Strawflower Farm - AB

1 day until our rebrand launches and you have until 5PM to enter the draw to win a custom hand tied bouquet! Check out the pinned post in our grid to enter 🏵️

Here's part 3 of our farming journey and a little look at what's in our future. Check out the previous two posts to read the rest of our story!

Last year was a year of getting settled in at the new farm. We planted a bunch of perennials in the front garden since it has relatively little w**d pressure. We also worked up a big garden in the back that was twice what we needed for the season.

One of the most important things we have learned about starting new gardens is that the more time you have, the better. Trying to till in the spring and then plant immediately is a recipe for a w**dy disaster! While we had planned ahead and prepped the new garden in the fall, we took the extra steps of solarizing and thoroughly w**ding the whole area we were planting. This knocked back the quackgrass but it did take about 3 weeks to accomplish.

In the end, the toil was worth it. Garden number 4 is the best one yet! (We started 1 at the Homestead, 1 at Good Note, and 2 at the new farm! Wild!) Productive, low w**d pressure, and generally easy to manage. This was made even easier with the help of my brother's wonderful work setting up an automated drip irrigation system.

Market gardening is always a lot of work, but our goal is to do less - making efficient systems so that there is more time for other things. Camping, canoeing, visiting with friends and enjoying the short, but beautiful summers!

So what's next?

Most things are the same. We are still growing lots o dried flowers for you to enjoy year round.

The plan is to make them easier to access. Bouquets will still be stocked at and we will still be doing lots of markets, but we will also be launching an online shop! At first this will just be for local pick up and delivery, but we plan to ship eventually too

We are also expanding our fresh flower offerings by joining the which is a great producers co-op of Edmonton area growers

Thanks for following our journey! I can't wait to share the rebrand with you tomorrow 🥰

2 days until our rebrand launch and 1 day to enter the draw to win a custom hand tied dried bouquet!🌻

I shared about the first 2 years of farming in the last post and I thought I'd continue the story here!

Collin and I (Josephine) are both from Edmonton and while we loved northern Alberta and the beautiful boreal forest we both missed our families and community and decided we wanted to settle down close to home. We were trying to figure out next steps when Collin had the idea to call up Maryann at who I had met a few years before. In our first ever conversation, she invited me to come live on their farm. Turns out she really meant it and they were just completing finishing touches on a garage loft suite, so we moved in and got to work in 2022!

Maryann and Kevin were so generous with their space and resources. They let us work up a new market garden in their pasture, use their tractor, and hang flowers to dry in their beautiful barn loft. I learned a lot about what it takes to build community from them.

While we could have stayed at Good Note forever, we came across the farm we now call home the next spring in 2023. It had everything we'd been looking for and we couldn't pass it up. It is 6 acres right on the boundary of Blackfoot Recreation area, south of Elk Island National Park. The soil is dark, and sandy and there was already a small, but significant garden and greenhouse to work with.

We gardened at both Good Note and the new farm that summer which was a lot of work only made possible thanks to our friend and farm apprentice, Jacob. He split his time between our garden and helping out with everything else going on at Good Note. We increased the size of our garden pretty organically and I really started to find my voice in dried flowers!

Every time we have moved it has been from places that were hard to say goodbye too. What a gift to be surrounded by people and places that feel like home wherever we go ❤️

It is nice to be back in the workshop with the wood stove going after some solid time off at the end of December. We will still be away on a little road trip adventure for the last couple weeks of January and then back to regular markets and some cool new things in February 👀 🌱

I had to take advantage of the warm winter light this afternoon to show off some dried bouquets that will be included in a restock for that I'll be dropping off tomorrow (Jan 7). If you could use some locally grown, everlasting blooms to brighten your space in the dark months, stop by their wonderful shop to browse. There will be large and small hand tied arrangements and an assortment of wholesale bunches 💮🌸🏵️