Introducing the “Garden Journal for the Cut Flower Farmer”
A resource for the Cut Flower Farmer
By Tracy La Valley-Hall
Garden Journal for the Cut Flower Farmer
The Members Only space is finally open!
I made my first formal bouquet for my daughter’s wedding. I grew almost every bloom right here, on the farm, mixed in along with our vegetable garden. It was like a companion planting gone wild. The bouquets were very colorful, rustic and simple. The feelings I had about them were complicated with pride, astonishment and joy. The next growing season the gardens grew in size and variety. A few years passed and I was planting for my own wedding. The second for me, which is a whole other story. Just know that for those who have a second wedding, it is totally a big deal and absolutely one of the most important days in your life. That being said, my garden kept growing in size until I decided to do the most insane thing I could think of. I was already working 40-60 hours a week as a 911 dispatcher. When exactly did I think I would have the time to open a side hustle growing and selling flowers. But, I did it anyway.
Over the next few years I would attend several business and flower farming related courses.
I was lucky enough to attend one of the last on site flower farming intensives at Floret in Mount Vernon, Washington with Erin Benzikein. One of the best decisions I ever made! I learned so much and made so many new friends and connections that would later be invaluable. So much so that I also signed up for her online course and re-take it each year.
I also signed up for B-School with Marie Forelo where I learned how to think more like a business woman. Another one that I re-take yearly.
I signed up for and completed training with Gardenary and Nicole Burke as well. I cannot say enough about what she has to offer.
One constant that I learned across all of these educational experiences is that keeping good records is invaluable. I am a bit of a data nerd myself so it did not take much convincing.
I have created and recreated documents used in my business more times than I can count. I have taken my favorites and put them together into a Garden Journal that can be used like a yearbook for your business. The hope is that you will want one for each year to keep clear records of your systems, pricing and resources.
Our mission is to help you document your experiences
The little things matter
Taking a few moments each day to document something as simple as high and low temperatures, soil temperature and the overall weather of the day can be monumental to decision making. Each journal can contain a yearbook of your own personal ecosystem.
Make it Yours
Add photographs of your design work and document everything that goes into making them. It sounds silly but once it is created and documented you can re-create it with ease. You can teach a new employee how to do it for you. You can break down every ingredient to see if you have it priced to profit from.
“The garden is my sanctuary, my peace and my heart. It is here that I learn to breathe with patience, love and caring.”
The Lists
Knowing what you already have can empower your decisions about what you need to purchase and when. Armed with the right information you have greater control over how and when you make purchases for your business. Take the time to gather your tools, clean them and assess what needs to be replaced or repaired and what you might need multiples of. Are you lucky enough to hire a contractor to come do garden maintenance? If so, you should be able to make a quick decision about what tools you need to pick up before they arrive.
What we track:
Seeds in stock and a separate wish list: sort and list your seed packets, document where you purchased them and how much they cost.
Perennial & Woody Plants in stock and a separate wish list: list of all the plants you have plus the ones you wish you had. Do the research and figure out where you are going to purchase them from and never lose the list!
Bulbs, Corms, Tubers & Rhizomes in stock plus a separate wish list: never forget where you purchased any of your plant materials ever again, add a variety name to the wish list when you see it and make a few notes about where you saw it.
Tools & Supplies in stock plus a separate wish list: there are more tools on my wish list than my in stock list no matter how many I buy, I always find something I cannot live without. I’ll add it to my wish list and always know where to find it.
Sowing Seeds
Know which seeds to plant when with the Sowing,Germination and Transplant worksheets. There is one for each of the 18 weeks before frost and several for succession planting or use them to plan out your fall planted cool flowers in your zone.
Preparation and Operations
Get yourself ready for the coming season by using the lists to keep track of what you have and need. Highlight your priority items using different colored ink or highlighter.
Plan out your garden space with the custom grid and accompanying garden content pages. Sketch elaborate garden designs or identify organized rows and their planned contents. It’s your journal to design as you please. Write in the margins or color the scrolling floral design that surrounds your data.
Track your time spent on every task separately on the Labor tracking sheets. Use the convenient start and end task areas to document the time spent on each task. From there you could take that information and put it into another document and see how much time your team is spending on a given crop each season.
The daily harvest sheets help you to know how many stems your crop is producing. Used daily each person can track their harvest on each crop. That information can then be transposed into the variety harvest worksheet to make year end stats easier to locate.
Product Design Formulas
Add a photo of your design to the Journal alongside the details of what tools and ingredients were necessary to create it.
Product Sales
Keep a sheet for each vendor and tally their sales. Keep track of who your best customers are and know when to reward them.
Event Sales
Know going into an event exactly how many items you need to sell to be profitable, allowing you to better plan.
I invite you all to come grow with me.
Join our Garden Journal Members Only area at Firefly Floral & Design’s website.
Thank you for being a part of our story. Let's create something beautiful together.
