During the summer season, I have a pretty structured week. I work Monday through Friday, never on Sunday, and rarely on Saturday. My typical work day begins at 6 am and ends between 2-5 pm. I owe this schedule to thinking about how my farm works during the no-harvest season of the winter months.
It’s amazing how smart we are in winter! Lots of farm fixes come when your head is free of flower orders, weather challenges, and deer. Seed starting used to be a task that often fell through the cracks. It was during winter that I got the great idea of hiring a niece to do the regular seed starting, which is essential to a steady stream of flowers.
I am going to share some of my habits during winter that prepare me to survive and thrive during the craziest parts of the farming season. I’ve come by these lessons the hard way, but they have increased the joy and bottom line in both my farming career and in my personal life.
My first and best habit is to structure my winter downtime just like I do during the busy times in high season. Without some kind of schedule, winter used to just disappear and then suddenly it was spring again. I am a creature of habit: once a task is on the list and works into my week, you can count on it getting done. Discovering this was a game-changer! The list must be a realistic one. Keep it real–you can only do so much. The undone tasks at the end of the day reveal this truth.
At the top of my winter to-do list is answering this crucial question: when am I going to take a break and/or a vacation? The anticipation of my planned breaks and vacations fuels my fire to get the other stuff done. I plan a vacation with Steve, and at least one other week I’ll share with my dog in lazy bliss watching our favorite movies. These are the moments I dream of while harvesting on blistering July days.
Then there are the chores. I always tackle my least favorite one first to get it out of the way. I start by looking over my QuickBooks sales records while the season is fresh in my memory. What were the best sellers? What did we have left over? Any surprises? What could I have sold more of? Using that information, I proceed to plan what I want to grow next season, how much space I can give each flower, and what my rotation/succession plan is going to be.
Next, I get down to the business of laying it all out on the jumbo calendar. I use a wall-hung jumbo at-a-glance calendar (each day’s square is 2” x 4”). It goes on the entrance door of the work building. I write my plans and make notes on them during the year. This way, all plans and records are in one place. That jumbo calendar has really improved my record-keeping! It is a great place to jot down new things I want to grow, when we begin harvesting a specific flower, when we mow a crop, etc. I use calendars from past years as a guide while planning for the year to come.
The seed-starting schedule is the first item to go on this calendar. Then I add all the other in-season chores. I pencil in when I should place seed and supply orders, when beds should be ready for planting, when I should plant cover crops, and more. This calendar is the brain of our operation, you might say. I tend to become like a zombie once the heat starts, so this calendar points me in the direction I need to go each day. As long as my eyes are open with glasses on, all is right in my little farming world.
During the busy season, my classic dilemma has been suddenly thinking of dinner as I’m walking to the house dead tired after working all day. Cheerios would work for me most nights but the hard-working man in my house needs more. My solution? Think of meal ideas during a couple of weeks in February.
My off-season goal is to fill my freezer with 2-3 meals per week that I can use in the busy season. My standards aren’t too high – it just has to be something I can pull out of the freezer at the last minute and have ready in a short time. My easy fixes are spaghetti sauce, ribeye steaks, minute steaks (for sandwiches), chicken breast fillet (salad topper), pie shells for weekly tomato pies and chicken pot pies, cooked ground beef for shepherd pies, and ready-made hamburger patties. A couple nights a week we go for big salads and seafood. A hidden bonus of having meal options in the freezer is that Steve is likely to have supper ready when I come indoors. That’s reason enough to think ahead in February!
I love being a full-time flower farmer, but it can be all-consuming. To make it the long-haul career of your dreams, you can’t crash, burn, and recover each winter. You need to go into farm planning with the additional goal of personal survival in mind. May your winter months be full of good times, fun, planning, and brainstorming.
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The Field and Garden Blog is produced by Lisa Mason Ziegler, award-winning author of Vegetables Love Flowers and Cool Flowers, owner of The Gardener’s Workshop, Flower Farming School Online, and the publisher of Farmer-Florist School Online and Florist School Online. Watch Lisa’s Story and connect with Lisa on social media!
