Hello Flower Fam!
The farm is slowing down for the year, the spring plants are getting tucked in for winter and now I have time to work on all the beauty I want to create next year! For those of you who just signed up or are new here, welcome! I’m so excited to have you along for the journey. We have had an amazing year of growth largely based on word of mouth. You guys all love our flowers and every friend you tell helps our flower family grow and it’s been glorious to be a part of! I thought a little re-introduction of Redhead Flowerbed might be in order to explain some of the more nuanced parts of our operation and why I might say “sorry, I can’t do that” to some requests.
We are ALL about LOCAL flowers here!
You will never see me use an imported flower in my arrangements and if I don’t grow something or can’t source it from another local farmer or a farm somewhere in the United States I will tell you “sorry, I’m not the right person for you right now.”
Why is using locally grown flowers THAT important to me?
Redhead Flowerbed was born out of my love for the land and desire to get back in connection with it after years of sterile lab work in an industry with high stress and even higher waste creation. I mean we tossed gallons of horribly caustic chemicals into 55gallon drums daily and I would go through a minimum of a dozen pair of plastic gloves a day. We are talking gobs and gobs of waste that get burned and buried every day. It’s not sustainable. So I needed something to give back. Something to leave the earth better than how I found it or at least try in any small way I could to slow the creation of more waste. That’s always going to be a moving target but one way I feel better about my usage is by being a good Stuart of the land I have worked so hard to live on and own.
Just how bad can flowers be?
The cut flower industry (the ones that go into bouquets, vases, arrangement etc) is a $13 Billion dollar industry in the US alone. And 82% is imported. 82%!!! That means we are dumping $10 billion dollars into other countries for a product that, unlike food is held to little or no standard for pesticide, herbicide, and preservative usage. Flowers are grown in greenhouses year round in countries like Columbia and Ecuador where workers are paid little to no money and in horrible conditions.
But they just die anyway so why worry?
First off, everything dies, that’s part of this beautiful thing called life and why it’s so important to face the mortality of it. Quality is one reason you should care about local flowers. Flowers are highly perishable but a locally grown bouquet is bound to be more unique and last for longer while bringing no harmful chemicals into your home. Those bouquets you get at your local grocery store are generally cut from their plants three to four weeks before you get them. They’re dipped in all sorts of preservatives so that they don’t die while they are left out of water, stuffed into boxes, put on giant cargo planes , land in one of our major ports, are then left on loading docks, put back in refrigerated trucks eventually and then distributed across the US wholesale markets. There is absolutely no comparing a bouquet of my fresh from the field flowers next to a chain grocery store bouquet that is three times as old and smashed into a plastic wrapper. I get lovely comments all the time about how gorgeous our flowers look two to three weeks after they go home with you. When you’re getting something fresh from the source of course it’s going to be leaps and bounds better than something that’s been shipped thousands of miles around the world.
All this to say…
Buying local flowers makes a huge impact on reducing the waste we create, they last longer, are safer to bring into your home, touch , handle and smell, AND they are SOOOOO much prettier.
We still haven’t frosted yet and the flower fields are still giving us a spectacular show. If you would like a hand wrapped bouquet reserved for your table for thanksgiving send us an email and we’ll get you on the list! Flower wraps will be available to pick up from our farm stand this weekend for $35. Delivery available for $15.