The Littlest Flower Farm
My growing space has evolved quite drastically over the course of the past 5 years. Here’s a look the growth and progress over the years!
2020: My growing space was once an unused, overgrown space that was sad and forgotten with old timber framing two small garden beds, filled with poor quality soil, from our home’s previous owners. This sparked the idea that my husband and I could make it a garden. I used the little space that we had that year and began my gardening journey.
2021: My husband and I built four 7x3ft beds filled with quality soil and I began learning about companion planting veggies, herbs and flowers. That same summer, I squeezed in some additional beds and bought my first dahlias. This was the start of my passion for growing flowers.
2022: I squeezed in some more beds and maxed out the usable fenced-in space. I had drip irrigation installed, and planted dahlia tubers that I purchased from small growers and plants that I had grown from seed. We also were gifted a hand-me-down greenhouse that we had to take down at our friends house and re-build at our own. It wasn’t functional enough to grow in, but it was a nice to use as a potting shed and I was thrilled to have a space to start seeds and pot plants. In 2022 I named my little garden The Littlest Flower Farm and started an Instagram account to share what I was learning about and growing.
2023: In early 2023 I established a business to sell flowers and garden starts locally, I wanted to be able to learn what it takes to operate a business while being a very small operation in the hopes that I can one day scale it. In the spring of 2023 we moved our fence out quite a bit to add more square footage to my growing space. I rearranged the placement of some beds, built six new 16x3ft beds, and had the irrigation updated to reach them. Building it took a lot of time, the irrigation was stalled, I moved what felt like mountains of soil via wheelbarrow from my driveway to backyard, and my plantings were late because of the delay. It wasn’t the best year for crops, but I was able to start selling through the Central Oregon Flower Collective and trialed some new flowers to test and learn.
2024: With my infrastructure already established, I started the season by making a few minor updates to the drip lines, and was able to plant on-time and really maximize my harvests. I had a great year selling through the Collective, and trialed even more flowers. I ended up harvesting over 900 dahlia tubers at the end of the season! In the fall of 2024 I re-homed my greenhouse to a friend and replaced it with a new greenhouse that is better sealed and more functional. Looking ahead to the 2025 growing season, I am excited about my plans and have a pretty focused and tight selection of what flowers I’ll be growing.
Here are some photos of the evolution of my growing space, from most recent to beginning photos.
The Littlest Flower Farm, Summer 2024
The Littlest Flower Farm - Summer 2024
The Littlest Flower Farm in 2022
The Littlest Flower Farm in 2022
The Littlest Flower Farm in 2021
The Littlest Flower Farm in 2021
First little garden bed in 2020