0:16Hi I'm Linda from Little Farmhouse Flowers in Jay, New York. We are growing specially cut flowers on about two and a half acres in the Adirondack park in northern New York.

0:31I think that my interest and love for growing flowers came from probably my parents and my

0:37grandmother. My grandmother loved flowers and I can remember always being around them at

0:43her place. Eventually I became an art teacher. My teaching schedule provided for these long spans of

0:52summer vacation time, and for me as a visual arts person I think I tended right into flowers.

1:04During one school year I started to just really get into thinking about the possibilities of

1:11having a flower farm. It was around the winter time, January, that I decided to leave my teaching job. I gave notice there, I actually started all of the seedlings before we had land, before we had

1:22a place to put them, because I was so determined to make it happen. We had a few months, really,

1:29to find a farm and to find a way to break ground. When we came here we had a home, but a really

1:37big yard, basically, that is turning into the flower farm that I'd love it to be. We closed on

1:44our house here May 1st, and then I think I had everything planted by mid-June for the season.

1:57We have a pretty short growing season. Our last frost date can be around June 1st and our first frost can be around September 1st. So those dates are kind of very sticky in my mind in terms of planning for our season.

2:13We grow a wide variety of flowers and greens here on the farm; Sunflowers Dahlias—those

2:20are really exciting right now—Lily's, Tulips are an important crop for us, and a whole host of different kinds of perennials that are really happy here; Peonies,

2:30Lupine, Globe Thistle, Sea Holly, different kinds of Rudbeckia... And we have some specialty items that we are growing undercover like Garden Roses and Heirloom Chrysanthemums.

2:44Our flowers find their way into customers hands a few different ways; a local, independent grocery store; a subscription membership; and then we also do a lot of wedding work.

2:58We are surrounded by two open meadows of naturally occurring weeds. My enemies are

3:05constantly you know blowing through the fence into the gardens! So the weed fabric helps some with that but there's still so much weed pressure. With the Pyroweeder, we can prepare

3:15a bed and walk this four foot wide Pyroweeder down the bed and burn off all those weed seeds.

3:34I work here mostly by myself this season with the help of my family. My husband

3:39plays an incredible supportive role and my kids love to help on the farm with harvesting. They get really excited about anything having to do with packaging, label making, things like that.

3:51For my son, harvesting things like ornamental pumpkins, that's his thing. He loves to be the pumpkin guy.

3:59My daughter, you know, she is just so helpful. She just wants to lend a hand especially when she sees that things are getting busy. I'm really blessed to have them involved in my business and to let them see, you know, this whole process.

4:36I think it's important to me to find ways to make this business work year round. We get quite a lot

4:45of snow and ice in the winter time, it's kind of a greenhouse owner's nightmare in some respects.

4:52The tunnels that we're purchasing now from Farmers Friend have a gothic profile and the snow sheds off them beautifully. We are able to harvest flowers later into the season, we also

5:02have used them as propagation houses, even though they're unheated, by building a series of smaller

5:08tunnels inside them, and just heating those smaller tunnels... and that's how I've been able to get a whole lot of seedlings started without actually having a large heated greenhouse space.

5:22Sometimes in the winter it can be difficult to communicate to a client what their summer wedding flowers are going to look like. So i'll actually do some illustration—I'll do some drawing

5:32for them. I put together an extensive proposal document that has lots of images of the flowers. I love that I'm also creating this very personalized process for them.

5:48Not only am I trying to operate a very environmentally friendly, a very sustainable farm,

5:54but I'm also carrying that practice over into the design studio.

6:01We are working without any sort of floral foam, and it breaks down into micro-plastics,

6:07and it's really horrible for the environment, and sustainably designed floral work is really

6:14important. It's certainly a cornerstone of what we do here, and it's a part of the

6:18education that we provide to the consumer when they come to us as well. We're thinking about

6:25how we are giving back to nature hopefully as as much as we are benefiting from it.

6:39Every day is different. Some days I'm going to be completely filthy dirty, from head to toe,

6:45sweaty... right when I start to get kind of exhausted from that mode, my life will change

6:51and I'll be working more on the design side, or I can come in and do some photography, or work on a wedding proposal. It doesn't get boring at all because I have this

7:01this wonderful cycle of all these different things that happen, and of course that changes throughout the year, but that's what keeps the work interesting to me for sure.

7:13With locally grown flowers, we're able to bring products to market that you just can't otherwise get.

7:23As a person who is interested in the visual arts, this is really my way that I found to

7:30be making, be designing, and to be earning a living at the same time.

7:40I have an innate need to tinker, to create, to build things... i just happen to be growing my own art supplies.

8:00We do have so much shared joy over the things that are growing and the things that we're harvesting here on the farm, and

8:08I see that in my kids. I see that in their wonder when they're chasing frogs and grasshoppers.

8:17I think that there's a gift to them that we are giving them by having this life outdoors. This is our way of instilling in them the same values and interest in nature that I received from my family.

8:32The Good Life to me is hard, often dirty work, but so beautiful and rewarding.

8:46Hi guys, I'm Jonathan with Farmers Friend. If you enjoyed this video, hit the "like" button and subscribe to see more inspiring stories like this. To learn

8:53more about our innovative, small farm tools and supplies like easy to assemble greenhouse kits, flame weeders, and a lot more, check out our website at farmersfriend.com.