I learned it Here, Too.

Hi! We’re coming up on our annual On Farm Workshop series! I’m so excited to meet all the growers in person and watch these days unfold before them. They always feel magical - full of our mutual love for plants and gardens, inspiration from fellow entrepreneurs, and the excitement of the sharing of new knowledge.

These days are also a bit nostalgic for me. You see— I was one of the first Tulip Workshop students. I met Emily von Trapp through a different online course that we were both taking years ago (we love both teaching and LEARNING ourselves). Emily shared photos of some of the winter tulips she was harvesting with our group, and I begged her to put her methods together and share them. When she decided to offer an on-farm workshop program I rushed to sign up.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in professional career. Not only did I gain some incredible knowledge that I was able to put to work my very first season, but I also gained new friends, and ultimately, a new business partner. The Tulip Workshop wouldn’t exist as it does today if we hadn’t decided to partner up a few years later and bring the course to hundreds of other growers as an online course, too.

With the knowledge I gained about tulip forcing I was able to bring some early successions of fresh tulips (a couple thousand) to my community that first winter and the local hunger for them grew from there! I increased my tulip forcing operation over the next few years, working hard to meet the demand of my customers. Then, I started experimenting and learning how to grow our tulips in a way that I felt might be even better for my infrastructure. My team and I embraced hydroponic growing and, after a few years of tests and practice, we transitioned our entire tulip forcing operation from soil forcing to hydroponics. And then we were able to contribute all of our knowledge of small scale hydroponic tulip forcing to the workshop, too! Our “two-for-one” crop specific courses resonate with other growers who can learn what each of our farms (with our very different facilities) are doing to grow these crops efficiently.

Then, Emily and I decided to team up again and share each of our own farm’s lily growing operations. The flower with the longest harvest period on our farms is the lily! And it is actually an easier crop to work with than tulips, because it fits more naturally into the natural growing season. Our lily course became the perfect program for beginner growers looking to gain some control over their seasons and advanced growers wanting to learn how we dial in our crops and harvest flowers from April to December.

Lilies are high value programmable flowers that fall into my “top 10 flowers for installation work” as a florist. They are wonderful for installation work because they are large AND non-wilting. Few flowers hold up better than they do in hot weather without water. I’ll be sure to share some of my favorite designs with lilies in an upcoming post!

If you’d like to join us this season for an On Farm program it’s not too late! Visit our On Farm workshop page here to learn more and sign up. We’d love to meet you!