U-Pick Flower Farms

Next, there's a growing gardening trend that's blooming in Minnesota, and it's all about the experience. So instead of picking up that pre-packaged bouquet at the grocery store, go to You Pick Flower Farms. A lot of people are into this. Garden Guide DLK Live for us in Buffalo, checking out the blooms. Hi Dale, good morning. Hey, good morning. It's probably one of the most popular trends in gardening right now. Of course, everybody loves cut flowers, so why not go pick them yourself? Just like you pick strawberries, just like you pick blueberries, you can come to a farm just like this one and pick your own flowers. And it truly is a wonderful experience. We'll get into some of the mechanics of how that all works here in just a sec. But joining me this morning is Callie Galvin. She is the owner, or co-owner here. Your husband's got the orchard in back. Yes, yes. And what did you say to him? Did you just say to him, one day, build me some flowers? Yeah, it was really his idea. I'm a wedding florist, so that's what I do full-time. And I started to notice that as I was getting flowers, my hands got all icky, and he was like, well, let's grow you some of your own flowers. So it started as a front flower field in our tiny little house. We had four rows, and they came up. And then at that same time, his family purchased Gilchrist Orchard. There's 11,000 apple trees back there. It's a great place. And he said, well, I'm going to build you a flower farm. I said, okay. So I continued to have the kids into my flower farm, or my wedding flowers, and then he built me this. And to me, I always say it's like the biggest love letter he could have ever given me is all of our flowers. It's beautiful. There's some folks out here eagerly picking flowers this morning. So how does it work? Let's get through the mechanics. It is by appointment only, right? Yes, we are reservation system only, and we do that because we want people to come in and enjoy and know that there's going to be enough stems for them to come and pick, that it's not going to get overcrowded, and we just want it to be a lovely experience. And you can see these people, they're not crowded. They each get to come and cut the flowers that they want. It is just so beautiful out here this morning. Thank you. Especially after the last couple of days, the flowers just look absolutely in their prime. So you're opening up August 1st reservations. That's tomorrow, correct? That is tomorrow. So we are on a rolling two-week basis every Saturday. So if you want to come at 8.30 in two weeks, they will open up at 8.30 tomorrow. If you want to come at our 9 a.m. slot, that opens up at 9 a.m. So if you follow us on Instagram, that is the best place for all of our information. And you actually have a very, very nice Instagram. Just so you folks at home understand, that's so it doesn't get overrun, so there's always plenty of flowers to pick from. So what are flower picking—you know, there's all sorts of tips for picking strawberries and blueberries. What are the tips for flower snipping? Well, one, pick the ones you like. And secondly, you just want to make sure that the flowers that you're picking are ready. Like this zinnia here, you can tell the neck is strong. So you give it the wiggle test? The wiggle test. It's not flailing in the wind. You know that this zinnia is good. It's going to stand up in water. And the biggest thing we always tell our guests is, like, strip the leaves. Because the water is—if you—leaves are in the water, that's what gets it all mucky and gross. So if you get all the leaves off of your flowers before you put them in the water, they'll last longer. Okay, and if it was me picking, I'd be like a kid in a candy store. I want to pick the whole—I want to pick the whole bloody lot. Right. What are some design techniques? Oh, boy. What's nice to put together? I think it's always so fun to see—that's my favorite part of the flower farm, is to see what other people pick to see, like, what they think is beautiful. So, you know, I think some people will go for just, like, a big, bright bouquet. And I saw this zinnia earlier, and I could not get over it. I think it's so good. Oh, that's beautiful, that one right there. All these corals—this is my favorite right here. Yes, the corals. Yes, it's so beautiful. And then I think some more of, like, a garden spout with the sweet peas, which I love. They smell so good. This is the lemon balm. It just smells delicious. And then the yarrow and the cosmos. So really what makes a good bouquet is whatever you think looks good. And people get a vase, or you get them wrapped, or either or? Yes, so they come in. They are picking in a vessel so the flowers stay in water. And then at the end, they come in, and then we wrap them right over there, and you get to take home a perfect little bouquet. And then recently you wrote a book. The last winter you wrote a book, right? Yes. Tell me about that really quick. Yes, so we—like, the number one questions we get all the time is, well, how do you do this? How do you do your flowers? How do you do this? And so we said, okay, well, if we are a young family, if we have a young family, and if we can do this, you guys can do this. And we've seen lots of different guides, and we just wanted to make our guide as simple as possible. If you have a tiny little plot, if you have large land, or even if you have raised flower beds. So this is what it is. So it's called Well Watered. People buy this here, or can they get it online? You can get it here, you can get it on Amazon as a physical book, or you can get it on our website as a PDF. Okay, I'm just going to fly that around one more time. There is the book. This is probably one of the cutest little flower farms. Actually, it's really not that little. But it's probably one of the cutest little flower farms ever. Callie is a sweet, sweet little flower farmer. So jump on the reservations thing tomorrow. Saturdays, they do live music and coffee, a little coffee cart as well. And with that, we'll send it back to you guys in the studio. Oh, coffee while I'm picking my flowers. That's dreamy. That's like out of a Hallmark movie. Thank you, Dale.