I knew that starting this business of running a flower farm (even on such a small scale as we’re doing it) would require a lot of time and hard work. But you guys—I had NO IDEA how intense it would be during this first part in early spring! I’ve been doing gardens for years, but since it was always just for myself and to have fun and play around with different things, I never really appreciated how much more is required when you base a business around it.
I have basically had almost ZERO downtime for weeks and weeks now, which is why I haven’t been blogging hardly at all. I anticipate that I will have a slight lull around mid- to late May, but until then, it’s basically just a matter of me making massive to-do lists every week and just trying to hang on!
That being said, most of my “goals” for this new month are basically just “must-do’s” to get the flower farm up and running. I’ve included a few other housekeeping items I need to try and fit in (as well as some fun things so that I somewhat keep my sanity), but my traditional habits of goal-setting based around self improvement or 101 in 1001 list items are definitely going to have to take a backseat for the next few months while I get things figured out with this new business.
Here’s where things currently stand and what my plans are going forward:
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March Goals
Get Buick relocated down here- This happened the very last day of the month, but it happened! Now we can hopefully have a better shot at selling the thing in April.
- Sell Buick
- Not yet, since we didn’t have it down by us. Rollover goal.
- Find dentist for the kids
- Nope. Housekeeping tasks have not been my forte this month with all the stuff for the farm. Rollover goal.
Build the first two garden beds (at least)- Matt built the first four, and we have the lumber and some of the filler needed for the next two as well. Then we’ll just have to get the lumber and materials to fill the last two, and we’ll have a total of eight!
Sowand transplantall hardy annuals and vegetables- They are all sown, but not transplanted. Some aren’t quite big enough yet, but the real reason was because I was waiting for one particularly cold spell at the end of the month (hopefully the last of the temps in the mid- to low-20’s) to pass. I was going to transplant them all early last week once that was over, but then I got my second covid vaccine and got suuuuper sick from it. This definitely should happen in the next week though.
Sow (indoors) the first of the tender vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc.)- The germination on the peppers has been a bit spotty but workable, but my tomatoes have blown me away! I’m going to have to be giving some away if they all make it.
Send in a soil sample- We took a soil sample from what used to be the former cow corral and sent it in, as we’re hoping to plant that area with our really big flowers (mostly cosmos and sunflowers). Not unexpectedly, the results came back with a super high salinity, which means we can’t plant there at all until we’re able to leach some of the salt out of the soil through a ton of irrigating. Hopefully we’ll be able to do this by May, which is when I really need to start using that area.
Set up Facebook page for flower farmCreate income and expense spreadsheets for farm- We don’t have any income yet (and have plenty of start-up expenses!), but it’s nice to have this ready to go. Now I just need to go through and finish adding everything we’ve bought so far.
Create seed planting spreadsheet for farm- So many spreadsheets! I was able to do this as well.
- Try two different recipes in our new Air Fryer
- I was so excited to get this Air Fryer for Christmas, but I still haven’t pulled it out yet! However, my plans for dinner lately are to just keep us fed using the quickest and simplest means possible, so I’ll have to save this goal for when I have slightly more breathing room.
- Print off photos for third family album
- Uh, yeah…no progress. This will probably be shelved until the growing season is over, or at least until it’s not so hectic.
- Do caulking in the kitchen
- Nope, though we did get some other nagging house projects done!
Get last rug set up- We finally did this on a day when we had family over visiting, since it would have been impossible to accomplish with just the two of us. We still need to put this rug adhesive I ordered on all four of the new rugs to keep them in place, but we love how each of them have totally transformed our space!
Paint the kitchen island- My mom came down one weekend near the beginning of the month and did this for us, which we were SO grateful for! We’ve been so busy with stuff for the flower farm that we haven’t had time to continue work on our house projects, but since we’re still in the middle of a few, it’s nice to see some progress again. (I promise that SOMEDAY I’ll post pictures of all we’ve done in our new place, but posting on here is still bound to be a bit sporadic over the course of the next couple months while I’m still trying to get the farm going!)
Move dresser out of back family room- This dresser has literally been in the wrong place (right in the middle of the floor between the dining area and the family room) since we moved in. On one of the weekends when my mom came to help us out with some house projects, we finally moved this to its more permanent location in our front room.
- Start laying kitchen floor
- Nope, nada—and we probably won’t get anything done on this either until Matt has finished building and filling all my garden beds. I’m hoping he can start doing this in May.
Plant strawberries- We planted six or seven of two different ever-bearing types. This also crossed off a 101 in 1001 item.
Take the kids to a new park- We’ve actually now gone to two! There’s literally only one park in our new town, but we went to another one on a little day outing we did over Raven’s spring break.
Plan something fun for spring break- We didn’t do anything really big for the week my oldest was out of school, but we did do a lot of little fun things (almost one a day), including having two play dates, going out to eat twice, going on walks, going to parks, and spending lots of time together both inside and outside. I also let the older two kids plant their own little “gardens” in large containers, which they were super excited about.
- Plan something special for our 10-year anniversary in May
- Nope, still haven’t figured this one out.
- Finish 4 books
- Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You know the flower farm is keeping me insanely busy if it’s seriously messing with my reading time! I still do read daily, but I’m usually only able to fit in 5 or 10 pages, and much of it is about flower farming.
- Review and revise 101 in 1001 list
- Nope, didn’t have time. I also think I might want to hold off on doing this until after this first season of flower farming, just to reevaluate what I want from it and where to go from here.
April Goals
Yes, I’m still calling them “goals,” but I’m having to take a bit more of a relaxed approach to whether or not I’ll get around to everything! A lot of these I’m just including on the list so that I don’t forget them when things die down a bit with starting up the flower farm.
- Celebrate Easter + Raven’s birthday
- We already completed our celebration of Easter (an Easter egg and basket hunt on Saturday + a special breakfast and dinner the day of), and we are in the process of finalizing plans for Raven’s birthday.
- Take a family vacation
- We’ve booked a stay at a condo near the end of the month and have contracted some responsible neighbors to watch our chickens and seedlings while we’re gone. We haven’t gone on any vacation since before our second was born (so it’s been about 3 years), so we’re pretty excited!
- Plan something special for our 10-year anniversary in May
- We originally wanted to do a big trip just the two of us for this, but between the pandemic and the schedule of the flower farm, our celebration will probably be pretty small. Still, we’re planning on at least doing SOMETHING out of the ordinary for this!
- Make sure everyone in the family gets a haircut
- ALL of us are in desperate need of one (I personally haven’t gotten one since about September or October!). No idea how this will happen exactly as we don’t know anyone who cuts hair down here, but I guess we’ll figure something out! (We will cut the kids’ hair, so there’s that at least.)
- Transplant out all hardy annuals and cool season vegetables
- It sounds all nice and simple summarized like this, but this actually involves literally hundreds and hundreds of seedlings, not to mention many, many hours of work. Ideally this should have already been done, but I’m for sure shooting for this to be completed by the end of this month.
- Finish building and filling all new garden beds
- We’ve got the first four, now we just need the last four.
- Plant all summer bulbs (gladiolus, liatris, lily)
- I wasn’t even planning on planting these this year, but I saw a great deal at our local Walmart that I just couldn’t pass up, ha ha!
- Start all warm season tender annuals inside in the grow room
- By the end of the month, I should have started the first succession of all my tender annuals (like zinnias and cosmos) inside.
- Start marketing my first CSA bouquet subscription
- I’m piloting a CSA bouquet subscription this year where people will be able to basically pay for a subscription upfront and then receive a bouquet every other week or every week, depending on which they purchase. They would make fabulous Mother’s Day gifts, so I’m starting to let people know now!
- Figure out a place to build kids’ sandbox + start researching where to source sand
- Since I already am (and will be) spending so much time outdoors each day throughout the growing season, I want the kids to have a few solid places to play while we’re out there. I don’t know that we’ll actually get around to building this yet, but hopefully we can start the process so that it can get done within the next month or two.
- Sell Buick
- Rollover goal.
- Do caulking in the kitchen
- Rollover goal.
- Find dentist for the kids
- Rollover goal.
Whew, I don’t know if that looks like that much work to anyone else, but I know EXACTLY how many plants and seedlings I have all over the place, so it should be another crazy busy month! What are your plans for April? Are you doing a garden this year?
