{"id":21519,"date":"2024-12-13T12:19:54","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T12:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/endowment.org\/?post_type=news&p=21519"},"modified":"2024-12-24T16:28:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T16:28:45","slug":"an-interview-with-lindsay-and-tater-from-bloombeat","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/endowment.org\/es\/news\/an-interview-with-lindsay-and-tater-from-bloombeat","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Lindsay and Tater from Bloom Beat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m sure many of you reading this newsletter have heard of Ball Publishing\u2019s Bloom Beat<\/strong><\/a>, written by co-editors Lindsay Daschner and her four-legged companion Tater. Lindsay and Tater are the owners of Forget Me Not Farms<\/strong><\/a> in Ottawa Lake, Michigan, a wholesale flower operation catering exclusively to florists and event planners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay\u2019s journey with Tater is a reminder of the passion, spirit, and creativity it takes to succeed in the floral industry. At the American Floral Endowment<\/a>,<\/strong> we\u2019re dedicated to supporting growers like Lindsay by providing research, resources, and educational opportunities tailored to the unique challenges of flower farming. Whether it\u2019s funding groundbreaking studies on crop production, offering webinars and other resources to help optimize production systems, or connecting growers with industry-leading insights, AFE is here to help you succeed and be profitable. To learn more about our resources for cut flower farmers, click here<\/a>,<\/strong> and explore the tools and programs designed to support your success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I caught up with Lindsay and Tater as they were preparing to spend the night at the farm in their van during a winter storm, keeping a close eye on the greenhouses in case the power failed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today! How did you and Tater get started at the farm?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay: <\/strong>I\u2019m a Michigan State graduate, and I originally had two options for my career path: either go into landscape design or pursue graduate school with an assistantship. During winter break of my senior year, I came home for Christmas and thought, \u2018I need something to do\u2014I can\u2019t just sit around.\u2019 That\u2019s when I found a greenhouse nearby that specialized in cut lilies, and the rest is history. It completely changed the trajectory of my career. My original plan was to be a landscape designer in Ann Arbor, but that stint at the greenhouse opened my eyes to the world of flower farming. By the time I graduated, I had scrapped my initial plans and decided to dive fully into the flower business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I was working at the lily farm, I was also starting Forget Me Not Farms. I noticed that the lily farm would sell out of anemone, ranunculus, and dahlias every week. So Tater and I started growing them and other niche specialty flowers and marketed them. Eventually, we had more than we needed to supply our initial clientele and Tater and I would load up the truck with flowers and visit new flower shops to introduce ourselves. I\u2019d walk in with a bucket of flowers in one hand and Tater on a leash in the other. I\u2019d say something like, \u201cThese are the best flowers ever\u2014please support Tater in the lifestyle she\u2019d like to be accustomed to.\u201d It worked surprisingly well! If someone didn\u2019t want to interact with her, I figured they weren\u2019t the kind of florist I wanted to sell to anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> What would you say your greatest challenge was this year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay:<\/strong> Definitely staffing. The job description says you must be able to be on your feet for 8 to 10 hours, crouch, stoop, you know, be able to lift 40 pounds. I outline it, basically saying this job is very physical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But people see the videos and images on social media, and they think, \u2018Oh, I’m going to be wearing a sundress with a wicker basket, and I’m just going to be casually cutting these flowers and frolicking through the fields.\u2019 [Laughs] It’s like, no, if you can’t cut ten stems of dahlias in less than two minutes, that’s not winning. We also get people who have worked in flower shops, but working on a farm is very different than working in a flower shop. If you\u2019re coming to work on a farm in June or July, it\u2019s going to be sweaty, it\u2019s going to be hot. We\u2019re going to implement some new strategies to try to have better recruitment. In 2026 we\u2019re going to be doing H-2A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest thing with H-2A is housing. And we\u2019ve just solved that problem. You have to make sure you have good housing in place before you invite people to stay. It\u2019s a lot of work to set up, but these workers will be like family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> If you were starting the farm again with the knowledge you have now, is there anything you would do differently? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d say the best advice I can give\u2014and what I\u2019ve learned\u2014is to begin with the end in mind, including your intent to keep scaling production. Invest in the best infrastructure you can afford, even if it seems excessive at the time. For example, we\u2019ve built all our greenhouses above grade with proper drainage and snow load ratings. It\u2019s more work and money upfront, but it saves so much hassle in the long run. We laid extra water lines and used materials that would last, like copper wiring instead of aluminum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And don\u2019t just start with the intent of building just one greenhouse if you know you want to have acres of them. Do what you can afford. Looking at the cost of a greenhouse kit, you should plan to roughly double the price if you\u2019re building it yourself to include labor, water, electric, and gas, as well as everything you need to furnish it. After that, reinvest the profit into building more infrastructure. It\u2019s a long-term game. You\u2019re investing a considerable amount of money and time with the hopes that it will pay off in 10 years. Also, be aware that greenhouses are crazy expensive to buy new, but the resale value is nothing. The greenhouse only has value if you can operate it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, knowing your own goals and personality is key. I think people need to look at themselves in the mirror and decide, \u2018Do I really want to manage people? Or do I just love the flowers?\u2019 There’s a difference between loving being a technician – the person actually planting, growing and cutting the plants, versus being the owner of the farm and the business. It takes that soft skills piece to have a successful operation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> How do you determine your crop timing, especially in Michigan, with the specialty crops that you\u2019re growing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay:<\/strong> It\u2019s a little bit challenging, because the flowers we grow aren’t researched as well since they’re so niche. It’s hard to program crops to hit specific holidays when we don’t necessarily understand what the flowering mechanisms are. For crops like anemone and ranunculus, a lot of that cultivation information is proprietary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberto Lopez at Michigan State did some preliminary LED research<\/strong><\/a> on anemone, ranunculus, and dahlias, and I think he got funding from AFE. So, thank you, I appreciate it! Investing in LEDs makes sense in Michigan, where everything’s so cloudy. Our daily light integral in January can be something like three moles per day, but the flowers like 15. The difference between 3 and 15 is huge! Being able to justify the investment in LED lights requires careful calculation. The challenge is determining the return on investment when we don\u2019t fully understand how much faster anemones or ranunculus would flower under those lights. Without that data, it\u2019s really difficult to make an informed decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> I recently went to a conference that had a \u201cBest New Ideas\u201d session where growers shared the best ideas they implemented this year. What is your \u201cBest New Idea\u201d for 2024?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay:<\/strong> Last season, we grew about an acre and a half of outdoor flowers and then we doubled it this season. We were dying planting stuff by hand, digging these dahlias by hand \u2014 and a light switch went off. I was like, okay, we gotta figure out how to mechanize this. But the challenge with flower farming is that nobody makes equipment designed for what we do. So we adapted a water wheel transplanter<\/strong><\/a>, which is usually used for tomatoes or vegetable crops about 8 to 12 inches apart. Well, for flowers, I like them to be about 4 inches apart. So we put in extra paddles to double the holes, but we didn\u2019t realize how much faster you have to go – 4 inches comes fast! You\u2019d be amazed at how hard that is, but overall it worked. Then we bought an Italian potato digger to harvest dahlias. We found it at auction. I think people forget there’s a lot of overlap\u00a0between vegetable production, bedding plant production and cut flowers. There is something to be learned from other production systems. Buying this potato digger was a major, life-changing thing because we had half an acre of dahlias this year. That boils down to 20,000 plants, give or take.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labor and time are always the handicap and anything we can do to enhance the job satisfaction for people that work on the farm is important. Your best asset is your people, hands down. And when you mechanize the things that can be mechanized, that opens up our time to do the things that have to be done by hand. Not only does it boost your profitability, but it boosts your employee retention too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura: <\/strong>Where do you get your information? In addition to AFE, what resources or events do you think are a must for cut flower growers to check out? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay: <\/strong>One of my major deep dives recently is how to be a better boss. One of my favorite things to read is the Harvard Business Review. They have a lot of really great articles every month and you can get two for free each month. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action<\/em> by Simon Sinek is one of my favorite books. And Seven Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em> by Stephen Covey. And I also love Gary Vaynerchuk on Instagram. He\u2019s got some really good ideas about business and being tougher than everyone else and just plowing through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as plant culture and production, the best thing that I did was go work for somebody else. I always tell people, if they want to know something, just go and do it somehow. Trying things with someone who knows more than you do is invaluable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing I\u2019ve found is when I want to learn something about something really obscure, I look at older books. Sometimes the art of something has been lost because you just lost the people that did it. A lot of the things that we\u2019re doing have been done before, but they went out of fashion and we\u2019re just now getting back to them. Gloeckner<\/strong> <\/a>in particular had some really outstanding production guides that they would send with their salespeople. And it makes me smile because the history of the industry is quite fascinating. But yeah, everything you\u2019re trying to do has been done to some degree, in some way. But that doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t do it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> Last question – are there any trends you\u2019re seeing in cut flowers and floristry right now? Do current trends influence your decision-making?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay:<\/strong> Honestly, I just ask people what they want. That was one of the nice things about early on when Tater and I were doing all the deliveries, I could just say, \u2018Hey, if there\u2019s something you would like us to have that we don\u2019t, just tell me and we\u2019ll try it.\u2019  The biggest thing is don\u2019t assume – ask. But that doesn\u2019t mean that if you have something in your heart that you really want to try you shouldn\u2019t do it. For me, that was pansies. I was like, I\u2019m just going to do this and put it in my buckets every week, and eventually it\u2019s going to stick, right? So it can be a two-way street, especially if your customers trust you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that people don’t realize is that people buy you as much as they buy your product. When people make the decision to buy flowers from our truck, it’s not just buying the flowers, it’s buying something from Lindsay and Tater. And I\u2019ll tell you, I\u2019ve never had any trouble with collections or anything because it\u2019s like, man, you do not want to be known as the person who took food out of Tater\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something that also helps us now is that local flowers are in, and we\u2019ve been lucky to be ahead of the curve. Local flowers are riding the coattails of the local food movement. So we\u2019re kind of in the driver\u2019s seat to some degree because local flowers are so popular right now. And I hope that\u2019s going to last. But ultimately, it\u2019s just knowing the people who buy from you and what will make them money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Laura:<\/strong> Thank you and Tater so much for your time. Good luck tonight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsay: <\/strong>Hopefully, it\u2019ll be uneventful. I\u2019ll tell you one last story. I think this was Christmas 2022, around December 23rd. We had a polar vortex in Michigan\u2014wind chills hit -20\u00b0F, and it was brutal. The power went out at the farm, and while the generator kicked in, when the power switched back to the grid, one of the heaters failed. The motherboard fried, and we lost an entire greenhouse full of plants. I spent Christmas Eve calling in every favor to find a new heater, scrambling to save what I could. I was running back and forth, covering plants with plastic in the freezing cold, and my face hurt so badly from the wind. It was one of the most miserable experiences, but you do what you need to do to keep things running. Farming in the winter, especially in a northern climate, is a whole different ball game. You never know what you’re walking into, but you just have to be tougher than the circumstances you’re facing. And Tater and I are tough as nails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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