Why Cut Flowers?
It all started when…
Our farm started as a small grant funded garden designed to encourage students and teachers to learn in an alternative classroom setting, aka the great outdoors. Over the past five years, we have enjoyed seasons of bounty and a few of the leaner kind due to a variety of reasons, the most important being an ill-defined goal. The combination of those successes and challenges along with a desire to beat the odds of so many failed “school gardens,” Anchored In Flowers (AIF) was born. Now the space has grown into a much larger and more productive learning and growing area that serves as our small cut flower farm and supports a thriving business.
Our young farmers getting the job done!
While the middle school agri-preneurs manage the business and manual side of AIF, we contract our younger students in grades PreK through 5th to help with specific projects and general maintenance. In fact, all the veggies growing right now were started by our PreK and 2nd grade farmers!
During research for business development, we discovered some intriguing facts about flowers that really inspired us to go all in on this important and oft overlooked sector of agriculture. Almost 80% of fresh flowers sold in the United States are not grown in North America. Shipping flowers from places such as Columbia, Ecuador, the Netherlands, and Israel incurs huge transportation, energy, refrigeration, and storage costs which all add up to an enormous carbon footprint.
Our #grownnotflown beauties!
Imported flowers are often cut a week or more before they arrive in customers’ hands, leading to a decrease in quality and vase life. Many commodity-type flowers have been bred for uniformity to fit into a box, and to hold up in that box for long-distance travel, usually losing their natural fragrance in the process.
One of our many Monarch caterpillars!
Our flowers are truly fresh! We cut our flowers no more than one day before they land in your hands. We use responsible farming methods like integrated pest management, diverse cropping systems, no tilling, and rain water catchment for watering, to name a few. Our farm encourages important biodiversity, soil health, and water conservation. We managed to release over 100 Monarch butterflies from our native milkweed beds in just a few months last year!
CSA bouquets ready for pick up!
Our production and sale of locally-grown cut flowers contribute to our local economy and provide limitless opportunities for our team members to learn.
And, just like our mission statement says, fresh cut flowers make you feel better! They reduce stress and improve your mood. Our flowers tell a story and we are so happy to have you as a part of it!
Want to learn more? Check out the video below by the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, of which are proud members!