Things to consider when Starting a cutting garden or micro flower farm

Know your climate

There are many climates in Australia from tropical to cool growing regions and what we can grow in each area does differ, there are even microclimates in each region which affect what you will grow best, sometimes this takes time to figure out what works best for you. Find out what growing zone you are in and your first and last frost dates, so you know what you can plant in your zone and when to plant them.

Choosing the location

Whether is it in your backyard or an empty paddock. Decide a spot that gets at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sun, as anything less will give you less productive plants. Also, avoid planting near large trees who's roots could be detrimental to your crop, sucking out water and nutrients. If the area is low and can have standing water, think about your soil's drainage, you may need to raise up your rows or add in raised beds.

Think about your water supply

Water is a necessity, even if you have a good rainfall region, you may get dry spells or need to supplement water when plants are young. You will need to look at how you can get water to your crops, options of watering are up to you. Drip irrigation, sprayers on irrigation hose, overhead watering on a large sprinkler system or the old-fashioned way with a hand held hose.

what to grow

What crops are you going to grow, figure out when you would like to be harvesting those flowers and work backwards from seed to harvest date to figure out when to sow or plant them. Will you be doing just spring blooms, or mainly just summer and autumn blooms? If you want to harvest over the entire season from late winter to autumn you will need to learn about cool season flowers, which are planted in autumn and grown over winter for spring and summer harvests and what are warm season flowers (zinnias, dahlias, and cosmos etc), planted in spring after the risk of frost has passed for summer and autumn blooms. Flowering times vary from region to region, I am growing in a temperate climate and my main spring crops are sweet peas, Ranunculus, anemones, ammi, chocolate lace flowers, snapdragons and foxgloves. My main summer crops are Scabiosa, feverfew/matricaria, dahlias, zinnias, achillea, celosia, chocolate lace, statice and eryngium. My main autumn crops are dahlias, chrysanthemums, zinnias, strawflowers, cosmos, amaranthus and gomphrena. You need to consider if you want to try lots of different flowers to get an idea of what works best for you and get a longer season, or just 1 or 2 crops to begin with to see how you go maintaining them and keeping up with the weeding, watering and feeding. Remember to keep it within what you can handle. What flowers have you grown before, will you be growing from seed or spending more money on plugs? There are a few options to consider, depending on your capabilities.

Figure out how you plan on selling your crop

Will you be selling your crop or just growing for enjoyment and to share flowers with friends and family? If selling will you be selling wholesale or direct to the public? Wholesale isn't as much value per stem, but it is far less work selling buckets of blooms direct to florists or wholesaler rather than processing them into bunches and finding buyers to buy each one. For direct to public sales your options include but are not limited to selling by road side stall (council depending), markets or in a local shop or cafe who may take a part of your profit, subscriptions (I would only recommend these after a few seasons growing experience as you will have more of an idea of flowering times by then, social media or even fb market place or by via your own website. Selling retail rather than wholesale is more fiddly but that is why you can ask more per stem than wholesale prices.

Prep your soil

Will you be doing no dig beds, will you be tilling? Research your options and look at your expenses if you intend on bringing in organic matter to improve soil health or have to pay for machinery. After trying all different ways, I personally prefer no dig beds, which means I solarize my beds for a few months before I intend on planting them out, to kill off as many weeds as possible. Top dress the beds, and plant into the soil as it is. Adding more organic matter as each crop changes over. Will you be using plastic as mulch (can cause an issue of cooking plants in a very warm climate), or going a more natural way by mulching with organic matter (my personal preference)? How will you be dealing with preventing weeds, will you be manually removing them? If so, make sure the area you are growing in is manageable for the amount of time you can put into it, especially if you are doing it by yourself. Factor in how much you can handle with other aspects of your life for e.g. if you have a job outside of the farm or children you are caring for. I suggest starting with an area you believe you can manage, so you don't get overwhelmed with the work load while you are learning the ropes. As everyone is learning when they start out, and from season to season something new always pops up as a challenge, and you'll have to adapt.

What plant supports will you use?

In my farm use a mix of corralling some crops while using wire fencing on the horizontal for others, reo mesh for chrysanthemums and sweet peas and netting for the rest, just depends on the crop. In my home garden where I grow on a small scale I use rustic metal plant supports, and reo mesh for climbing plants. Supporting plants is important to keep them as upright and straight stemmed as possible, so you can grow the plants to their best possible outcome.

Pests

You actually won't know what your biggest pests are until you start growing, and every season is different. But eventually you'll have to make some choices about will you be spraying for bugs? Or will you try beneficial insects, and companion planting? There are many options to research. You may need to add a fence to keep out rabbits or row covers for birds who might nibble your plants.

do your own research

Deciding what to grow, how much to sell it for and figuring out how to grow it are all things you will need to put time into researching yourself. Remember to respect flower farmers in your area for their time and skills, if you have questions please google them first and see what you can find. If you were opening a bakery you wouldn’t msg the local baker and ask how to make bread, which ovens to buy and how to price it….. you would research it yourself before opening a bakery. Remembering flower farmers are often short on time as it is, so please respect their time and knowledge and google or check out youtube before reaching out with questions. Prices will obviously be different for everyone as we all have our own individual growing cost.

Things I use the most as a farmer

I am no till, so I don't use any machinery.

My hori hori knife. Waterproof gear, a waterproof jacket with hood but I also use my waterproof pants probably more than the jacket, as there is nothing worse than having soaking wet knees while planting. Good sun protection. Good work boots. Good snips. Buckets, you can never have enough buckets to harvest into.

I hope this gives you a little idea on some of the things to consider when you starting a cutting garden or flower farm.