my kids can do. Um, I want my, you like my, I love what I’m doing and I know that it can have the longevity for that. So every year I said,
okay, how can I make this? this, make more money and how can I, and really my wholesale program for me wasn’t making more money. For me, last year I realized I’m a people pleaser by nature and I’ve hired someone to help me do customer service but customer service last year,
like I probably could have bought on medication after my shipping season. It was really hard and so I looked at what I was doing. doing and I said, “How can I get people to pay more money per order and have to do that from a service?” Because I personally can’t handle it.
And I’m like, and I just, that was, that was my biggest, it’s not how I was going to grow. And, and I’m super thrilled about it. I’m really excited about the way that’s moving. But that was nothing I saw happening five years ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Increasing that. per purchase, there’s, yeah, is a whole retail language that you’re seeing. – I mean, you’re cutting your orders almost in half.
Your customer service is, you know, you’re having to deal with less people. But, and it’s also certain in the industry that there’s a real need for. – For sure.
Okay, so my other next question then is about lifestyle. lifestyle. You do this with your kids. I love watching that and I love how passionate you are about the legacy component because I just think that’s so beautiful.
And my husband and I talk often about, you know, the cost and you and I even mentioned this a little bit about like choosing to work when you maybe have the choice to be a stay at home mom or you have the choice to like just do something easy that you leave at the office.
We’re making choices every day. We’ve chosen entrepreneurship. We’ve got these beautiful children. And my husband and I, what we are always talking about is letting our kids witness us living up to our potential and also fulfilling our passions and like really going after something we believe in and we feel purposeful about.
And we feel like showcasing that as an example is super important. But my word some days, it’s like, Oh my God, what am I doing? Because Because it’s hard, but all that to say,
what is the lifestyle like for you? So you mentioned a couple things, which is like, there’s obviously only two. Because you introduced like the tuber sales, there are two times a year really that you make money,
but the rest of the year you’re working up towards it. So are these, how many hours a week do you like work? Do you feel like it’s a super flexible lifestyle? Is it more hands -on than you thought that it would be?
Because I feel like as a… an entrepreneur, it’s like, oh, I get all this freedom. And it’s like, actually now you’re working 24 hours a day, you just choose like the couple of hours that you get to be present with your kids. - Yeah, that’s a great way to explain that. Yeah, it is a, so for me, it’s a lifestyle thing. One of my biggest drives around doing it is,
I love that you touched on showcasing your job. and having your kids witness You do that. I feel that’s my core and then the other portion I feel so strongly about is Giving my kids the opportunity to learn how to work hard in our society to People don’t kids don’t have the opportunity to learn how to work Just like any other life skill you get you have to learn it and a big part of what makes me and my husband
us is like, I want my kids to be hard workers. I want them to have grit. I want them to out work. Most people and they will like my, my boys, we might fight, we might kick and scream out the door about doing our like doing our jobs.
But we, I mean, I pay them, I make it, it’s real. They, they long their hours for me. And one of my boys was like complaining about it last summer and I said, just pretend it’s a game.
and you’re going to go out and there’s someone playing the game next to you and you want to win at this job. And if you win at this job, extra, because that’s called a bonus. And in your life,
you know, that’s how you are going to learn, you know, to work harder, to like to yearn for something better. And I just think that there’s not enough opportunities in the world today for our kids to learn that.
So that’s a big. portion of it. Lifestyle wise, it’s more work than I ever imagined. But I love it and it’s very fulfilling. Surprisingly,
I think that the flower growing season is less busy than winter season for me because I work or we were dividing all winter.
And so that makes you washing and dividing. That’s a long process. The flowers, I have made it fit to my lifestyle. If you follow me on social media,
you’ll see we bought our forever home a year ago, actually, this month. And that was a huge deal for our family. It’s on 40 acres. And so now the flowers are at my house whereas before I’d have to get a sitter early.
in the morning and it just was a lot of work. So now I only cut flowers on Thursdays and Fridays is the only day I offer. So otherwise I don’t cut flowers the rest of the days in a week.
So that has been a big portion. I used to like someone say, okay, can I get flowers today and I do it. And I just like spiral out of I have no control over my life. I have to be there to meet this person for $40.
Is it really worth it? And so now people come to me Thursday, Friday and get so that portion of it. I really like because and and then like I would do delivery days.
I also I did it a different way before I would just say Tuesdays and Thursdays I deliver flowers and that was the you had to pre -order on and you had until maybe 9 p .m.
on Monday night. and to place an order for delivery or pickup. So that portion of it I think is great for the cut flower side is you can build it to be your schedule and what works for you.
The dally of tuber side of it is a pretty large undertaking. Like last year we shipped out around I think like thirty six hundred or Shipping is a beast.
Oh my word It really, you know, and I mean, honestly, we were working like ten hour eight or ten hours a day And when you’re standing on your feet, you’re in a cold cooler because that’s like where I had to ship I was like laughing.
I told my husband the day we were done I went out and laid on our back patio in my clothes on a lounge chair and just like felt the sun on my face because we’re 30 30 something days I hadn’t felt the Sun or see the Sun.
Hmm. Oh my word Hey, it was pretty hard like my kid I and I would wake up at 5 a .m. Or 4 a .m. to start printing out shipping labels and all these things to get ready for the day Also you doing customer service and people emailing all the time.
Where’s the order and we are just work And so I was trying to be really active on social media so people would know and so one one thing I had to do, I had to hire someone for customer service because I had unhappy customers last year and that was a hard growing pain to go through,
but it’s just part of it. And you look at something and you’re like, I’m doing my best and it wasn’t good enough in some scenarios. And so how do you do something different? And so I think that there’s,
and then the social media side of it is another beast. I, that’s, I think, one thing I wanted to say is that I think that there’s a lot of I do want to touch on a little bit before we get off today and I’ll just say is like, I,
I think if you’re going to start a business in this day and age, I think you would be crazy to not do it on social media. And, and I think that people are like,
well, I don’t have flowers growing yet. I can’t share something. I don’t have pretty pictures. I can’t. Um, I mean, just really document everything and start sharing it and because people just will if people see a lot of people love the process And a lot of people have been with me at gray girl firms from the get -go And like I get some of the nicest messages of people who’ve been my customers for five years And
we’re like, oh my gosh I remember when you you know this or when you still had glasses before I had like six surgery or all the you know people who are so nice And I think that that is is,
um, I think when you think of an initial investment is every time I’ve invested in myself as the self grows, whether it’s learning something about myself, a business class,
a social media class, like it has always came back 10 fold for me. And so I think that when you were, you’re thinking in your head, you know, you paid for an education, you paid for it doesn’t stop.
And so when you’re wanting to grow a business, really take some some time to think about how much money am I willing to spend on how to grow a business online because I’ve done it intentionally and I’ve worked really hard at it and it hasn’t been,
hasn’t been by accident. And it’s been a huge portion of on my second year, I shipped to the entire, I shipped to every state in the United States on my second year growing or shipping.
Wow. That’s a huge accomplishment. It was. I like it. this really, and I knew every person, and I still like, I don’t know every person’s name now, and I hate that, but I will see people’s names that come through that I know have been with me from the beginning.
And I had this calendar, and I had a little marker, and I just color those states in, and I still have it hanging in my office. And I think, yeah, so it’s just to be very intentional.
If you, if there’s some things on your heart, even if it’s not, it’s okay. flower farming, you know, I don’t want to cuss on your podcast. So I won’t, but don’t set off. Don’t be half -assed about it.
Go full in and go just be intentional because I think starting a business in this day and age is amazing. And there’s a lot of room for growth.
The flower industry, especially the locally grown movement is is it’s changing and I love it. And I think there’s a lot of room for growth. – For sure.
I, it’s so funny, this time last year interviewed someone about sustainability in the flower industry and learned so much about how there are no regulations overseas, the amount of like carbon emissions getting,
like the flower industry is just like the food industry, except less regulations. regulations because you’re not always eating the flowers, but they’re still in your house and there are still workers working with them in these horrible conditions.
It’s like so gnarly. So the local flower movement is super important in my opinion. Right. But like you said, I mean, it is, I think, I think it feels like this beautiful dream and people have a hard time figuring out,
okay, how do I start? So this has been wildly helpful and I really feel like you have given given us a good foundation for like Where do I even begin? But before I let you go,
I do want to ask us. I have two more questions. One is what’s your favorite book or flower farming or gardening? Okay, I have all of Aaron’s books.
I love her books Aaron from Florida like I use all of them. I love them Uh, I don’t know any of the other ones. I love off the top of my head, but I don’t go, I’m like a,
I love old stuff. I’m a, like, I don’t know how to use it. I like antiques. I love, I love agricultural antiques. I love old books. I love, so go to like Goodwill or go to an antique store and find their gardening books because frankly,
life was, people did stuff really good in the 50s, 60s, 40s. I know, before Google. Before Google, that advice is legit. I know. I know. You know, to get something published in a book then was a lot harder than it is now.
So not to knock on anything. It just, I love it. It’s true. And so that’s, that I think that would be one of my best things is I love, or go on Etsy and Google like search.
I’m aging. Yeah. Go on Etsy and search in, you know, anti gardening books. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I love, I think that’s actually like very, very good advice. I love that. Those types of books. So that’s, I love that. Okay. So then what, where can everyone find you if they want to be in touch with you,
who order tubers from you? Like, how do they, they get more of you? I’m on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Oh,
girl. At Forms, I’m @graygirlfarms. My website is www .graygirlfarms .com. Yeah, I share actively on social media,
and my tubersale opened on Saturday, February 10th, and I’m still I’m about 80 % sold out, so I’m feeling really good about that.
I have offerings for dahlias and peony roots, so that’s really exciting, and I’m looking at probably being able to restock. So after we get off this call today,
I need to go to my warehouse to do a final count on all my inventory. And you may be expanding into into one other flower. – I don’t know,
would you like me to tell you? – Yes, give us the exclusive, and by the time this airs, we’ll see. – Yeah, it’ll be good. I am actually really excited. So my, we bought this 40 acre farm, and it was,
we bought it, it was 20 acres in apples, and 20 acres in cherries, that the orchard for a long time. And so it’s really, the cherries are staying in,
but last year we ripped out the apple block. block and I didn’t have enough money. I mean, I was broke. My money tree was done shaking at the end of that deal and we just started today.
We’re putting in the rest of the irrigate. So we put, we moved five acres into production last year. We’re going to move another five acres into production and I will be planting peonies in it. So,
and I’m going to be primarily growing the for root production. So I’ll be able to offer us grown roots for local gardeners.
Oh, that’s so awesome. That’s so great. I’ve had a lot of help. The other part that’s really great, the flower industry is small. And I just wanted,
when you were saying I wanted to touch on this earlier is well, my husband and I have visited a few different farms over the the last two years and people say this movement of the US grown is it’s kind of a new thing but really it’s it’s wild to me that I grew up in agriculture my entire life and I never knew about the horticulture sector because we’ve been to these they are literally so cool my mind is blown
when we leave there and these guys are like 80 years old and have been doing it for years and me my husband husband are like, why did no one ever teach us about this? I know.
I know. That was that. It was really cool. And I think that for years, the overseas has driven a lot of the Dali YouTubers, Peony Roots,
all these things. And as the world changes, you know, I love seeing things grown here in the U .S. and there’s a market for it. And so yeah, I’m really excited about the expansion of our Peony Roots.
here because it is something that will outlive me and we’re gonna be growing them as a permanent crop and a crop to dig. So I hope that my kids will be able to see that through too. - I love that. That’s amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. It’s so exciting. I’ll be sure to share forward obviously, but I’m just, this was really enlightening to hear and actually really encouraging.
because I feel like whatever size, whatever space allotment you have, whatever size operation you want, it’s really possible.
And it’s just a matter of like where you want to start, really. Thank you so much. It was so great chatting today. Thank you. I’m so excited for the opportunity and I love everything on your Instagram,
and I just think I’m a So I’m like so honored to chat with some of your followers. Yes, for sure. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, we will chat soon. Good luck with the rest of this sale and yeah.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. See you later. I hope this episode has been bomb for the soul and inspiration for the heart. I would love if you left a review to let me know your thoughts or anything you’re interested in learning and I’m so grateful that you’ve found this space.
For more information on any techniques, recipes, or ideas mentioned, visit us at BayleyVanTasol .com /podcast.