How much can you make flower farming?
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- Опубликовано: 23 янв 2023
- How much can you actually make flower farming? Well...This is a question I've gotten a lot over the last four years, so I wanted to give you the information and straight numbers for how much we made on our flower farm in year 3. While these are baseline numbers, please bear in mind that they can fluctuate a lot up or down depending on your practices, your income streams, your input costs and more!
There is a lot of content floating around out there about how flower farming is profitable--and it ::can:: be more profitable on a small scale than, say, commodity farming of wheat/soybeans/corn, for example. But it is also VERY labor intensive! Planting seeds by hand, harvesting by hand, curated bouquet making--it is a time consuming business. So if you are thinking you can do flower farming as a "side hustle," well--you definitely can! But you will need to scale up slowly and adjust your expectations of how much it will cost, how much money you will make, and how much time you will need to invest.
While we didn't get into the nitty gritty of what exactly makes more money (and what costs more money!) or every single expense by line item, we hope this helps give a general idea! We have more about the breakdowns below:
PLANTS: Seeds, bulbs, corms, tubers, perennials, shrubs, cover crops
INFRASTRUCTURE: Tunnels, irrigation, frost fabric, hail net, portapotty rental, hoops, netting, pathways, tractor, cooler, barn maintenance
MATERIALS: tractor, tools (shovels, broadforks, clippers), buckets, bouquet wraps, rubber bands, tables, chairs, vases, cards, paper
SOIL/AMENDMENTS: seed starting soil, alfalfa pellets, sheep maintenance (we put sheep in here because we use their output as manure!)
BUSINESS/EDUCATION: website, insurance, associations/memberships, marketing
So, what do you think? Would you do this for $10/hour? 
Хобби
Not dry at all. I so appreciate when people are upfront about the cost of things. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you! ❤
Not dry at all! Your Mom is right, don’t bother fudging numbers, that’s a set of lies you won’t have to try to keep track of. Your candour is most appreciated. There’s more intrinsic value to what you do than your calculated hourly return. The value of your outreach is probably not calculable, and you aren’t getting monetary returns on your knowledge transfer, but I feel like there is another more ethereal ledger for people that freely share their expertise. You have my admiration, and I do not doubt, the admiration of many thousands.
I don’t think I can fully express how much that comment means to me. Thank you for taking the time to write it. ❤️
I love gardening and wanted to sell flowers as a side income to support my gardening expenses and potentially a full time business. I am a realist and did the math vs labor last year and decided at 54 years old with chronic illness and pain that this in not a good business endeavor for me! Thank you for keeping it real! So many RUclipsrs are all about the fluff and so many people jump in head first without counting the costs. I'll continue to garden for fun and therapy and make a random buck here and there. But I will find a more profitable, less grueling and hopefully fulfilling business to enjoy and bring me profits.
I hope you come back and let us know what you find. I've been looking for a side hustle too and love growing flowers to give to family and friends, but I wonder if I can do it with a full-time job? These videos keep it real and I appreciate that. One piece I've never heard is how much these folks make through you tube alone? I'd love to hear that even though I have no intention of doing that. I'm curious.
As an accountant/farmer I’ve never spent 34k on inputs seeds, plants bulbs. That’s a huge number which luckily was offset by 45k in flower sales. Add to that your other expenses and labor… and as always farming (of any kind) is a losing proposition (financially) However Your workshops are very profitable so essentially that is your off farm income! We’ve always had to work off the farm to supplement our farm losses😊
I'm an accountant who has been watching your videos to start my own cutting garden. Definitely not dry to me.😊 That said, my part time accounting job is looking more realistic now rather than a flower business.
I found a “store” of daffodil bulbs on the side of our backyard shed and the owner of the house who has lived here since he was a kid has no idea how they got there. There’s hundred of them and after turning them a little they just started sprouting after who knows how many years. Now they come back every year like we landscaped.
This was so helpful! Thank you for being so honest. I’m blown away by the fact you can stay on top of keeping 2 acres with two small kids! I’m struggling with a quarter acre 😅
That was great and very eye opening. Thank you. You put a lot into everything that you do and it shows. At 75 I certainly wouldn’t be starting anything as time consuming and intensively hard work but I was wondering if I might have done it when I was young. The answer is nope, I love growing flowers and gardening but to work as hard as it takes I just couldn’t do it. When I buy flowers or especially send an arrangement I tend to resent what it costs, but now I’ll have a new outlook on those prices. You certainly deserve a LOT more for all that hard work. Thank you so much for your honesty. You are a very beautiful woman.
Eye opening...I still love it, even if the payoff in dollars is low.
I’ll be honest, I LOVE these videos. The money in/money out is really helpful and so interesting. I also like the RUclips income breakdown videos. Basically anything that gives me the numbers 😅
Thank you for sharing. More visibility is needed so folks know going into it. Start small and learn how you want to grow your business. It’s easy to see big farms and think you should be buying all the bulbs etc. It also helps to have a spouse who is making an income off the farm ❤
Absolutely. I couldn’t make this work on a single income unless I’d been saving up for a while to have some padding!
Loved this format! Thanks for sharing your numbers, I'm going into my 3rd season growing, 2nd for profit. And lemme tell you I'm deff in the red this year just because of all the infrastructure we put in & classes I take, yours being one of them.
Aw so glad you’ve taken the class! Definitely high startup costs! I hope your next year is wonderful!!
My guess is this. Owning and operating local farm seems to pay 10 to 14 hours an hour if you are doing well....that is once you get past the hurtles of acquiring your initial land, your initial infrastructure, and initial operating costs. The benefit is the life you live and/or the living you experience which you can't put a price on
well that was a mouthful and I think it goes to show that things aren't not as easy as they appear everybody thinks it's a lovely job and many people would do over some drum job that they didn't really care about because that itself is quite healing
The travel is when you start a video title out with 107,000 and then we get to gas every time you talk about your expenses knowing that the bottom line is going to be virtually almost breaking even, it's pretty deflating I've been working on almost the last three months in a grocery store in the floral department. And I can tell you it is very hard work I process two trucks a week I try to maintain that department I have potted plants indoor potted plants outdoor we have the consumer bunches and bouquets and we have the arrangements that we make to put in the case for people to purchase as a ready to go situation
There is ordering and ball balloons and ribbons and all of the accessories that are required like the little clips for the balloons then we have FTD and the unexpected events that come up like people needing boutonnieres corsages mini bouquets for their prom which were getting flooded with at the time and yet we still have to do all the other stuff including placing orders and trying to process flowers that have expired and trying to put them into arrangements hoping that they will last a little while for the pleasure and enjoyment of the customers truly we should be using fresh flowers however no matter how much I have pleaded with the manager in this department very little is actually taken into serious consideration
Focus on the bottom line low labor so I'm having to work twice as hard half the amount of time and feel completely spent not really having the opportunity to do the things I would take pleasure in
So if you add all of those things on top of the wrapping which we really don't specialize in I need sundries that you need to do that unboxing and storing all of your vases running to the back to grab more supplies it really is a very difficult position and then you have to grow the flowers? the fact that your business that you're running mostly comes from the extra effort that you take because the flowers themselves are not making you enough money and I want to question if you're charging enough I think farmers get the shaft
And I do think it's because they give permission and participate in that so whoever you're selling your flowers to if you're not in the competitive position with surrounding businesses doing the same then you are short changing yourself
so I would start looking very closely at what you are charging for your flowers and for your services because I feel that you are not charging enough and perhaps that's an effort which comes from a fear base to make some thing over nothing
So yes this video without a shadow of a doubt was extremely discouraging to those who might consider doing this as a business but as you said this is really experimental for you and a learning process so that you can apply this on a larger scale elsewhere so it's not a complete loss neither is trying to see what actually works but your area is going to dictate some of that because of the residence what their interests are of course absolutely nothing selling to a flower market unless you were growing on large scale to anyone an individual if they're gonna pay those pricesat grocery store or florist in the middle as far as charging goes
I really appreciate this video. There's a certain flower farmer on social media that's always bragging about making six figures but never goes into details about her costs. It doesn't really matter how much money you bring in if you're spending more than you make! Lol so glad you get to pursue your passion and help take care of our planet!
I find those numbers are usually so skewed. Lots of people trying to sell classes about how to make lots of money flower farming!! 😅
Harsh reality 😢 💔. I assumed you made more for such beautiful flowers 💐 😍. It's a labor of love and passion for sure. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! I dialed back a lot this year because it is so much time away from my family for so little, but I still love to teach!
Thank you for this video & your transparency. People struggle their entire lives working at jobs they don’t like. It seems you have found something you enjoy doing and feel good about - that is priceless. I too love the outdoors & gardening and striving to make this love of mine a profitable one. 🌸🌱💕
Great video. People often don't add up the costs of gardening, especially the infrastructure and soil amendments. Gardening for a business also has the many hazards of bad weather and insect damage.
I’m getting started as a first timer this year. And when you say $10 that’s crazy low. But there’s a trade off to not being a cooperate slave to the machine. Sounds like a good trade off to me! Cheers!
very real... I am a flower farmer in MN . I get it.
This was so so so informational and helpful! Thank you for being so transparent!
Thanks for sharing, I’m sure that it was hard to share your numbers but honestly it was so nice to hear as a microgreens farmer wondering if this was going to work! But you’re right, it’s about so much more than profit. It’s building community, a healthy planet and a priceless skillset.
Thank you so much for your honesty and openness on this subject! I knew it wasn't a get rich career, and my goal originally was to make _at least_ $500 a week, just to support myself comfortably (cheap rent on family farm), so this is a good reality checkup that it is 100% doable. Thank you, it means a lot.
This is so helpful as someone who about to embark on my flower production trial year! I've been running a perennial flower business tending to other's properties and gardens, but now my partner and I finally have our own land. I want to start the little flower farm that I've dreamed of for a decade! I noticed that wedding flowers are one of your income streams. Would you be willing to spell that out a little bit more? I'm curious if you do the floral design work for weddings, or if you sell your flowers wholesale to wedding florists? I have done floral design for a couple of weddings and found it to be a huge output of energy and time, and I struggle to imagine incorporating that with my garden business, and the mini farm I intend to establish. But, I wonder if doing wedding floral design is an important income stream for making it as a flower farmer. Thank you!!
Thank you so much. I’m a solo parent with a dream of owning and running my own flower farm. This helps me think up other income streams besides just selling flowers. I think having a greenhouse to rent out for specialty photography etc. I’ll keep thinking 🙏🏽🌸
Thank you! This was very informative and was presented very professionally yet with feeling. I love the way you present your ideas with facts that are not sugar coating the reality. Thank you!
So 35, 000.00 for plant material.
45,000.00 sales from that plant material. Plus materials, soil. Wow.
I'm in my second year and spent maybe a grand. I am growing my own perrenials . I'm hoping I can use the property for weddings and airbnb.
It's just part of my world so like you I'm not in it for the money..
Edit : it seems nobody is making much in the flower farming business unless they produce you tube content and have functions.
I have heard that Lisa Mason Zeigler has made a living but she is a master in self promotion and very few people could work like her.
I appreciate your transparency. I think many get ideas of romanticized farming both veg and flower, and both require hard work and commitment for it to work. I have so enjoyed your channel (and “you cant eat the grass” as well), with your honesty.
Keep doing what you love
The brutal reality of farming! Thanks for sharing this:)
Your video is extremely informative and flower farming ranks with the rest of farming ventures. At the end of the day, most farmers do not make a lot of money, their revenue is tied up in their land, infrastructure, machinery and ranchers have livestock and other costs. Calculating hourly salary can be disappointing however life is not just making money, life is being active and loving it!
I absolutely agree with your statement, thank you!!
Great channel! You tube just recommended it to me. $10 an hour while you are educating yourself (and a bunch of others) is pretty good.
As someone that’s considering leaving my corporate job to be a grower this is sooo helpful! Thank you 🌸💕🌷☘️
Thanks for sharing! 💯
More folks need to hear this and see how hard our farmers have to work with little to no pay out. Our farmers work so hard and make so little. Being an entrepreneur is hard...wish more salary based folks understood how easy they have it and would be more appreciative of the services of others more.
Thank you for all of that! Truly!
Not dry at all. I am starting my 5th year, also in an expensive urban/suburban area, and finally this year will not have major infrastructure expenses. Hoping for my best year yet, but this is not for the faint at heart or someone looking for easy money. Love following you on IG.
I hope you can grow this with affiliate links and RUclips ad revenue. You could also do some cute merchandise, that I’m sure your viewers would love to buy! Like me.
thank you so much for all the info you put
So appreciate your transparency! Cheers.
Love how up front and honest this is.
Thank you for sharing and the discussion
Thanks for sharing this! It’s so helpful!
So a labor of love in other words.
A lot of people have a degree and make about that after graduating and a student loan. It’s not easy, but it helps that you do what you love.
I love all of this information! It’s so helpful to know what you are getting into!
This was SO incredibly helpful. Thank you!!
Soooo helpful!!
Thank you for the video and for being so honest! I really appreciate everything that you shared 💚
Great video, thank you for sharing!! :)
Thank you for all the wonderful content 💕 I have loved learning about flowers.
Thank you so much for your willingness to show us what goes on behind the scenes. Cheers from FL.
Thank you for all of these insights! You had us hanging on every word. Go, team B&B!
Love your videos, thank you for sharing the details of your business 😊❤
Love your transparency! Very helpful! You are a true gem!
Thank you for your transparency! I appreciate your vision and your drive to build your ecosystems and soils. Cheers
Very helpful❤😊
Love the info you shared! Thank you for taking the time to go through your numbers. I've been toying with the idea of starting my own flower farm in Canada, so this is really helpful info.
Haha - never dry!! Always entertaining along with learning 😊😊
Thank you ❤
Oh, I love this! We are currently looking for a suburban space with acreage where I can gain experience and learn regenerative practices to hopefully someday use on my home farm in WI! It is so helpful to hear what that looks like for you!
Great info, thanks so much. I just subscribed and will watch more, much appreciated.
This is a really good and informative video. People don't realize what it takes to run a business.
Thankyou for sharing!! It's so interesting. I haven't been game to put our financials out there, so well done!!
Good Information. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much. This really helps frame the challenges for what lies ahead for us.
THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you so much for this video! I’m starting a “trial run” of an extremely small scale flower farm in my yard this year to see if this might work for me. I’m super excited, but very worried about whether this might be enough to support myself so this video helps put things in perspective!
Clearly it is all about passion. Wish that you are able to make a lot more.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing this information. I’ll definitely need to rethink and plan more before I embark on something like this.❤🌸🌸🌸
5 Starz!! Thank You!
Great video and reality check- thank you! Can you tell us more about your Minnesota farm???
Great job with the costs breakdown! That honest account really gives everyone a really good idea what the baseline is to be able to know if you would even want to scale up or down. Like you were saying, if you wanted to invest more to try to make more, at least you would have a good comparison for everything to see how worth it it actually is at the end of the year.
Excellent info! My ears perked up when you said you were from MN! What part of MN are you from? I’m in the twin cities area. I’m having a mid-life restart. My kids are almost all grown now. I left corporate world 16 years ago and was a homeschool mom for 11 years. I’ve been working at an educational farm the past two summers doing lots of gardening and loving it. 🌱 I also grew up in a garden center where my dad was the manager and I have also watched him keep beautiful flower gardens all my life. When I’m in the garden with dirt on my hands it feels like home.
Thanks for all your truthful and realistic content. Reach out if you find you have a need for some hands in MN 💗🌱
Thank you! This was not dry at all. I love that you address the reality of this business that is too often romanticized.
Love your channel! Thanks for the information. If it makes you HAPPY THATS THE MOST IMPORTANT!!
So true!❤
Not dry at all totally understand the reality and expenses of owning a business. I call it a labor of love thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the video. It's the simplest numbers breakdown video I have seen in a while. I heard you say you have young children and was wondering if child care was included in the expenses
I am just starting out and this is incredibly helpful! Thank you for your content, your farm is one I admire! 😊
You are so welcome! I hope it doesn't discourage you--despite the low hourly wage, I wouldn't change what I do, and profitability will increase a bit over time.
Thanks for the video! I am super excited that I found your channel. My partner and I just bought our first property in the southern part of Westminster (1.2 acres). We are excited for our first growing season and the seemingly endless possibilities! 🙂
You’re welcome, best of luck! ❤
Hybrid coi am just crunching the figures for my 1st year of flower farming on a little less than half an acre. Having these figures fyour farm where you are experiod and have been farming for several years Is helping me put my figures into perspective.
Thank you for your honesty. You are passionate at what you are doing and it shows :) Keep up the good work ! Love your videos ! Stay warm ! From GA peaches 🍑💕
This❤❤❤❤ NE Ga here too!❤❤
Wow, this was so great and interesting to learn about your practices more and what can be done your honesty with the hours you work and the expenses is so needed thank you!!! 🎉
Thank you so much! It's a lot of work but it is very fun! :)
Very informative Thank youuu
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent video! As a CPA and a flower farmer wanna-be I am very impressed by your income/expense breakout. I'm 61 yrs old and looking forward to selling my business. I'm getting my infrastructure in place in anticipation of "retirement " so that I will hopefully be cash flowing in a couple more years. Living in a very small town I don't have a lot of opportunities for selling and I don't love social media. Do you have any idea of how much social media impacts your sales? Is it the main source of advertising that you do and do you offer any type of CSA membership?
I thank you for the endless source of excellent information that you provide. You have been a real gift to me as I learn about regenerative farming!!
Will you do a video on how maybe you will reduce spending & increase profit to essentially give yourself a raise or operate a more lean operation? I would be very interested in that sort of info maybe quarterly. I think its a struggle a lot of us growers face! You have been such an encouragement to me in being mindful of my growing practices (not many people could motivate me to examine things in the way you do haha).
This time of year it's hard to control the spending....everything feels like a need! I am learning to shop & enjoy adding to my cart....then leave it for a few days to get perspective and get past the impulse phase & think through where I will plant it all. Then I ho back to the cart & try to be ruthless in cutting back & only order a small % of what I initially put in my cart (also splitting bulk seed orders & shipping costs with other local growers has helped too).
Thank so you much! Excellent information. Not dry in the least, your genuine care and passion shows through and your honesty is appreciated. By no means were you discouraging but instead encouraging of the reality of the potential investment of both time and energy as well as what to expect from the investment. It must be a labor of love with some sort of support otherwise the cost/benefit ratio would have to be reconsidered. Thanks for keeping it real. -I love growing from seed as well. Closest thing to real magic that we’ll ever experience! 🌻🌞
From another flower farmer (2 acres, 4th growing season), this is a great video. Flower farming is a business and not a hobby, and I think there is a lot of unrealistic expectations around the finances of the business from brand new growers who do this to "make money on the side". Theirs is a very different operations model than a full production flower farm - especially when you look at expenses like claimable income taxes and employee wages. I really appreciated this video. xx
Wait you have a 250 acre Minnesota farm? Who takes care of that and what do you/they grow on it? Fascinating!
I would like to start a small green house because we love fresh flowers in the house. I’m not sure what flowers keep producing stems? I love in Florida so we do not really get winter. Also, I’m thinking about doing a green house inside. What should I plant where I can just cut stems and new ones come back? Thank you!!
Thanks for the helpful video! Maybe I missed this, but do you make any revenue from RUclips and was that money factored into top-line revenue?
Thank you for this! How do I find out what companies are patented??
I am so surprised! I had no clue that there where intellectual property rights for seeds and bulbs. Do you have any other videos where you talk more in depth about this? I want to star a flower farm and have been doing a TUN of research and this is the first time I heard someone mention this. Also I am from Canada so I wonder if our laws about this would be any different.
& you probably price accordingly! Now I wish all new flower farmers that underprice would see this!
Yes, many don’t take the time to do full cost analysis!
Hi there! I’m a wholesale grower at Harlequin’s gardens in Boulder. We do mostly natives and permaculture plants, pesticide free. Check us out if you ever need some rare natives!
We love harlequins!! ❤️❤️ only one we trust! I’d love to do a video up there if you’re interested!
What are the flowers at 1minute in or so? Lovely
Hi! Curious if you made any money from social media and if you added that in your yearly income? Thanks for being so transparent about these numbers. This is SUPER helpful.
I also wondered that. I know keeping up with social media takes TIME and always thinking vs. what I do on social media. I don't know anyone, personally, to ask how much they make at it.
0:10 - WHAT are they! They're lovely! I didn't order any daisy type seeds, and that makes me think I made a mistake
1:06 - that's them again. Oh, boy. I hope they're not mums (I can't do the smell of mums).
Thank you for being transparent, so many people won't answer these types of questions honestly if at all.
Why do you have to rebuy the ranunculus corms if you are using the same corms? If you aren't propagating them why would you need to buy new?
It is in our purchase contract that we are only allowed to grow them for one season! Has to do with breeding patents.
@@Blossomandbranch so if you bought them retail, you could grow more than 1 year?
You can't buy these corms retail. Only businesses/farms can purchase the patent protected varieties. You sign a contract when you purchase, stating you will destroy them after the season.
@@nicomyth thank you for that information. It is good to know that I can grow my corms more than 1 year.
Great video, the one thing you didn’t mention or maybe I missed it. You have a significant amount of followers on RUclips and other social media outlets. Any income from them?
Great question! To sum up, last year we maybe made $1k on social. (I know I answered this already via insta to you but wanted to do so here as well!). Instagram does pay (some, not great-and definitely not close to a living wage) unless you do a lot of brand sponsorships. The biggest problem with social media for actual farmers is the time needed to do it-content creation is a full time job in itself and most farmers don’t have the time to take that on and keep the farm business going so it’s not something I’d ever include as income for an average farmer!
@@Blossomandbranch If there was a product you like and always use, consider doing a brand sponsorship - I would think that your viewers would understand! One "expense" I didn't see was savings for retirement.
Hi! So you have two farms in two different states?
would you ever rent your flower orchard for photography sessions? I wonder if that could be a source of income as well