On Asking Myself Why I Want to Start My Own Business
Originally Written on March 19, 2018 // Updated April 2020
I’m super excited to be starting a flower business where I’ll have bazillions of blooms to play and make pretty things with… but I cannot deny my love for farming at its core. When I started growing plants six years ago I was working for a charity, growing mass amounts of organic vegetables for underprivileged communities in Detroit. That morphed into planting boutique vegetable gardens for ultra rich people in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. And now here I am in Buffalo, about to grow a field of 30,000 flowers and a small plot of vegetables for my home, because I want to.
At some point you have to ground yourself, no matter where you are in life, and just ask. Why are you doing this?
I fell in love with farming because I felt it brought purpose and true, genuine meaning to my life. I felt I was helping people. I was bringing people closer to nature, providing them wholesome food, and I somehow enlightened people to start giving a damn about the earth beneath their feet (turns out when you anthropomorphize soil microbes as if they’re starring in their own Golden Globe Award Winning drama, people play along).
Whether I’ve accomplished anything in terms of helping people or making the world a “better place” (something I’ve struggled with throughout my professional life), all of it is neither here nor there. I’m choosing to grow this flower farm not as a hobby but as a career, because there’s simply nothing else I can possibly do with my life.
I am admittedly a daydreamer. With serious shiny-object syndrome. And a bit of a contrarian (maybe more than a bit). Things don’t have to be the way they are. Your life can be whatever you want it to be, and you can do whatever you want to do. It’s because of this stubbornness, my complete unwillingness to do anything I don’t want to do, and because I trust myself and my abilities to my absolute core. That is why I’m starting this flower farm.
For me, this farm is bigger than pretty flowers. I’m not farming 100,000 acres nor providing every florist in the United States with local, sustainably grown blooms. But what I do plan on doing is turning this little corner of previously conventional farmland into a haven for bees and wildlife. I plan on building new top soil and sequestering carbon in the atmosphere using regenerative agricultural methods. I hope to provide a workable regenerative/permaculture model for other flower farmers and backyard gardeners. It all sounds fancy but it’s really not. It’s working with nature and allowing nature to set the stage and run the play. We need a simple, healthy, regenerative agriculture. And I truly believe my flower farm (not technically agriculture at all) can actually be a resource for it.
A farm can make a difference, no matter what kind of farm it is – whether we grow food to feed hungry people or flowers to design wedding bouquets – and that’s what I’m learning here. There will be no end to sharing knowledge. I am hopeful that farm visitors will leave with a sense of excitement and confidence that they can create an equally beautiful, inspiring landscape if they choose.
With everything I do, I’m beginning to ask myself why. I have this conversation with myself and it reveals quite a lot about my intentions. Why am I starting a flower farm? Because I love farming. Because I love floral design. Because I want to reach into people and bring them to the earth-loving side. Because there’s simply nothing else I can possibly do with my life.
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