Winter Farm

Greetings from the off season; the cool down, if you will.

Ok, full disclosure… I started this newsletter approximately 5 weeks ago. …This is how it is.

Let’s start with a synopsis of last year’s growing season:

In 2025 I joined the collection of farmers and growers at The Farley Center in Verona. I fell in love with the land, and in particular, the plot where I grow. Though I lost all, and I mean ALL with the exception of about 8 stems, of sunflowers to the deer, I loved walking up to the field and seeing three or four milling about in the trees nearby. Birds were, and are, aplenty. I once even heard a cuckoo! I learned that the soil is so variable in the flower field- ranging from sandy to loamy to rocky. Watering, we found, is a challenge because of the proximity, or lack thereof, to spigots. But, Seth, Farm Manager Extraordinaire, was patient and persevered in getting water out and up the slope to the field.

I had five CSA members, vended at the Death Market at the Farley Center and the Eastside Farmers Market in Madison, provided flowers for one wedding, bartered with a local body worker, taught one bouquet making class at Pasture & Plenty and made various wholesale and retail sales. I attended Financial Foundations for Farms through the Food Finance Institute to help me gain a greater understanding of how to support my business by comprehending its finances. I also reached out to my community to help me purchase three weeding tools. It was a hearty, stressful, beautiful, abundant, exhausting season. Which sounds just about right.

Side note: My off-farm job changed from working in a restaurant to now milling flour (I almost wrote “flower”…. I do take pleasure in working with the other flower.)

Shifting into Season 2026:

My daughter, Lynx, is a senior this year. She will graduate in June and plans to attend college…somewhere. (-sigh-) We are also moving in June! To a gorgeous, small house rental in Black Earth. So with these two big changes in mind, and after mentally churning for weeks (ok, that’s a little on the dramatic side…) on how to best shape these changes, I came up with a plan for the upcoming growing season. The plan is to only grow for the CSA. Pretty simple after all that thinking! I felt instant relief at letting go of selling at a farmers market this year and marketing to wedding folks. This is the joyful side of running your own business :)

That being said, I am currently attending Capital Readiness, another offering through the Food Finance Institute, on how to raise capital for Root to Bloom, LLC. I am learning about, and applying the financial details to a dream I’ve held for many years… to build and run a flower-art-food-resource truck! (The one clear vision I have for this truck is that it has a living roof… lots of moss!) The plan is to enact- a.k.a. ask for money and start building- in the beginning of 2027. Though spending my time learning about equity and assets and expenditures and cash flow isn’t my bailiwick, I can tangibly feel that I am stepping closer to manifesting this dream.

So this is where I and Root to Bloom stand. I am curious about this year: the changes I anticipate and the many I don’t know about. I’m curious about new and established relationships. I wonder about our climate and how hot and wet the year will be. I’m excited to start seeds and place my hands in soil for the first time this year. And I hope you will join me as a returning or new CSA member.

Stay tuned for details on how to sign up for the Bountiful 2026 CSA Share!

Warmly,

Julie

January 7, 2026