Mistake: Buying too many types of seeds and plants without a plan of where to put them. Solution: Feel overwhelming anxiety about it and purchase more plants and seeds as a happy distraction.

Omg, floral designer here. I used to buy so many flowers for my wedding business. Here is how we saved our flowers. I had two coolers. But more the just a few weddings at one time. 2 solutions. Get a smaller room like a bathroom or garage/shed and use a small window air conditioner. It works perfect for just this kind of care and conditioning of flowers. Besides much, much cheaper to deal with. More storage. And you can apart during other seasons My floral studio was small enough to just turn on air conditioning on. Worked like a charm.

My biggest mistake was just discovering you yesterday!! I think you’re a hoot and if I lived closer (BC, Canada here), id come buy flowers from you all the time 💜

My biggest mistake has been forgetting what I actually want my garden to look like - for me. Given the state of the world this past year, it was way too easy to watch everyone's youtube videos, look at everyone's Pinterest, and want ALL OF THE FLOWERS, but then needing to be honest what's realistic for me. Taking that step back and re-evaluating things was needed. Thanks for sharing your perspective. I appreciate your honesty - and inspiration.

We found a local soda distribution and contacted the person who handles the drink cooler maintenance. We have purchased 3 over the years and they work great! I’m only just starting flowers this year but we use them to store peaches. Crossing my fingers that our peach customers want flowers too! 🤞🏻🤞🏻

I’m here for the comments! I have lots of advice on mistakes in my whole 18 months of gardening and, of course, life in general. Ha! Just none to offer for flower farming. Why?!? Because it’s not official! I decided to start working on the flower farm dream about a year ago, but....2020. Add in my full time paramedic/firefighter job and helping with grandbabies and, well, it just didn’t happen. I’m going for it this year. Flower Farm 2021 is in the works! 🌺 With a lot of prayers, a little luck and a ton of hard work, my first blooms should be arriving in early March down here near Tuscaloosa, AL. Still no clue how or where to sell but I’m working on it. Wish me luck. I fully expect to be able to contribute to the “mistakes” list next year! 😃😃😃

Well, that was brutally honest! I’m not a flower farmer unfortunately, but dream of my own cutting garden someday so I flower farm vicariously through you. The beauty you are creating and sharing feeds my soul. ♥️🌸🌻

My 7 year old son's teacher says "Mistakes means you were willing to try!"

First off I have to tell you I ADORE YOU! and your videos bring me so much joy. Your "MOM GUILT" I can so relate too as I'm sure many of us can. However I came to realize one evening while crying exhaustedly to sleep I was doing my family an injustice by me always serving them a home-cooked meal, my daughter (same age as yours) was fully capable of cooking a meal for our family so once working with her on how to do that the pride and joy it gave her to make a dinner for the family once a week was priceless. So in short my suggestion is to realize it is okay for us not to do everything and your actually doing more by doing less occasionally.

I wish I lived closer. I would come help you for free! Take-out is NOT a bad thing when you compare it to "cereal and cheese crackers". Finally, you are AMAZING! Your energy, enthusiasm, drive, tenacity, creativity and ability to learn from your mistakes is "human". :) Do what you love and the rest will follow!! We support you from a far!

You're awesome about transparency. Would you please do a video about the financials? No one talks about the actual business side of this stuff and tons of people are getting in to it thinking it's highly profitable. For instance...tulips are they worth it? What are the profit margins? I mean as a movement, we shouldn't just be encouraging a ton of women to take on huge debt because it's pretty and rewarding. That won't be good in the long run. Shouldn't there be some education about the business side to back it all up? Help the new farmers make a solid start and help the reputation of local flower farmers by making sure newbies don't give up in two years. Give us the low down please.

I made a raised garden bed and filled it with soil that was intended for it, but it was way too dense! My seedlings sprouted and then stayed the same size for months. 🥲

I have always cut my flowers too late when they have opened too far. I really appreciated the views of you cutting your glads when only 1 or 2 blooms have opened. I really need to learn how to cut my dahlias earlier. Thank you for sharing your heart felt experiences!

The rain thing is our problem, our springs get some rain but not a ton, our summers are insanely dry and then our fall is SUPER wet.. so I have no rain water all season and then in the fall we have to pour our barrels out 😅 so now I overwinter my waterbarrels (full) in the garage so I have rain water for my house plants and early spring

For your cooler why not make a cold room similar to the root cellar that Laura at Garden Answer made? They used an AC unit and a cool bot to override the controls to force the AC to get to a very low temp. I think she keeps hers at 40 degrees but it might even go colder. And it's an entire ROOM! Seems a good solution but of course it won't work for everyone. Just wanted to mention it though just in case.

Asking your family to help with choirs is so normal as a person who’s mom and dad worked different hours my sister and I helped cook meals for the family we still laugh at some of our beginners dinner and cakes but we’re fabulous cooks now plus we got life skills and realized we’re not to be served always

I'm the master of meal planning (in my own mind) and can plan meals for a month. Having a deep freezer helps. Cook huge batches of ground beef ahead. Can be turned into so many things (tacos, pizza, spaghetti sauce, etc). Takes much less time to cook when the meat is already done. I also grill large batches of chicken breast. Same idea, can be added to a quick dinner salad, etc... You can freeze mashed potatoes, meat loaf, obviously all kinds of casseroles. Even if you don't have the room to prepare freezer meals, just prepping portions and freezing cuts down on a lot of time. And planning everything out releases the stress from your brain because you know exactly what's needed from you. And always include a leftover night in your meal plan. It sounds like a lot of work but once you get the hang of it, it's very easy. I plan my meals so far in advance and then shop with those dates in mind. Meaning the end of the month will be something like pasta from the pantry and ground beef from the freezer so the dates don't matter. Stuff that requires fresh ingredients, goes to the front of the line. Then just refresh dairy and fresh veggies as needed. Hope this helped and made any sense.

My biggest mistake in 2020 was having my back yard regraded by someone who didn’t understand the mechanics of it so now I have standing water and rivers throughout my daylily bed. 😞

When you talked about dividing your season into 3 CSA's I started crying. Just for happiness that people would be able to have bouquets all summer and you'd be able to increase your income that much more. Congratulations on having a waiting list and thank you for sharing.

I went totally crazy with perennial order in 2020, and with lockdown some of them died while waiting to be planted because i couldnt get to the plot. This year Im light on perennials, but went crazy with annuals instead))) Will see, hope there wont be any total lockdowns in spring this time. And this time I wont underestimate moisture- and heatsaving ability of using cloth on transplants, that really helps with cold weather. Also may try to sow zinnias and asters directly, they were very sick and long stemmed as a 30 days transplants. Will see, so exited!))

I hope you do some videos of making your crock pot meals. My biggest mistake was getting too many seeds and not having a plan as to where to plant them and also not succession planting.

I think the biggest mistake I made this year was buying 10 cubic yards of compost to enlarge my growing area, then in the fall deciding with my husband that we needed to sell our house and move closer to his job. It's the right thing for our family, but all that compost!!!

I’m not a flower farmer but my garden mistake was leaving my anemones in my bed last year. All but two seem to have rotted away over the winter. It bummed me out because last year they sprouted right as I went into quarantine (a bit earlier than most because I’m immunocompromised,) and they were the perfect distraction. This year I realized they were well and fully gone (by digging the bed almost completely up,) the same week I got my first dose vaccine so that was a sort of bittersweet cyclical synchronicity. I guess I had them for the season I needed them

1) I had this brilliant idea to use shade cloth over my spring tender plants (like lettuces, cilantro, some broccoli, celery) to extend their growing into summer heat. I used hoops over a raised bed and sealed off the whole bed with 60% shade cloth thinking that it would provide cooler temperatures. yeah. It didn’t. Just grew leggy, a little moldy plants. 2) I perfectly composted compost in tumblers. Once it turned to black gold (only after a few months) I spread it directly on my pepper plants raised bed. They all got some kind of disease with spotted leaves. It was only later I read you have to “age” compost. Who knew? 3) I tried to grow cabbages under floating row covers. It just created a damp, moldy mess. I finally gave up, removed the cover and they grew to giant gorgeous plants. I did have to spray BT on them to prevent worms, but better than moldy leaves! I live in upper Wisconsin, zone 5b

I just found your channel after deciding to create a cut flower garden for 2021. You have such a charming personality and share so much knowledge that I have binge watched you for 3 days! Thank you for being wonderful 😁 Happy new year

Thanks for being brutally honest, Nicole! So many influencers out there just show you all the perfect, weed-free pretties, but never speak of the blood, sweat, and tears (or fails and regrets) that go hand in hand with gardening. I expanded my cutting garden in 2020 and have recently purchased more seeds and dahlias than I have room for! Aside from a case of buyers remorse, I am so looking forward to the 2021 growing season and following your channel for inspiration, knowledge, and more than a couple of chuckles along the way! Keep being you!😁

My biggest mistake was seeding indoors where I didn't have enough room. My winter sowing had an almost 100% success rate and the seedlings were so much healthier. This year I plan on seeding everything outdoors in miniature greenhouses and low tunnels.

Our huge mistake was letting the weeds get away from us during a time it wouldn’t stop raining. After that it was SO hard to even get to anything. We’re trying some straw/cardboard in walkways & bio360 for plants. We’re newbies so definitely learning so much.

You've got this. If at the end of a project or a growing season you can sit down and analyse "lessons learned" , pinpoint causes and propose solutions you have this under control.

I look forward to making SO many mistakes in my garden this year. Though costly, it still teaches you so many more lessons.

I loved this video. At the end of 2019 me and my partner bought a 25 acre farm. We had been farming for years, but both always held full-time jobs and then ran our own part-time business on our nights and weekends. We inherited 12 greenhouses at our new property and I decided to do 7 of them in annual/perennial flower starts, and organic veggie/herb starts. My biggest mistakes were: 1. Not enough help!! You said it! I never wound up hiring enough people and spent every day from May 1-July 4 running our farm stand 10 hours a day, and then answering phonecalls/emails for 6-8 hours at night. I can't sustain that!!! We're hiring more people and going to focus on delegating tasks. 2. Not enough education around pests and diseases. Aphids and powdery mildew took over some areas, and I was always responding AFTER the fact. Fro this year, I set up a scouting binder and kit, and plan on plugging staff into this to help me keep on top of things before they get out of hand. 3. "Mine and yours" - on our farm I manage the flowers and my husband manages the veggies. At times I would be panicking about an urgent flower issue but feel guilty that it was taking time away from my husbands veggie work, that I would stubbornly refuse help or collaboration. We've committed to viewing it all as "ours" this year, and acknowledge that even though we both have our wheelhouses, we have to share responsibility to keep the farm (and our marriage) going. 4. Giving into doubt - as my first time managing something on this level, I was constantly obsessing over every thing that didn't turn out perfect (which was a lot) that I missed the opportunity to stand back and appreciate what we did accomplish. Thanks for sharing your stories and inspiration!

You’re doing great girl. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Your family sees you working hard to help provide for them and doing what you love. It won’t always be easy but keep it up!! You’re inspiring all of us!!

We had a 50x60 shop built this year, which meant that my garden was potentially in the path of lots of construction. The project kept getting delayed by our contractor week after week leaving me with hundreds of plants literally dying on my deck as they waited to be transplanted into where I wanted my garden to go. At the last minute I just dug a hole in the yard and put what was left in. Lessons to learn: be flexible, have a back up plan, and stop waiting for perfection! 😜

We live on Canada's West Coast, we have rainy winters, but dry summers. We have a well, that supports two homes, and a huge vegetable garden. If we draw off the well to water the garden, the well will go dry. Solution rain water collection off the roofs. We have 3 1500 to 2000 gallon tanks. This year we watered the garden from one, just using gravity. In our community new homes or major renovations have to include rain water harvesting. My gardening mistake is starting seedlings too soon and trusting someone else to water when I am away.

Thanks to your Awesome Videos I am heading over tomorrow to get and start working on my business license!! I am Soo Excited !! We have had this property for years now but haven't ever figured out a way to share the peace and serenity it has with others. Your Bar Bouquet was IT for me!! I work in at Emory in Atlanta Ga and with COVID Nothing felt better to me as getting my overly sanitized hands in the DIRT!!! and creating Beauty and then sharing it with others! I brought flowers everywhere i went just trying to spread some love around! So between playin in the dirt, growing flowers and finding your videos my soul has remained a light to others through the crazy. And onto my new journey... making my Joy into a business! So Thank You for your Honesty and Sharing your journey and Truelly Inspiring and encouraging others to follow their passion as well!! 2 boxes of seeds already here!! And No I Have No idea when i clicked that button but Hundreds of seeds from Poland showed up on my doorstep the other day!! Dont know how or when that happened, but here we go!!! Welcome 'Sweet Grace Farms' from Waleska, Georgia to your new Flower Friend Family. : )

Good luck with your family meal prep solution, Nicole. For me, I buy ingredients for my 16 year old, as she cooks and preps her own meals. The little two (9 and 11), my hubby and I just co-share the daily cooking for them--they eat the same meals every other day...may I suggest a rotating menu of same home-cooked meals? Advance meal planning. I truly appreciate your flower passion, and am now a Fangirl of yours; I think it's your intro music, aside from your flower crazy--you've inspired me to embrace my flower power and unleash my Flower Craze too! PLEASE NEVER GIVE UP, plow through the mistakes (no pun intended), flower friends have to unite! in order to conquer the world with flower BEAUTY!

My biggest mistake was not weeding my corn. It doesn’t like competition. After it finally produced, squirrels 🐿 ate my entire crop in a weekend. There were tears on that one.

Loved your video, soooooo helpful! Thanks for your honesty and vulnerability. I learned a lot from everything you shared! I am a gardening, home-schooling mom turned beginning cut-flower farmer with a heart to educate. I reached out to the local homeschool community for interns in the fall and had 3 teens who came out to the farm approx. 4 hours a week. They helped with bed prep and planting bulbs, what a blessing!! to them and to me!! I'm hoping to have 4-5 interns this spring/summer. I also did tulip planting classes and found an amazingly mature 10 yr old who was a delight and LOVED working with me, she worked as hard as the teens! When I was a teen I would have loved the opportunity to help on a flower farm, so I know there are young'uns out there, we're gonna to talk with local 4-h chap too. Best wishes to you and thanks again for helpful content!

You have inspired me to start my own cut flower garden!

If you have any gas stations near you they usually switch out the coolers when they do updates and stuff you might be able to get one that way.

My biggest mistake of 2020 with flowers was giving flower Miracle-Gro to my Peony's. It had acidic nutrients in it, and they only needed furtilizer. They got grey on the leaves and really were only serving not thriving. I've since discovered the importance of their pH soil, and all is well so fare this year. ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️

It does kids good to go with out you feeding them at times .. it helps them adjust to preparing their own food. Your a very good mum we can all see it.

My biggest mistake was starting all my seeds before I ever got the beds made for the flowers. This year they're all ready to go. AND I started about a gizillion snapdragons. Maybe too many. A lot didn't make it into the beds because there were just too many and the beds weren't made in time. Lol this year will be much better! ❤️

Ummm.....mistakes.....I think maybe all the KZfaq gardening videos I’ve been watching, ok that wasn’t a mistake, but it led to buying to many plants over the summer and now this winter the catalogs and online plants I ordered. Thank you for doing this particular video, it has made me realize I need to slow down and that I’m not alone with my obsession.

For us we put drip lines in but didn’t run them close enough....I have already ordered more drip tubing for the spring. Every year is different and each year has a new challenge....that’s gardening! But I can’t see us without our flower garden, we love it!

Your personality is me! I’m about to get into this and I can see me working myself to death! I have so much going on, not sure why I do this to myself but I can’t not do it! Thanks for sharing! I absolutely know we’d get along! Get it girl!

Thank you for the brutal honesty!! If I lived closer than 6 hours I’d volunteer to help you 😊

I was so excited to find your channel a few weeks ago! Greetings from the Finger lakes, I'm thrilled to know another grower in this challenging region!! I'm a landscape designer by trade and only this year started investing in my own yard. My goal is to establish a mostly perennial cut flower business, so that once the kids are grown it will be in full swing. So this was the first year I established several perennials, but also experimented with some "easy annuals". I'm all about making it as easy as possible but also pushing the limits of our our climate in an economical way. Like what can I get to survive or force up early under one or two unheated layers of cover? We own a local market deli which is currently my very small outlet. My biggest mistake was not planning for enough greens and filler, because most of them didn't bulk up very quickly and some didn't produce well. Solution: by more varieties :)

I grow flowers and vegg on a small scale, but mistakes are mistakes. Something to learn from, right? My major mistake was trying to grow to many plants and to many varieties of each plant. I’m trying to simplify. TRYING. I love all the flowers, but I need to be kind to my future self and simplify my grow list with what I know I can handle. I’m in Minnesota, zone 4b, and I didn’t have the best of luck with dahlias, especially dinner plates. We got a frost mid September and that was a week after my dinner plates bloomed. :/ I had a rouge dahlia root that was an apricot color that rocked! On idea of its name. It was in a bag with my pink Oz dahlia. It bloomed mid July and was just gorgeous! I was able to save those roots...hopefully. Fingers crossed! So the few dahlias that I ordered for this year are 75-90 day varieties. I have a question for you. I’m growing Zinnias this year and my sister had grown zinnias last year and the Japanese beetles ravaged her flowers. Completely wrecked them. Have you ever experienced Japanese beetles with your flowers?

Biggest Mistake: Not taking enough time on the front end to do everything possible to reduce weed pressure. Things like not tarping long enough, not doing a flame weed before germination, etc. It's always always weed suppression here. Solution: ugh. If you'd asked me in October I would have said "shut the damn farm down" but now, here in late January, I'll say "make a schedule and stick to it"

I’ve been gardening for 60 some years. Every year is a learning experience. Like you, here in Philadelphia it didn’t rain for about 6 weeks from May into June. In June the heat showed up. Things died. Things like tiger lilies! They did grow back when it rained. One of the best things my mother ever did for me as a kid was make me start to get my own food together. I came home from grade school one day for lunch when I was about 9 or 10 and she said if you want lunch there’s the kitchen. When you make the crockpot dinners get your kids involved. Show them how to do it. The sooner they learn how to cook the better. I don’t know if you can sow seeds in the fall in your zone. I’m in 7b. I put larkspurs, coreopsis, annual poppies, gaillardia seeds into the ground in late summer. They come up and winter over. They are half hardy annuals. I found coriander will winter over in the ground if it doesn’t get too big before the winter sets in.

I would trade gardening space for labor. I would love to grow some large tomatoes but my little backyard speck doesn't get enough sun.

Girl, you just made my day. Here I am planning 2021 garden and thinking of the mistakes from 2020. So, I got my pen and paper and started to jot down my "Lessons Learned" My garden is nowhere the size of yours; but, every lesson counts when you are as old as I am. 🤣🤣 You have done great!! Thinking of irrigation... soon, I'll be installing an irrigation system myself and had been already using a rain barrel for certain plants that do best with rain water. Your situation got me thinking that when I was small, my grandfather built a cistern to collect the water and that was our source for irrigation, cooking, taking a bath, etc. I believe this would be a nice project for Brad to take on. Ours was built of cement above ground and he outfitted it with tubes connected to the house and irrigation system (he designed); however, there are many ways you can do them. Heck, in the winter, you can collect a good days of snow and have that turn into water and in the rainy season, collect the rain. As to help.... I do not know how is the migrant population up north. However, they are an excellent source for help. My father (who was a minister) would segregate areas in the property and let families from church select a parcel to farm vegetables in return for them to been able to harvest the products to feed their families and give away to other poor families from church or sell them. Some members would give donations. You have a lot of property and can venture in something like it. They can also help ploughing the field. The idea of using students and offering internships is ideal. Reach out to high schools nearby, home economic teachers, agriculture extension services, markets, etc. I wish I live closer, I'd love to volunteer and help. 👍🌾😉⚘🌺🌱🌿

You can always look towards high schools for students needing community service hours, as they need so many in order to graduate high school. Not as schools require this but its something to look into.

I think for any parent that's always the tough part. My husband works in the medical/science field. There's no break really. It's always a lot of research work that has to get done and if you're not able to succeed and do research, you're left in the dust. We've had many female friends fresh out of grad school, work amazingly their first three years get married and then their comes the "I want to have kids" and they do stop work to have kids but within the research world they get left behind and have a hard time coming back.

My gardening mistake is not having a watering system in place. We put in 1/4" water line in the potager, but none of the landscape or flower beds have a system. I bought some 1/2" waterline, but we only have one water outlet. We do collect rainwater and have for years to hand water with, but need more receptacles. I live in north central Texas, so water is my biggest issue. Water, time, and physical ability all add up to less of a garden than I would like. My dreams exceed my abilities!

Thanks Nicole for your information. I have been watching you for about a month now. I live on a farm and was gearing up to make a chicken project. that means raising chickens to standard of breed then selling chicks, and hatching eggs. this required certification of NO diseases on my farm, Biosecurity..... after watching you, i have totally changed my plan. I love my chickens, however, i realized if i was going to put in the hours of 24/7, i should do it with something that I truly love. My neighbor told me he never knew what I was doing in my garden all day. so now he will see the beautiful blooms instead of me walking around talking to my watermelon and cucumbers all day. I have ordered my first 100 gladiolus bulbs and some dahlias. I wont be selling this year just making my garden and plans. your enthusiasm is contagious.

Hi, I like you love to flower garden,I spend all my summer days in my garden. Sometimes I forget to turn the hose off and go in and you can just imagine when I come back out. Anyway , I am 74. And I have finely got my garden to what I have always dreamed of. Yes it takes a lot of hard work but the pay off is all worth it. I love your channel thank you for sharing your dream with us, I can see your determination and willingness to succeed and I know you will.

In Belgium farmers can get a government grant to make water bassins to collect rainwater (mostly from greenhouses) . They look like big ponds but with raised walls above the ground. In winter one could collect snow in them 2.

I use my foodsaver ALOT! Spaghetti, soup, mashed potatoes, lasagna, grilled chicken....left over crock pot meals.....foodsaver them and pop them in the freezer until you need them later. We use an off brand of foodsaver bags on amazon. Truly IS a life saver and you feel SO much better knowing you have a home cooked meal at an arms length.

Mistake: Having a vision but no clear plan for new garden beds I installed when family and friends came to help. This was my hubs biggest pet peeve, and everything would have been faster (less bickering) if I had that plan in my head, down on paper to show others. And yeah plans do change (I am the type that lets the soil tell me what shape it wants), but a basic outline that stays true is helpful for others to see. Esp the hub. Solution: Using Old Almanac's garden planner, yeah you gotta pay, but its pennies compared to the exasperated sighs of my other half every few minuets.

This video and the other two with local farmers telling their successes and failures are great teaching and learning lessons for all of us. We appreciate you putting yourself out there 🙌🏻

My father was a graduate of U.Wis. Dairy School. He learned how to make any room into a cooler. I suggest you research this idea. Must not be as hard to do; my Dad (deceased) said to use ammonia instead of the deadly gas used in refrigeration.

I feel your pain. The first lockdown in March was a challenge. On one hand two kids ( 3 and 7 years old) on me all the time + homeschooling 🤪 but on another hand I managed to sell over 300 tomato plants (garden centres were closed). So you are absolutely right get prepared and learn from your mistakes are very important. Thanks for sharing. 🤗

Hands down you're just so awesome! I'm 4b Canada and pretty much following you when to start and all. Keep up the great work! You got this my lady! Jules

I am so glad to hear you may be getting help - your property/business is just too big to do it alone! My biggest mistake was not amending beds from 2019 - I thought I might be able to save money (this year was a financial nightmare) but ended up with less vigorous veg plants and many succumbed by July to pest pressure which they would've been able to ward off if they were stronger.

We have a different situation, but we do hire help. For just starting and trying to grow, I would try to utilize volunteers and interns. There's a lot of extras that go into paying for a worker and a lot of people don't actually want or know how to work. When you get ready, you could hire your best volunteer and know exactly what you are getting.

I got hooked on your videos half way through the growing season last year. I thought 'wow' this lady does it all (like Laura from Garden Answer)! I love to garden and last year decided to pull out plants that I didn't like or want (as Erin from Impatient Gardener suggested) and started putting in all kinds of new shrubs and perennials I liked. I'm going to start my first foray into growing my own annuals without lights, heating mats or even space inside (want to try winter sowing outside). I'm watching you and some others to learn from and for inspiration and ideas. Wish me luck!

Don't feel badly... Kids and husbands are resilient!

We have a small greenhouse business where we sell organically grown plant starts in WI and my biggest mistake in 2020 was also trying to do everything myself. There were many many varieties I never even planted the seeds because I didn’t have time! My answer for 2021 is also to bring in help, but to do it on a trade. Someone helps me out and I’ll record the hours, decide on a ‘price per hour’ and then the helper can get plants, flowers, animal products, and produce for the amount of work they put in. I’m also starting some seeds for other local farmers that don’t have their own greenhouses and in exchange they’re helping me out in the early spring before they get busy. With a trade vs money exchange I don’t have to worry about the technicalities of hiring an employee.

I have learned over many years of gardening for myself, that there are some plants that make me work too hard, and for me, do not have enough value to battle to keep having them. Example: roses, love them so much. They are far too much work for me, I do not have enough time, and energy, to love them enough to do all that work.

Biggest mistake I made was not just jumping in. I am quite the researcher. I should have just gotten started growing and selling. “Paralysis by analysis” is what I heard Jill Winger (Old Fashioned on Purpose Podcast) say. And it is what happened. In 2021 I am going to be a lot more instinctual and jump in. No need to miss sales/clients because of self doubt.

Could you build your own cooler into your basement? You can section off an area, insulate it well and install an air conditioning unit and it will keep the area cool. It might cost less than buying a cooler (used or new). Just a thought.

I found you last week when I decided to gather info on a project for this year to convert lawn to a meadow of wildflowers. Found wonderful native mixes. I have warned myself to start a few small patches first this year, like you did, and see how it goes. We are also 4B but at 7K feet elevation and Ponderosa forest so my 'meadow' has shadows moving across them all day. High country gardening has its' own challenges and charms. Loved your results. Keep posting on your progress when you can.

2020 was a year for lots of variety trials and experiments in the garden. I got lucky with a huge bounty of flowers. Problem: a desire to share but needed some ideas on how. Solution: connected with Growing Kindness program. Great resources that helped me give in my community and neighborhood to brighten others day. Growing is a true joy for me, and giving the flowers away....well that is just the best!

This is so encouraging. I learned an insane amount last year. I made so many mistakes I was discouraged. But this really helps. You and "you can't the grass" and a plethora of other homesteaders have helped a ton. Thank you so much!

So far this year my mistakes include not up potting soon enough, drowning plants, letting them dry out too long, not having enough places places to put my seedlings and plants that was safe from the funky weather this year, and not realizing that my cats were going to eat them if they could get to them.

We learn the most from our mistakes. You did a fantastic job, and it’s been so fun to watch 💜💜💜💜. Keep growing girl!

This is to congratulate you on your honesty and telling the truth about the reality of farming I'm a farmer so totally understand how time and chores don't always fit together, but what I'd really like to say thank you for is.... I have always cooked home meals (we live quite far away from town and getting takeaway is not really an option certainly no delivery!!) I seem to have spent the last 30 years feeding others and was getting pretty grumpy and disheartened until listening to you and realising it's something I should be proud of so Thank you. The family are all impressed with my new inspiration dessert tonight chocolate steam pudding...

I planted some things way to close and it stunted them. Flowers and veggies. It's ok to experiment, now I know!

Thank you for sharing. This will be my first season growing flowers. My biggest mistake is not scheduling myself and complying with my schedule and also depending on my husband for many jobs.

Amaranth! I didn’t know to pinch it so it grew like 10 ft tall. Totally unusable for bouquets. Then I thought the plant was so cool that I didn’t pull it out in time and seeds fell everywhere. That bed should be fun when they all sprout this spring 😂

Go big or...go big! Your innocent abandon to this pursuit of your dream is as beautiful as the flowers you grow. You are asking good questions and the answers will come. Now in my sixth decade, my biggest mistake is to pretend that I could, in any measure, match your level of energy or output! It hasn't kept me from planting bulbs and starting seeds like I'm possessed, though. There will be more flowers than veggies this year, I'm afraid. You have effectively inspired. LOL

Look into ergonomic and efficient tools also. Look into the pottipuki and zelli planter for seeding. Makes everything faster.

My dad and I made a flower bed this year. I started waaay too many flowers inside the house, I have around 10 times as many as I can plant into the bed and now i have no idea what to do with them. Next year i will measure the bed and think about how many flowers can be planted into the bed.

Hopefully you have a big chest freezer to store all your crock pot meals! Great idea for those busy days! Thanks for sharing your garden journey. Love your energy!

I just learned this one the hard way: cover my rhododendron with some sort of wire cage in early fall. I didn't get out there soon enough and BAM! Those deer had a feast! I have a few leaves left on my yearling but I can pretty much guarantee that it's not going to bloom this next season. BUMMER!! Side note- zone 6. Love your honesty and here is to a calmer 2021! Cheers!

Mine is ALWAYS watering. I’m in California where we only get rain in the winter (sometimes) and the summer is always hot and dry. I’m definitely changing up my irrigation this year.

Did you think at installing an irrigation system? You save a LOT of time and you are sure that your plant and seedlings are happy. I have one and it’s really the best.

The biggest mistake I made in 2021 was watching this video first when I found your channel! I spent a small fortune on Tulips and now I seen your vid I want some the same color as them. Think that is the only color we have not got this year and white! If I get told off for spending to much on some more Tulips I will just say its Flower Hill Farm fault lol How can they all start blooming at once if you staggered the planting? That is just insane! This happened to us about 10 years ago with Sweet Peas 10 years latar still trying to figure out what happend in 2011 its never happend again. haha

You are amazing and it’s like you are telling my current story. Just started up Treasures at the Barn. Taking Dave Dowling, Lisa Ziegler and Ellen Frost classes….I have thousands of baby starts to plant like yesterday. Several hundred bulbs to plant. My soil is almost done. Grabbed a yard of compost on my lunch hour. I laughed out loud watching this. And I shared this with my sister who is my mentor and totally overdoing it too. But having a great time doing it! Cheers

ahah i bought a bunch of annuals and perenials to make new flower beds around our new home. I didn't check the soil at all before buying the plants. It was inches deep of extremely compacted rocks and sand 😱 oups! i ended up planting my new plants that were getting root bound in pots on my patio 🤷‍♀️ this season i'll start by preparing the soil instead of buying all the beautiful plants without a plan 😅

You are so funny and lovable! I just fell upon your videos and absolutely love what you are doing. Keep up the good work and your awesome, inspiring videos please. I live in CT (a little more than just a day trip but plan on visiting you soon)

Isn't it crazy how some things are born? (Your bouquet bar) Some ppl would have just said "Well, with covid, I won't be able sell that many flowers this year" but you turned it around & found a solution! I had more "peanut butter & jelly sandwich/fast food nights" than I'd like to admit this past year also! Making enough food to eat that night, & freeze enough for another day later in the week was a GAME CHANGER!!! (Learned that from Fun Cheap or Free) Or ill make enough of the SIDES for 2 nights in a row so that the next night, I just have to make the main course really quick- fry some burgers or a steak really quick... so I only have to cook about 3 nights a week. But ALSO- one of the things I made PRIOIRTY is getting drip irrigation & a backpack sprayer! Misting all of my seed trays & watering the garden were 2 of the most time consuming things! I plan to use the backpack sprayer to mist my seedlings also 😆🤣😆. QUESTION: Does the backpack sprayer that you have, have enough pressure to knock off aphids? That is the pest that I usually have to deal with the most- & I'm going to not spray any or very little next year. So my thought was to use it to just knock them off with water... 🤞

I have an idea for your home cooked meals. Take bags and put in the ingredients for bread. Flour yeast salt sugar and flour. Maybe you could even jar the water and oil ( I dont do this) Then you put it in the bread maker and serve fresh bread . It helps if you don't have time to make bread or to liven up a boring crock pot meal

When I was a child. Mom use to collect rain water in barrels and we used that water to wash our hair and water plants. It was cool lol

I'm pretty much going to be trying to create a cut flower garden in my side yard and installing drip tape/irrigation. I have never done any of this. I'm also going to be starting seedlings, which I have never successfully done (started in peat pots the last time and they dried out when I went on vaca). I have no plans as far as creating the rows for the flowers or when I'm going to start the seeds and when I'm going to transfer them. I guess I will need to find a rototiller and just rototill the rows and put down landscape fabric for the perennials?

Thank you so much for sharing your story; both success and failures, very inspiring. I am a new vegetable farmer and just tried growing flowers last summer, it was brutal in Florida but still fun. Question is where do you buy your bulbs and lilies from at reasonable prices? Which companies will you suggest for seeds? One advice I will give you when you build your cooler is to make sure you put it on a concrete slab. When we built ours I was trying to keep my costs down so we used lime rock and asphalt millings with an AC and a coolbot. Everything works great except the humidity that seeps in through the ground. We have to cement the floor now to fix the problem. Cheers!

Wow growing in 4b, I can't imagine how to do that im in zone 6b and I complain about how short that my season is....lol I've to Utica and its just beautiful in up state NY can be.

I have never found that Lillies are amenable to succession planting. My experience is they bloom when supposed to unless planted drastically later.