Yesterday I turned 47… and there’s so much I’ve learned and so much to still learn in this life…but I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of a few things I’ve learned mostly the hard way over the years :-)
Cheers to a life of always loving, learning and growing!! 🥂 💕
A little introduction of how this farm came to be since it’s been awhile 😉 💕 Hope you are well today wherever you are. Thanks for following our flower farm in these little squares :-)
There are so many new faces…I thought it was probably time for an intro for those of you who want to know a little bit more about us!
My name is Sarah, and my family and I started Foothills Flower Farm in March 2020. One day, while wandering a bookstore, I discovered Erin Benzakein’s book, “Cut Flower Garden”. The photos were captivating and I bought it based on the photography alone! At the time, I was working part-time as a midwife and doula. I read Erin’s book cover to cover and knew it was the kind of career switch I wanted: something that combined creativity and design with physical work outside in nature. As much as I LOVED being a midwife and working with moms and babies, I needed time off call. Flowers speak a language of their own to our souls. We all need beauty. Flowers build bridges, foster community, and bring smiles to people’s faces. They evoke memories. I was hooked.
Opening month for us was at the beginning of the pandemic- we had been planning and planting and suddenly we had this gift of time on our hands. Pete is a full time high school teacher and when the pandemic hit, he was home. The gift was to have the chance to throw ourselves into this new adventure together in the midst of a tumultuous time in the world and cultivate beauty.
We are family owned and have one very awesome employee. We grow on 1/4 of an acre using bio intensive agricultural methods (essentially, high yields in a small space).
We often get asked how you can buy our flowers! Here are the main outlets:
🌸We sell directly to our customers through our bouquet CSA: spring, summer, and fall.
🌸We offer small-scale wedding design in addition to offering buckets of blooms for DIY brides.
🌸We sell our flowers at Coucou Rachou bakery in town.
🌸Sometimes we open our flower stand when our field has surplus!
🌸We sell to local florists…and LOVE their support!
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This morning I picked 4 blueberries off the 4 blueberry bushes we planted on our flower farm. I planted them for their foliage, but for now…we get blueberries! 🫐 I’m so excited. They were so tasty. I ate every single one and didn’t share. 😜 😋
It’s UVA graduation weekend! You can pre-order a bouquet filled with peonies to pick up at our flower stand…or pick up a small bouquet at @coucourachou !
Link in profile and click on “flowers” to shop our options!
Grinning from ear to ear because the peonies are at their prime after all the rain yesterday!! This bunch was just from one morning cutting …we are cutting 2-3 times a day!!
On our micro flower farm in mid-May we are direct seeding sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos and marigolds…these are the 2nd successions of these tender annuals for us…we will have a total of 4 successions of cosmos/zinnias…and try to start sunflowers every 3 weeks through late August.
Sometimes at this point I’m also still planting a few dahlia tubers as well.
We also start sowing biennials like foxglove and sweet William in trays under lights indoors. They germinate at cooler temps than the flowers above. They will grow as small plants the rest of the year, blooming next spring.
I’m not sure what Mother’s Day is like for you. If we were sitting down over coffee across from each other you could share your story and I could share mine about being a mom or not being a mom... about our growing up. But instead I’m typing this with a cup of coffee in one hand sitting on my porch... jeans stained with dirt because I didn’t feel like changing into work clothes. I walked outside to go on a long walk, but saw today that all the peonies needed cutting to save for our May weddings, so I spent the morning cutting peonies. I thought about how Mother’s Day looks differently for each of us.
When I worked as a birth doula and a midwife, I sat beside moms in labor as they pushed their babies into the world and transformed into a mom right before my eyes. In the midst of labor and bringing a child into the world there’s a type of surrendering each mom has to come to terms with- to let go of any idea of control.... let the birth process do it’s own thing... let our bodies take over. There’s a giving up...a deep giving in that’s required.
That surrender and letting go at birth only seems to be the beginning...the surrendering continues...they launch and then there’s another kind of surrendering...
Gosh, is it ever hard to let go of our children who we love so much.
So, to all the moms, the soon-to-be moms, the ones who mother other’s kids, to our friend’s moms and those who have stepped in as a mother figure for us and filled in tiny or large holes of brokenness...to the mother-in-laws, the stepmoms, the ones yearning to be moms, to moms with their babies in heaven, the ones who have lost moms, the grandmothers, aunts, and mentor-moms. Adoptive moms. Spiritual moms. You are all heros and we are all in this together as we each walk this path of loving deeply and letting go all at the same time.
Our flower stand is open for any of those who pre-ordered Mother’s Day arrangements. You may add on a tshirt and a mug- we take cash and venmo!
Sorry, we aren’t open today for shopping, just pre-order pick up due to limited blooms!
Xo, Sarah
To add to the peonies blossoming for Mother’s Day…we also have our garden roses opening up just in time 🌸Thank you for your orders! We are sold out!
This is one of my favorite early blooming roses…”Colette”.
Our wedding clients love the surprise of local flowers…it’s always a surprise because the weather controls all we do here and is always surprising us…and the peonies decided to bloom just this week! So a bride picked up 4 buckets of flowers today that she purchased last June…not knowing it would be full of peonies!!
