10 Time-Saving Tips for Flower Farmers
Time is money, and for flower farmers that is a particularly accurate statement. There are only so many hours in a day, and although farmers in general are known to be hard-working people with grueling schedules, saving time is important.
More importantly, time is also about effort and efficiency. The more time, effort and stress that comes from flower farming, the higher the risk of burnout, getting injured or sick, and the less sustainable it becomes in the long term.
To save you some time (and work!), I wanted to share some things we’ve learned over the years to make our flower farming business more efficient
Make every step count
One thing that I’ve learned is to ensure that you make every step and motion count. Now, it wouldn’t be realistic to say that I am always 100% optimized but I know the more efficient I can be, the greater my efficiency and the more time I save.
For example, I used to forget items all the time, so I would have to run back to grab them and then head back out into the field - which made for a lot of running back and forth and wasting a lot of time and effort.
Instead, I make sure to grab everything I need - snips, clippers, soil knife and weeder, a trug for collecting deadheading and weeds, extra buckets and a small spade or shovel to ensure that I have as little time spent walking back and forth as possible.
It may not seem like a lot of time initially - but if each walk back and forth takes five minutes, and I have to do it six times a day, that’s a half hour per day. Which adds up to three and a half hours every week that I could have spent doing something else! Even if that’s being able to relax or spend time with family.
The longer we do this, the more important my time becomes and the more efficient I become in order to make my efforts count as much as possible.
2. Plant larger quantities of fewer varieties
When we first started out, we were growing close to fifty varieties of flowers of all types and each with their individual requirements and specifications. And while initially it was a lot of fun to grow and learn the requirements of all those materials, it soon became problematic as far as having to switch gears for each variety of material.
This goes for seed starting requirements, transplanting, growth rates, staking and corralling and netting, deadheading and harvesting and clearing of beds. If you have dozens and dozens of varieties, it can make for an impossible task to even keep track of everything that needs to be done, much less accomplishing it.
That’s why we’ve found that consolidating the varieties of flowers that we grow makes for more efficient and easier and less time-consuming growing. For example, in summer we focus on dahlias, cosmos, zinnias, basil and celosia. Those five crops comprise the majority of everything that we do - market bouquets, retail arrangements, wedding designs - and while you can throw in other species for variety and interest, being able to stick with large volume plantings those five crops really helps to make things far easier.
It’s one of the reasons why it’s so traditional to farm and grow in rows - clearly delineated, consolidated areas for each variety makes for a much more efficient and easier growing. It makes weeds easier to identify and remove, makes the netting and support uniform and easy, and makes it almost too easy to take care of your crops.
3. Direct sow more crops
While you can’t direct sow everything (there are actually very few crops that we direct sow) it’s a great and very efficient way to grow materials when you can.
Take for example cosmos. Although I do start some of our cosmos in plugs to transplant (Xanthos, Apricot Lemonade are pricier seed and therefore we starts ours off in plugs) some of the other varieties such as ‘Dazzler’ and ‘Purity’ we direct sow because they are so easy and efficient to grow that way.
Instead of taking the time to fill trays, plant the seeds, grow them out, wait for the to develop and transplant them, Mother Nature takes care of the process for us.
Other varieties that work well for us with direct sowing include zinnias, sunflowers, grasses, marigolds, amaranthus, daucus, larkspur, bachelor buttons, calendula, cerinthe, breadseed poppies and ammi majus and ammi visnaga
Direct Sowing for the Flower Farmer
Direct sowing is great because it allows for you to really cut down on your time as a flower farmer, skipping over babying seed in cell trays, growing out the seedlings, and then transplanting the seedlings which takes a lot of time especially in April and May for us - the busiest times of the year. Find out more about the advantages of direct sowing for a flower farmer!
4. Invest in perennials and woodies
While there’s nothing quite like annual flowers in terms of sheer productivity, there’s quite a lot of time and effort involved in raising them. Having to start them from seed every year takes a ton of work and time.
Perennials and woody cuts on the other hand, take that time out of the equation. By not having to re-start and re-plant them every year, they are automatically going to save you a ton of time and effort, especially in the spring when flower farmers are typically at their busiest.
Even better is the fact that most perennials and woody cuts not only maintain their ability to produce, but many get even bigger and better with age! The small (thornless!) blackberry plants we tossed in a few years back have grown into a giant patch of wonderful foliage that looks amazing with just about anything and requires very minimal upkeep from us.
Now, perennial and woody cuts aren’t 100% effort-free. They still require some maintenance - weeding, harvesting and deadheading, dividing, and replacing them when they slow production - but they generally require far less effort compared to annuals when it comes to a year by year time commitment
8 Easy Perennials to Take Cuttings From (And Grow On for Next Year)
Learn how to multiple and grow perennials from cuttings for next year’s blooms!
5. Batch your processes
It’s far more efficient (and easier) if you do the first step to completion, then move onto the next step and complete that as well.
Let’s say for example, you’re trying to sow a dozen flats of seeds.
Each flat requires all of these steps:
Filling it with potting mix
Tamping it down to remove air pockets
Watering the potting mix
Planting the seeds
Sprinkling with vermiculite
Covering with a humidity dome
Finally, placing it where we want the seedlings to germinate and grow out.
So that’s seven steps for each flat. And if you stop and do that with each flat, it can be quite exhausting by the time you get to the fourth or fifth flat.
Instead, what I like to do is this. I perform all the steps, but do the same step to all the flats at the same time.
So I’ll fill all of the flats with potting mix first. Then I’ll go through and tamp down all the flats. And then I’ll water all the flats at the same time and so on and so forth.
This actually is far quicker because you’re not having to mentally and physically “switch gears” when it comes to your tasks. It’s a lot easier and quicker to do the same task for the dozen flats at the same time than it is to have to think about the next step and switching to it.
This applies to many things - planting, watering, netting, deadheading, harvesting, flipping beds, really anything you can think of.
6. Get quick at harvesting
Harvesting flowers takes a lot of time for us, and
Take bachelor buttons for example. Many people try and locate each individual stem, trace it back down and then cut each individual stem to place into their bucket in the field. It works, but it makes the process much harder and takes far longer than it should.
Instead, with bachelor buttons we’ll just head to the base of the plant and cut an entire stalk of flowers. We’ll process it later into individual stems as needed, but it’s far quicker and easier to harvest this way
Grasses are another example. As opposed to necessarily trying to comb through and cut each stem, I’ll usually just grab the entire clump and cut down at the base of the plant. Takes me a few seconds, and I’m done, no fuss no muss.
Other materials that can be harvested this way include the other vigorous growers like cosmos, spray marigolds, cress, clary sage, scabiosa and others.
7. Consider buying plugs
Now we’ve discussed that successful seed starting is a skill that every flower farmer should master, with the amount of profit and productivity when starting flowers from seed is huge.
However, there are the hidden costs of seed starting including lights, a seed starting setup, watering and growing out the seedlings and seedling failures - all of which can decrease the amount of success and increase the risk of crop failure.
More importantly, the amount of time spent on seed starting is massive - probably at least 50% of the weekly workload depending on the season - and that time could possibly be better spent doing other tasks that move the needle more for the business.
That’s why buying in plugs could be an option to help you save time. Ordering in your seedlings cuts down significantly on the time and effort spent on growing them out. It also is really helpful with hard-to-grow items like poppies, eucalyptus and lisianthus to ensure that you have actual plants to plant out later.
You also don’t have to have 100% grown from seed or from plugs either - consider if there are some items that you can grow yourself, and other items that you can purchase in to help with the process. For example I love growing Icelandic poppies myself, but I’ll buy in eucalyptus because I hate growing them and find the time spent to be excruciating.
8. Consider Landscape Fabric or Mulch
Although we don’t use landscape fabric or mulch ourselves there are a lot of flower farmers who swear by it as far as helping save time and being more efficient.
A woven landscape fabric is generally laid down and transplants (or seeds) are planted into pre-made holes that are burned into the fabric.
The fabric helps a lot with weed suppression, in essence smothering a lot of the weeds before they can even start growing into any sort of issue. Although there are still some weeds that will make their way out of the planting holes, it saves so much time when it comes to weeding and keeping rows clean.
(We don’t use landscape fabric since we utilize flood irrigation and it would make it more difficult for us, so we use a shuffle hoe and Japanese weeder and dense planting instead to keep things weed-free).
9. Grow More of What Sells
In previous years, we grew a wide variety of materials - not all of which would sell. Whether selling to florists, doing market bunches or doing our own design work, every single stem took time to grow out, harvest and process - and spending the time on materials that didn’t sell was a waste of time and effort.
Take for example bupleurum - we couldn’t sell it to florists, and found it generally looked rather generic and cheap when we included it into market bunches and design work, and when it can be purchased so cheaply from the wholesaler as a filler it didn’t make sense to grow it. Which is why we replaced it with cerinthe for a lovely springtime foliage and filler material that is far more valuable and useful to us (especially for wedding design work).
The good news is that the longer that we grow flowers, the better we know the value and marketability of each material we grow. If you can’t use it and it doesn’t make sense for your business model, then grow something else that does!
10. Consider hiring help
It doesn’t have to be just field help either. Some flower farmers prefer to be out in the field and doing the growing, and may need help with other duties of running a business - administrative tasks, following up on business and wedding inquiries, answering emails and phone calls, updating inventory, making deliveries - all of which are important but my require too much of you as the head of the operation.
Just think - if you could have someone help to book a wedding or land a consignment account at a local grocery store or gain a client who wants an ala carte arrangement for a birthday this week while you’re out in the field or harvesting or designing, they not only earn their keep but help to grow your business.
It may be important to team up with someone else whose strengths also lie in the areas in which you’re not as strong in. Maybe you hire somebody part-time to help you with photography and managing your social media accounts. Or perhaps you have someone who can help with harvesting for the weekend’s farmer market while you meet with a local coffee shop to see if they can carry your blooms.
Too often we find ourselves as entrepreneurs and farmers wanting to do everything ourselves. And don’t get me wrong - we’re amazing, hard-working, dedicated individuals when it comes to our business and our dreams, but we are also only human and there are only so many hours in a day. And sometimes to scale our business or make it more profitable or more sustainable, the only way to do so is to ask for help. There’s no shame in it, it is simply ensuring that you’re working smarter - not harder - and also ensuring that this can become something you can do long-term without getting burnt out or hitting a ceiling.