Our Story – How we became flower farmers
Wow! I’ve been dreaming of having a blog that would educate and inspire. And, here we are! January is coming to freezing close and February is right around the corner. Current farm projects includes planning our 2019 calendar, finalizing the seed starting schedule, and getting our new germination chamber up and running – YAY!
If you’re visiting this blog to learn more about flowers, hang in there! Our goal is to post at least monthly about farm happenings, what’s growing, and how we are growing it.
I hope this blog is everything to you that I hope it to be. Full of inspiration, beauty, and real life. Now that we’ve laid out our dreams for this tiny space on the internet, we want to introduce ourselves. Our story started in 1999 at Hoover High School where Judd and I had a computer class together. While they briefly got to know each other, Judd was a senior and off to college.
Flash forward to 2009, Judd spotted me at the Hartville flea market and we had the opportunity to reconnect. About a year and a half from that day, we were married. When you know, YOU KNOW. Am I right?
We’ve always had big dreams of owning a farm with a garden, chickens, and a small piece of land that we can call our own. We would drive through our favorite streets in Hartville and look at all the small farms and properties with dreams to one day being able to own one. Our favorite road: Hoover Avenue. “Gosh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could ever live on Hoover?”
After a few years of being married, we had our first two children, Maxwell and Mae, and were living in our first home – a beautiful, historic home in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Canton, Ohio. A big time fixer upper, we put so much sweat and hard work into that house. We loved living there, but we still always felt pulled to our old farm dreams. With no specific plans, we decided we would put our house up for sale and try to find our dream property. With two small children in tow, and one now on the way, we packed the house up and prayed we would find something that we could make ours. After many discouraging months looking a houses, a new property came on the market.
ON HOOVER AVENUE.
We raced there THAT night to see it. We fell in love. We made an offer. It was accepted, and just like that our dreams came true. We moved in, and a week later brought home our third child, Madeline. There were 2 acres on the back of the property that we weren’t sure what to do with. After a lot of research on small scale farming, we visited a few Ohio farms to see if any of their operations would be something we’d be interested in doing. Blueberries? No. Hops? No. Nothing felt right.
A visit to a Columbus flower farm changed everything. We excitedly talked about our future flower farm that day and haven’t stopped talking about it since. We fell in love with the idea of starting our own flower farm, and that winter, we dove in head first. Bloom Hill Farm was born that spring. The rest is history!
Our first year, we grew only three crops – Sunflowers, Dahlias, and Zinnias. We took the leap and decided to try and sell them from our home. Our children were so little (all 4 and under) and we wanted to sell flowers, but didn’t want to leave them. So, we put a canopy up in our driveway and a sign at the bottom of the street, said a little prayer. Customers showed up. EVERY WEEK. Our passion grew exponentially from there and hasn’t stopped since. I will forever cherish the picture below. It always reminds me where we started and how far we come. Maxwell is always one for a photo opportunity. Is he not the cutest salesman?
As our flowers and our passion grew, we worked endlessly to learn more and grow more for season two. As our farm grew, so did the interest! We dreamed up our flower stand so that we could be at home and still sell our blooms. We always say the flower stand was our “blessing in disguise.” It gave us the privilege to pour into our children and serve our customers at the same time! I’ll forever be grateful for the stand. It’s allowed me to pick wild blackberries with the kids, take a dip in the pool, and create memories with them when I would otherwise be standing at a market.
Four seasons later, we’ve created this little farm into something bigger than we ever dreamed. And we haven’t stopped dreaming! We have big plans for the farm that include more opportunities for our customers to experience and learn from the farm. We love getting to share about how growing flowers has changed our lives. We believe it can change yours too! That’s why we are here. Spreading the love of flowers. So, sit back, relax, and make sure you subscribe to our blog so you can get the latest updates! We look forward to giving you a window into our daily lives and the beauty that surrounds it. Stay tuned!
