Winter Farm Tour: What’s going on behind the scenes to get ready for spring

Just because it’s 25 degrees out doesn’t mean there aren’t things growing on a flower farm!! I wanted to share some behind the scenes of what I’ve been working on this winter. I have BIG plans for 2026 (including planning on quitting my corporate job to spend more time on Big Oak) which means I have to grow a LOT more flowers to make this business successful. 

Fresh Big Oak tulips are coming soon!! I’ve got a thousand bulbs ready to bloom over the next few months

Part of what’s making that possible is my new greenhouse. This has been a dream of mine for so long and with the help of a grant from AgWest Farm Credit, I was able to purchase a kit and hire a contractor to build it for me. It’s 8 by 16 feet with hard poly sides and a gravel floor. Simple, but gets the job done. Inside, I’ve got racks with some extra grow lights (since we still have short, dark days) and a heater that runs at night. During the day, the sunlight heats up the greenhouse so hot that I have to open the door, otherwise it’ll easily get over 80 degrees!!

Check out the snazzy apron ;) it was a Christmas gift from Minthorn Mercantile, a favorite local shop

This greenhouse is small but mighty, I’ll have it filled with seedlings in no time

Inside the greenhouse I’m starting lots of seeds like sweet peas, pansies, and eucalyptus (this takes months to grow from seed). 

itty bitty pansy seedlings in January

Sweet peas growing strong and tall! These will be planted outside in February

In addition to seeds, I’ve got bulbs and corms pre-sprouting to give them an early start, like anemones, ranunculus, and tulips. I took a huge risk and ordered several hundred pre-chilled tulips to force in the greenhouse for early blooms. 

Ranunculus babies

This is what 141 tulip bulbs looks like

This is new to me, I’ve done lots of research but never actually tried it myself. For those plant nerds like me, let me give you the gist: tulip bulbs need to be kept at a low, chilly temperate for 13-16 weeks to simulate the cold of winter in order for them to bloom properly. So you can ‘trick’ the bulbs into thinking it’s winter by cooling them in a fridge for this time period, them planting them in a warm greenhouse so the tulips think it’s springtime and they grow earlier than they would outside.

Here’s what the bags of tulips look like when they arrive

Then I plant them densely in crates

This is how you can get tulips as early as Christmas. I’m trying this method for the first time this year. Usually I just plant bulbs in the ground in the fall, but with our inconsistently warm winters, it’s getting harder to grow tulips. Also, you can’t control the timing of the bloom. They’ll just bloom when mother nature dictates, but growing tulips in crates means I can move these bulbs to the greenhouse to grow even when it’s 20 degrees outside. Pretty cool, right?!

The crates are stacked in the greenhouse to keep warm

This earlier batch is already sprouting, I hope to have some ready by Valentine’s day!

Outside, there’s also plenty of work going on. My first flower field that I grew everything on is getting converted to mostly perennials (meaning these plants will come back every year and I won’t have to start them from seed). This little field served me well in 2025 but it’s time to expand, so I’m adding a new field in the old horse pasture. 

It doesn’t look like much now, but it’s full of hundreds of plants that will burst into bloom in a few months!

There’s also flowers growing outside right now that tolerate low temps like snapdragons and more anemones and ranunculus. To keep them from getting hit too hard with intense weather, I’ve covered them with frost cloth and will soon add some low tunnels made from clear poly to simulate a mini-greenhouse. 

Here’s what the frost-cloth-covered rows look like at sunset

Icelandic poppies stay protected under frost cloth. These were planted in Fall 2025

This is all in hopes that I’ll be able to extend my growing season and have flowers earlier than ever before (fingers crossed for March!!). 

There’s been a lot of growing pains as I increase the size of my flower farm. I started as a hobby gardener and still have that mindset of being small and scrappy, so it’s been hard to think big. I’m afraid to invest too much time and money into this business, but if I keep thinking small, I won’t have enough product to actually make a profit. 

2026 will be all about taking big risks despite being afraid of failure. It’s a scary world out there right now so even though it feels crazy to give up a secure steady job, it also feels crazy not to. 

I hope to see you all soon with the first markets and bouquets of 2026!! Keep an eye out for tulips, I’m about to have hundreds of them blooming all at once :)