Welcome to the blog! My name is Ashley and I am the founder of Windy Hill Wildflowers. Having a cut flower farm is a complete dream in the making. Of course, I would not be pursuing this dream without the support of my husband Jarret, and my father-in-law David. What started as a fun idea, soon began to take shape and form out of our back yard. After a few experimental flower crops in a raised flower bed built by my husband Jarret, we quickly found ourselves ready to take the next step to building our own business. I have so much to learn about flower farming, but I am definitely ready. So, here we gooooo!
We were graciously loaned this patch of the Windy Hill Farm property owned by my father-in-law, David Barker, for our start up. My husband Jarret immediately had a vision for what we could create and jumped in with both feet.
The first thing he had built was a 30,000 gallon Rain Tank. Growing anything in Texas means LOTS of watering will be needed. After the drought we have been in…a rain tank is wishful thinking, but we will take any rain we can get. Jarret then tilled up two 50×50 foot beds. Our soil testing conducted by Texas A&M Agrilife Extension looked really great for growing conditions, but we plan to add compost as we go.
Jarret also built a tunnel with cattle panels and custom side doors so we can keep the frost off our of cool weather flowers. Once he had the tunnel built I soaked and planted over 200 Anemone and Ranunculus corms.
This past week Jarret brought in more compost and tilled. We now have three grow rows about 5ft by 50ft. Jarret installed drip irrigation and I planted several cool weather flower seeds.
So far we have Anemone, Ranunculus, Cerinthe, Bells of Ireland, White Finch, and Nigella in the ground. I am hardening off several varieties of Snap Dragon Seedlings that I started at home in my make-shift green house.
Stay tuned for updates as we GROW!