Most & Least Profitable Flowers I Grew in 2022
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- Опубликовано: 1 янв 2023
- In this video, I cover the following:
How I determine profitability
Most profitable (includes how much I sold stems for)
Least profitable
High potential for the future
What I bought from a local grower that would be super profitable
Links to videos mentioned:
Sunflowers: When to harvest & post harvest practices to extend blooms 1-1.5 weeks out - • Sunflowers: When to ha...
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I love your analisis. You are one and only person who doing analisys to this superb depth. I love it.
Thank you ☺️
My tip for germinating rudbeckia is put seed inside wet paper towel in a ziploc bag, place on a heat mat and under lights. Then very carefully transplant the sprouted seed to soil. They are tricky!
That’s good to know! I did not anticipate them to be tricky!!
Oh I am going to try this Thank You!
I started my rudbeckia using winter sowing in milk jugs. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked (super easy too!). I did the Indian summer seeds from Johnny’s. Trying it again this year with a different color. Good luck! 🌺 🌻
Erica, I did this with Amazing results! Thank you!!
@@brookestranberg4054 hooray!!
Bee balm cracks me up. I had planted some, but before my flowers really took off I was picking wildflowers in the ditches and thought one of them looked awfully familiar! It was the same plant I had growing at home, mine just wasn't ready yet!
Lol! That’s awesome especially if that is a signal that bee balm is native to you! They will always be ready before anything we try to hurry along 🤣
I absolutely appreciate how you break down the things that truly matter. It feels so productive and helpful. thank you!
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Great insights, thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the great video. I wanted to let you know that I purchased Mountain Mint seeds from Incredible Seeds. They are super tiny and I thought these just aren’t going to grow.
Well, I was wrong! I sowed them and boy did they ever germinate quickly. I have potted them up and they are absolutely taking off. I would strongly recommend buying a package of their seeds. Good luck this year.
That’s good to know! Several others have said they were successful starting from seed so I may try it!
Another informative video. I appreciate your insight to flower farming.
Powdery mildew happens. I don’t think it can hurt you (I get it on a lot of stuff every year in OH 6b). Benary Giants are more resistant. Try to succession sow so you can have fresher plants just starting to bloom when it hits. I also was unimpressed with the lime series. Bleh. Also hate harvesting gomphrena! You had a bad year with some of these, but I think you will learn more with more experience. Mulch might cool the soul so you get more height. Don’t give up on all the flowers you struggled with this first year!
Powdery mildew is more or less not harmful but I think I’m just mindful of all the spores we are inhaling! The lime series was great for the first flush and then it went downhill. I’m not giving up on zinnias but… no more gomphrena! 😂
Wow love your vlogs. I am a zone 5b flower grower. So much to learn. Thank you for all your input
This was wonderful - thank you so much!
I found this video extremely informative. Thank you. Following
Really appreciate your help
I'm lovin this video - thank you for sharing!
hi! i am not into flowers, but i found your video somehow, and i loved it. i love your passion and knowledge, so i subscribed and maybe i will plant some flowers this year. keep on doing what you do, it is really good to see there are people with passion about their jobs
This is the best comment I could have received!! 3 years ago, I wondered why anyone in their right mind would grow flowers and here I am. Thank you for taking the time to leave this comment!
@@bareflowerfarm ❤️ i will definetely follow up my flower journey for you! 😃
Thank you for all the great info you shared and enthsiasm...I get a bit confused as to some that you might keep? and could be profitable i the middle...but its great knowledge and appreciated.Going to watch your harvesting sunflower video, BE BLESSED.
Great video! Adding cut flowers to our business this year.
Best of luck!!
That big bouquet of snapdragons look like gladiolas! Gorgeous! I was astonished to find snapdragons coming back in my garden in Vermont, Zone 5.
Very helpful! Thank you!! ❤
I recently purchased mountain Mint seed from Johnny's. Enjoyed your video.
New sub here!
Very helpful video. Congratulations on completing your first year!
I'm starting my 1st year, and I'm nervous. 😬 but I have year's of experience growing veggie. So...we'll see.
I'll video my successes & failures. 👍🏼
Good luck on your first year!! Having veggie growing experience really helps. You should view year 1 as a year of high personal growth and figuring out what’s working, what’s not and more importantly what you enjoy!! Looking forward to seeing your videos 🙂
so fun to watch, just want flowers in the garden
Love your videos. They really help plan how to make a profit from growing flowers.
I’m so glad to hear!
Super helpful video!
I too grew the Silver Shield this year! It was so easy to take cuttings from. Really meant to have some ready to winter over in our storage home on hill, to take cuttings from…to not have to buy the seed. It was awfully easy to start and grow. Looked great with many things, but especially nice with purple spikes and peachy dahlias. Milena Fleur…so strong and productive.
Stock was a mixed bag. I planted one group 8wks and another at 6wks, under cover, before my last frost. The first grouping got nailed by temps, but eventually came out of it. Both from the iron series. I enjoyed them in personal bouquets and some to share, but for profit, would require some tricks! 😂
I love how you are rolling with doing what you love and are willing to really figure it out!
I wish you continued success on your flower growing journey ❤
I can’t wait to see how your overwintering techniques go.
I’m in a similar climate, southern Ohio. Been building my soil for many years. It has become very reliable. Too, are the other issues, like pesky pests and the like. Every year brings a new/different set of challenges.
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Yes! Silver shield is amazing and I do plan to grow more this year! I love more that you've been building your soil. It's such an important part of farming that I don't think many people focus enough time and energy on it. A goal is to get some chickens and get them to clean up the beds and poop all over :)
Great video thanks for the information
Your video is awsome! Ty.. very clear. So thankful❤
I am not flower farming this year since bouquets didn’t really go well. Tons of people commented on how gorgeous they were but not as many buyers. I am going back to veggies this year but will still plant zinnias and sunflowers and do the small $5 bouquets with those and any random perennials that show up. I am also planning to sell freeze dried herbs and candies so hopefully it will increase sales to make up for flowers. I couldn’t stay away from your channel though to see how it went for you. As a former Jersey girl I loved watching your channel and watching you so professionally calculate cost and profit. Best of luck this year!! Don’t be surprised to find tons of celosia volunteers too! Btw what is your most productive filler? I will
Prob need to do some filler as well. Thanks for another great video.
Sobering that many look and do not buy. I'm hoping to do mixed vege & flower. We'll see how it goes.
This was really great! Thank you! 2022 we started a veggie farm and sold at the local farmer's market. We did okay, but made a lot of mistakes. In 2023 I'm adding flowers to our farm. I believe they are more profitable, as you noted with sunflowers, plant them and go. 2023 is going to be our 2nd year too. Good luck 😉!!!
Good luck to you in 2023!! Alot of veggie farmers have great success selling sunflowers next to their veggies. I would suggest planting a variety of sunflowers - your classic yellow to a white lite to bicolor. Most veggie growers just grow the traditional yellow so you can stand out by growing more unique ones :)
Great job! I found this video extremely helpful...thank you for such detail:)
Also, gomphrena is a super pain for me too! I find the sunflowers, zinnias, yarrow and godetia are my customer favorites!
Yes!! I’m growing a lot of yarrow next year for the first time 🙂
The yarrow also dries beautifully!
Great video!
I have a moist microclimate in my garden that make certain plants get mildew fast. I succession plant those varieties now ( zucchini squash, zinnia, cosmos for sure). Start some once a month if you get that again. I just pull them out when because they also produce less quality flowers anyway. I only grow 2 orange (my favorite), 1 white and I pink gomphrena plant and I put it in my border so it doesn’t take up valuable space. Cosmos are a pain but I use the greens.
I think the key is to plant either resistent varieties or do what you said. Given my desire to do less summer flowers, the succession route is out. I did however find a zucchini plant that was somehow resistent to powdery mildew so I will be sticking to that one! We got over 30 zucchini’s out of that one plant this year 😅. But putting gomphrena in a border could be a better idea for next year!
Hi! Where is your favorite place to buy plugs? Thank you so much for all of this content! You are so very helpful and easy to follow.
Hi! I buy plugs from Farmer Baileys since they are close enough to me to drive to (though I still get them shipped). But Kube Pak, Ednies, all sell plugs too!
Thank you!
Another great video. Are you going to be doing more veggies than flowers this upcoming spring? I know you said you love growing them.
Yes! The goal is to focus on veggies in the summer. We really want to preserve and can food especially tomatoes! I also didn’t really enjoy flower farming in the summer due to the humidity and pests. Even without that experience, I knew that focusing on the shoulder / winter seasons would be more profitable and fun, so year 1 was good in terms of validating that!
2 years in and your already way ahead of me
ive spend 5 years trying to get into a farmers market or shop or florist or wholesale, composting thousands of stems a season every season
Hi David, thanks for the kind words. There’s a bit of non-growing experience (ie running a business experience) I took into flower farming. If you don’t mind me asking, what have been your biggest roadblocks? I find that good farmers markets can indeed be difficult to get into bc there are more vendors than spots but florists typically want to work with local growers. And if all else fails, there’s selling direct to consumer on Facebook or donating flowers to a senior citizen home which doubles as great advertising 🙂
@@bareflowerfarm my biggest roadblock has been getting a foot hold in to anything
Ive applied to nearly every farmers market in the area several times over. One market told me no then 2 weeks later had a new flower vendor who i talked to and she signed up 3 days prior. I have contacted every florist in my county and the next county up almost none have responded. I have brought buckets of flowers the florists in my town. They all say they are great flowers and I saw them use and sell them then they don't get back to me.
Have gone to maybe 30? shops trying to see if they would want to sell my flowers or if i could do pop ups, most seem confused by the idea and decline.
Facebook market place has been a bust i spent 3 years posting weekly during the growing season with zero interest but that one makes sense, no one is going to be like hey im going to some single 30s guys house to flowers.
Teaming up with market gardeners hasn't worked either.
I apply to the local wholesale CO-OP every year with no response
@@bareflowerfarm moral of the story is nearly no one responds
@@davidakerlund6296 To be honest, I have yet to hear of anyone else who has gotten a 100% rejection rate. I guess follow up questions are:
1) What are you pricing your flowers at for both florists/facebook marketplace (ie what are you using to benchmark pricing)
2) Where are you posting in facebook marketplace? Are you posting to local groups?
Have you been successful in selling flowers elsewhere at all?
ETSTY for dried flowers is the only place ive succeeded in selling any flowers.
Facebook I was posting to 6 different local groups and general market place, my prices range from 5 cents a stem to 60 cents a stem, bouquets ive been trying to sell at 5-10 $
This year im just going to start showing up on road sides to try selling. If that doesnt work then i'll be calling it quits ive dropped around 3 grand a year into this venture with only making a few hundred back in dried flower sales.
HI Jessie - I just bought Mountain Mint seed from Johnny's so, not sure how it will do, but I am going to give it a go from seed! Thanks for sharing your best flowers. Snaps were def my most profitable flower this year. They did so well here in my 4b zone near Montreal. I didn't manage to get any sunflowers, but I didn't try the pro-cuts, so I am going to give those a go for 2023. Also my Rudbeckia struggled so much, I think mainly due to the wet weather we had in the spring, this year I am going to focus just on Indian Summer to see if I can get some consistent blooms from that. Serena (YCETG) has had such great turnaround on hers. Are you going to try growing any lisianthus this year? I am going to experiment for the first time with them. They seem like a great $ maker if you can get them going. Nicole (FHF) had great succes in 2022 with them. oh yeah also: Happy New Year!
Yes!! Snaps would totally do well in your climate, which kinds did you grow? You definitely need to try sunflowers. I would recommend both procuts though my complaint with them was that sometimes they had "floppy heads" so I would look into other varieties there. I will be trialing some lizzie's but not focusing too much on them until I have an established florist customer base :). HNY to you too!
I love the products from Sunflower selections 100 seeds for $6.00
Did your mountain mint grow from seeds?
great vid
I definitely would have paid more for your dried bunches!😊
Haha I appreciate that 😁. It’s bc we know the value of them!!
You can grow Mountain Mint form seed, I have some in winter sowing containers right now! Search for Pycnanthemum Miticum. 😊
Ive heard they’re a pain to germinate! What was your experience??
@@bareflowerfarm As long as you have fresh seed and they get the proper cold stratification your germ rates should be pretty good! They definitely need a nice long cold, moist period.
@@CoolKidsInMaine So interesting! I already split a flat with a friend from a local nursery but will try this in the future if i need more!
Bakers Creek sells mountain mint and free shipping
Another thing that kind of got me was my basil because for some reason it usually did not hold up. I tried to Harvest really early and get it straight into the water and keep it there even overnight the next day and I just struggled so all the things that were supposed to be simple ended up being not so simple for me. I tried it for two years and yeah you already know lol
Basil did not work out for me either. Same thing. It would not hold up.
I've heard it's more stable for vase life once it has flowered. But I haven't tested that so idk!
Have you tried blue spice basil and cinnamon basil from Migardiner at $2.00 a pack, easy to grow and you can harvest alot of seeds for following year, flowers are great and so is the fragrance, great video
Believe it or not, I actually have never bought seed from MIgardener. It's been on the list. I learned alot from his RUclips channel in my early days of growing so will put blue spice basil on the list. I grew cinnamon basil last year and wasn't the biggest fan
I have also tried Licorice basil with good luck
Great video. Can you also grownthese in a hoop house?
You can grow most things in a hoop house and they will likely be of better cut flower quality, but I dont have a hoop house :(
I'm thinking about setting up a business for my flowers - I grow so many I'm tired of finding people to give them away to!! How many plugs do you have to buy typically from Farmer Bailey or a co like that? Thanks for all your great content!
Hey there! I would think more about how much space you have and how much that allows you to grow. Typically, shipping costs make it such that you want to be able to order 3 trays. Each tray could be anywhere from 120 to 210 ish plugs so they are definitely higher in quantity and many times you can't get a multi color variety so you're stuck with a single color. If you don't have enough space to accommodate 600 ish plants, I would definitely start from seed!
I need one of those seeder things because I end up laying on the ground with a tool/template that I poke holes in the soil with to plant the seeds. It's so tedious and takes so much time, literally being an hour out there crawling along the ground poking holes and jabbing seeds in.
Yeah I thought you said you were struggling with your straw flowers at one point.
That's something I'm trying to decide now about snapdragons. Do I separate the multi seedlings per cell, or just plant them out as a group. Does it impact them negatively or does it matter since they are already cropped so close they aren't bothered?
I'm doubling down on the queen series. Even having not spoken to a florist I feel like they bring a certain uniqueness to the zinnia. The tetraploid varieties of zinnias supposedly have some semblance of resistance to disease. You may be forced to treat prophylactically. Copper is organic. You can try some of the more questionable kind like salicylic acid, potassium bicarbonate, or even milk apparently.
I planted a bunch of gomphrena and luckily only a few germinated because they took over the field.
A lot of the colorful rudbeckia hirta crosses, from what I've read, typically are grown as annuals.
Outside pride sales them for like $10 delivered for 30 of them. Once you got a patch started you could keep them going. I'm having that moment where I want the things i can't have.
OMG yes! Please get yourself an earthway seeder! No need to go fancy with a Jang unless if you have super uneven soil. Your bag and time will thank you :-)
For the snaps, plant out as a group even if there are 2-3 snaps in a single plug. It didnt seem to bother them when I grew them that close, if anything it also helped them produce long straight stems!
I'm trying hard not to spray ANYTHING outside of molasses and instead working to really promote soil health. Better soil health = better symbiotic relationships between the micro-organisms with the roots = more resistant plants!
Re: Rudbeckia, I am hoping mine reseed! I have a bunch of Ruby & Yellow in the ground and we shall see how they go!!
Strawflower was fun, more next year
Which seed plate do you use with you earthway? :) Spacing looks pretty good
I used both the corn and the pea plates. Both honestly worked! The one in the video is the corn plate!
You may have already talked about this, but where did you get your business logo made? I'm trying to decide between doing something on an online generator or doing a custom one. If I did it online it would be free but I feel like it's too simple?
So, this logo is a play off of the sister company, baresoaps. If you Google search baresoaps, you’ll see that this is a very similar logo but with flowers. I started off for the first 5 years with a logo I designed myself and once I turned a decent profit, I hired someone on 99 designs. I believe I paid around 1k for the logo in addition to other stuff. I would highly recommend hiring someone if you see this business being long term. A good, professional logo lends credibility and trust- this was especially important for baresoaps bc it was an e-commerce company. For this bare flower farm logo, I just added the flowers myself in photoshop
I didn't like the queen series zinnias for bouquets. I just didn't feel the colors went with my other flowers. I'm going with Benary Giants only this year.
Actually this is a great point that I didnt mention. They were harder to pair with some other bright colors I grew for my market!
Zinnias too for me were too complex however not giving up 100percent. Gomphrena it’s out too 😂. As a micro flower farm real state it’s key 🔑 and having a flower that’s just small ball and not a focal taking space it’s a no. My market in my area sunflowers 🌻 were not profitable at all, people didn’t care much. Still on my list but they will be in crates.
Sunflowers will do great in crates!!
Okay question, on the direct sowing sunflowers, do you want to water to get them to germinate after you direct sow?
Yes! That is good to clarify. I do need to water to get them to germinate if the soil is dry. Although we had a drought, we got rain once every 4 weeks and for some successions, I would time during the rain! But I did have one succession that took forever bc the soil wasn’t moist enough ☹️
@@bareflowerfarm thanks for the clarification!!
As far as I know, Benary Giant zinnias are resistant to powdery mildew. I don't know from experience as they bloom at the same time as my dahlias, and my dahlias are my money maker. The rest of my growing area is allocated to earlier growing flowers.
I am only growing cosmos for the foliage, the flower itself, I dislike intensely. Many of my bouquets have statement flowers, so the foliage can't be big and bold.
I wish I could overwinter my ranunculous, but we are just too wet in the winter months, they would definitely rot.
From what I’ve seen, benary will eventually succumb to powdery mildew but my grower friend got that at the very end of the season. That is a shame you can’t overwinter ranunculus but I’m sure there’s stuff you can overwinter that we can’t here!
@@bareflowerfarm Possibly, we are a zone 8b, our winters are mild, but, and its a big but, our winters are extremely wet. Vancouver Island is a temporal rain-forest climate. Foxgloves and Feverfew must love the wet as they are basically a perennial weed here, such a weed that if in bouquets it is actually a degrade to the bouquet. I lost three Itoh peonies last year due to the wet. Boo, I still have eight. Right now the 125ish potted up dafs and tulips I will be selling in the spring are covered in a plastic sheet so that they won't rot.
Yeah I gotta be real. I only ever did snaps from plugs. For some reason I've never had much luck starting them myself.
No shame in that :)!
Here in mid Michigan they come back each year. Love Snaps!
What grow zone are you in?
Edit- 6b got it!!
I have grown mountain mint from seed!
I've heard they're hard to germinate but a friend is trying that this year and we shall see what happens!!
Are you charging sales tax on your bouquets or building that into your total cost?
The sales tax is built into the total cost. It's a bit of a reality check after every quarter when I pay the state -_-
I would maybe try and burn the zinnias next year instead of putting them in plastic bags, eventually they’ll just release CO2 like that and contribute to global warming. Sweet peas also get powdery mildew and I just burn them and put that in the compost heap
When you burn plants, they release the CO2 that they would release over time anyway. I’m not too comfortable burning stuff especially given the very dry weather we had since we don’t have a controlled way of doing it. We were very worried about having a lightening strike bc it would have caused a wildfire as our neighbor pasture was so dry it was basically kindle!
@@spiritranger9202 It's not harmful to humans but that being said, there's spores that fly around which impact some immunocompromised people and I wouldn't want to harvest stems with powdery mildew in case you have folks who are sensitive to things like that. Nor do I actually want to be breathing in that stuff on a regular basis myself. But powdery mildew does hinder the growth of a plant bc it is blocking the leaves from being able to photosynthesize.
You can buy seed from mountain mint, but its a bitch to germ. LMAO I would ask that farm if you can have a couple cuttings/ or split the bare root OR just take that fresh mountain mint cut it and dip in root hormone in a pot :)
That is good to know. I think I will stick to buying flats from our local nursery 😆. I would ask for cuttings and split the root, but my local grower got it from her neighbor who grew it as landscaping lol!!
Ya know it's pretty OBVIOUS to me that if flower farming paid decent no one would make.videos and hustle courses book and seeds ect and i.can think of.about.five who dont do.side.hustles that appear.to be.their main.hustle
Totally agree with this. I think the challenge is that flower farming has been a bit romanticized and people don't realize the reality of farming :(
Really, in general farming on the small scale isn't that profitable. It's more of a passion project. There is also a huge learning curve. Most businesses don't make profits the first few years. I think eventually YOU CAN become profitable.