Paula Olivares talks with Kimberly Bloom, Editor of ripen – a gardening lifestyle magazine about digging in the dirt and providing a place of ministry to others at her Basket of Flowers Farm, in Woodville, Wisconsin. Learn about Paula’s journey to becoming a flower farmer and get a few ideas for your cut flower garden. The Basket of Flowers Farm is in growing zone 4a.
Photos in this article are from Paula’s Basket of Flowers Farm Instagram.
My grandma was the one who was always into vegetable gardening, but my mother was into flower gardening. Growing up my mother let my sister and I have our own little patch to grow flowers and I covered mine with purple flowers. Growing up I always just did some type of gardening and then I married and had a couple of children. At that time, we lived in an apartment not to far from where my parents lived, and we would always go over on the weekends.
One time when we were over at my parents, I had been toying with the idea of doing something from home. We now had four little girls and I wanted to do something with them. I guess I had always been an entrepreneur, even as a child. When my sister and I were younger we started a soap business and it lasted for a few years. So, I just always wanted to do some type of business.
On this particular visit to my parents’ home, I spotted a Magnolia Journal magazine. As I was going through it, I found a story about Floret Flower Farm in Washington State. Erin Benzakein with Floret shared her story about how she was a young mom, was out in the country, was creative and wanted to do something and maybe bring in some income as well. Erin’s story just resonated with me.
Thankfully my dad just keeps letting me encroach on his hay filed every year.
Since I loved flower gardening, I just thought flower farming could work for me. If I remember correctly, we were starting to move from our apartment onto my family’s farm. We had moved a home onto my parent’s property and on my parents farm they had a field that was partially a corn and hay field. I thought this plot of my parent’s farm could work and it was really nice that I did not have to clear any trees. Thankfully my dad just keeps letting me encroach on his hay filed every year.
STARTING A FLOWER FARM
Basket of Flowers Farm officially started in July of 2018. I am pretty sure that afternoon I sat down and started to call florist to see what kind of flowers they wanted and what they paid for flowers. After this little bit of exploratory work, I was like wow this could really work. However, I have to say I have never sold any flowers to a florist that I can recall or very little that I can remember until just last year.
The first year we just started with a roadside stand, selling at farmers markets, bouquet subscriptions, and we built a website. Basket of Flowers Farm just progressed from there and then we began doing bouquet workshops. Also, in the beginning we had two drop off locations that went pretty well. However, the Lord directs us wherever he wants us to go, even if we might not think that’s the right way to go.
The Lord seems to give us what we didn’t think we wanted.
Looking back in hindsight, yes it was perfect. Currently, I feel the Lord is moving us away from bouquet subscriptions and the reason for this is when I take on a lot on the weekends it stresses my family, and I don’t want that to happen. We are now transitioning from the bouquet subscriptions and moving toward “You Picks” and more workshops. This allows our family to have weekends together and vacation times.
OPEN YOUR HOME TO OTHERS – OPEN YOUR HEART TO GOD – LET THE SPIRIT OPEN POWERFUL MINISTRY
The joy I now experience just seeing random people come visit our farm to pick flowers is just wonderful. And I have to say this is where the Lord seems to give us what we didn’t think we wanted. I remember a few years back I saw a U-Pick farm and thought I will never do a U-pick farm and embarrass myself. My home is still in progress of being built and we have more to finish, plus yard work that needs to be done. I do social media and I try to make everything look beautiful but if people come expecting to see what I try to portray on Instagram they are going to be shocked.
However, I have not experienced that one single time. The first time I opened my home up was for a workshop that a friend of mine encouraged me to do and I am so grateful she did that for me. I was in tears in that workshop along with a couple of other ladies. It was like, I have always grown up in the country so for me this life is totally normal. But for other people it’s not, and I don’t know what it’s like to be in an office cube all day. Or in a downtown apartment or on a busy street not able to smell beautiful flowers or sit in the grass.
For some of these people it was emotional to just be free to pick as many flowers as they wanted and learn how to arrange them. It was like healing was happening inside them to do these things. For me it was emotional to witness this happening and knowing that the Lord chose me to be a part of that was very humbling and I felt very full inside, like God was filling up my cup. Before this event I felt we weren’t quite where God wanted us to be, and I prayed “God I want to be where you want us to be and touch people’s lives”. Previous to U-Picks I hadn’t really connected with any customers, but on this day, I tasted how God could use my commitment to grow flowers to minister to others.
Literally, after this workshop I went inside and thought I need to do more of this, and how can I do this and make it more affordable. Because the tickets for this workshop were pricey due to catering and décor and I knew not everyone could afford a $70.00 ticket. Then I remembered a friend of mine Rhonda from Berry and Bloom Farm in Minnesota, and on one of our excursions as a family we visited their farm. U-Pick flowers is a large part of what happens on Berry and Bloom Farm, so I reached out to Rhonda and basically asked “How do you do what you do on your farm?” It was only after a few days after talking with Rhonda that we opened Basket of Flowers Farm for U-Pick’s.
Currently our U-Picks are open Monday – Saturday from 8:00am -8:00pm. It has gone wonderful and filled my cup [with joy] to chit chat with those who are out in the field picking flowers. God has used this flower field to allow me to minister to others and often you can just tell when someone needs prayer or fellowship. People will just open in this relax setting.
I want people to know about Jesus.
Know that God’s creation did not just happen by chance.
Connecting with people and knowing that all our hard work growing these flowers is being enjoyed by others is a blessing and I am grateful that God uses this platform to minister to others. I am always blown away how far folks will drive to just pick flowers and I am humbly floored.
A BASKET OF FLOWERS AND A WHOLE LOT MORE
At our Basket of Flowers Farm workshop, I will share my story at the beginning and share about the Lord. There have been times when someone has reached out to me wanting to make sure that if they came to one of our workshops that I was not going to talk about my faith. I explained that the focus is about learning the different types of flowers, how to build a bouquet, how to harvest flowers, and everything like that is the focus. However, I normally will bring up the Lord and His sweet creation and everyone is more than welcome to come, and I would not compromise on discussing my faith.
My family’s faith and my faith are all about who we are. I want all to know that yes, Basket of Flowers Farm is a business, but I want it to be more than about gain or just about the flowers. I want people to know about Jesus. Know that God’s creation did not just happen by chance, and there is a wonderful designer behind it.
The first couple of years that I grew flowers I didn’t produce that much. I had commitments to farmers markets, and bouquet prescriptions and so I horded all the flowers. My girls would want to pick flowers and bring bouquets into the house, but I would never allow them to do so because I was so afraid, I would not have enough flowers. Finally, after growing flowers for three years I finally felt we had enough flowers, and I was able to tell my girls, “Yes, you can go pick as many flowers as you want”. It was a grace moment for me and my girls to have flowers in our home to enjoy.
THE FLOWERS OF BASKET OF FLOWERS FARM
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For home gardens, I would not till anything anymore and I would amend the garden area with good compost and lay down a six-foot lined landscape fabric. You can cut or use a blow torch to burn holes into the fabric plant your seedlings or flowers into the holes. In the fall, I just mow down dead flowers and let them compost over the winter. This helps to act as a partial weed barrier, and then in the Spring I take my dibbler, making a hole to plant my seedling in. I would suggest if a home gardener would like to grow cut flowers, I would plant zinnias and branching sunflowers, amaranth, celosia, salvia, strawflowers, cosmos they are some of my favorites.
There is always a lot of trial and error in learning to grow cut flowers, and there are many resources that are free. My grow room can get quite messy, and my girls will spend a lot of time with me in the grow room. There is always much to do in late winter and early spring to prepare our flower farm. I have to give myself grace in this space, because I never want to be so busy that the flower farm takes me away from my young family.
I have had to realize that not everything is going to get done in perfect time but that’s okay. My family comes first! I balance everything as best as I can. I am very grateful that my husband has been super, super helpful. I have been blessed with my husband and I could not do this work without him. I have also had to learn it’s okay to ask for help, were human and we cannot do everything on our own.
To learn more about Paula’s workshops and U-picks, subscribe to her monthly newsletter by going to her website and following them on Instagram @basketofflowersfarm.
WHILE YOU PICK BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS HERE IS SOME BEAUTIFUL MUSIC TO CELEBRATE A BEAUTIFUL GOD
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION AND GROUP DISCUSSION
- (NOTE: POST COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS BELOW.) Paula shares, “Growing up my mother let my sister and I have our own little patch to grow flowers.” How does generational influence help younger people develop interest in gardening? What are some specific ways you can stimulate and nurture a gardening lifestyle in the next generation? What message do her parents send, what example do they set by letting her “encroach” on the hay field and grow her business? Beyond being industrious and entrepreneurial what spiritual qualities can you demonstrate with your gardening lifestyle?
- Getting a flower garden/farm started and then growing it into what you are called to do can be challenging and demanding but certainly full of opportunity. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who might you get to join you and what strengths would they bring? What are some first steps or next steps that you can take to begin to drive forward flower gardening in your life?
- Paula overcame her own fears of being embarrassed and the likelihood of her gardening reality being less than the best perfection of everything we all see on social media. From where do you get your perceptions? How might those perceptions not be real and how might they keep you from moving forward? How can Christ inform your reality and give you vision for the potential He sees within you?
- Beyond offering others a basket of flowers (the tangible) to others what is the “whole lot more” (the spiritual) that you are uniquely equipped to be to others? How can God use you to grow flowers to minister to others?
WHAT’S YOUR GARDENING LIFESTYLE STORY?
Paula Olivares is featured on the cover of the May-July 2023 issue of ripen – a gardening lifestyle magazine. Her flower garden is a testament to hard work, prayer, family cooperation, a love of beauty and a commitment to BE LIFE – the life of Christ to others. We’re always eager to learn about what others are doing and how God is moving in the gardening community.
What’s your story? Text “MYSTORY” to 22828 and tell us.
