Unveiling the Wonders of Blooms -n- Blessings: A Journey into the Heart of a Flower and Vegetable Farm!

Welcome to my new website and blog! I am so glad you are here! I want to take a few moments and tell you a little about myself and Blooms-n-Blessings and invite you to come along with me as I take the steps necessary to turn a dream into a reality and hopefully encourage you along the way!

To give you a bit of an idea of what we are about and what we will be doing I want to share a few things. Our mission statement at Blooms - n - Blessings is this: " To cultivate beauty, nourishment, and joy through regenerative gardening- stewarding God's land with care and sharing His blessings with our community. "Whatever you do, do it for the Glory of God. 1 Corinthians. 10:31." With a vision to grow a place where flowers flourish, blessings grow, and God's creation is honored." We plan to do this by stewarding God's creation with love, growing flowers, food and faith! I will be growing both flowers and vegetables to sale this year by online orders of flower bouquets and veggie baskets. I will also be selling these items at local Farmer's Markets in 2025. In 2026 I will have You Cut days on the farm where folks can come and pick their own bouquets and food baskets. Then future plans will be a small county store and events that change with the seasons! Such as tea gardens, pumpkin patches, classes and of course Christmas trees!!! Although that is all in the 5 year plan!

Let's go back to the beginning... This whole adventure was planted by Hallmark! Yep, that's right...Hallmark! I absolutely love Hallmark movies and especially at Christmas! I was watching one of the many movies and thought about how fun it would be to have a Christmas tree lot some day and so my mind started working on overload lol! At first it was just a thought and not a whole lot more than that for a couple of years, but as time went by and I kept on thinking about it and started thinking about how I could potentially make a Christmas tree lot more of a full-time gig.

The dream was planted in my heart at that time, but something else really turned the spark into a flame! I was scrolling through TV one day and came across a program on Prime titled "Growing Floret" It was about a couple who started a flower farm in their backyard and grew it into one of the largest flower farms in the US. Oh my did that catch my attention. Erin mentioned something on her program that just struck me right in the heart and that was doing what we can to spread the beauty and love of flowers to those around us. Between Hallmark and Growing Floret I was on a mission to do something that would not only bring me joy and beauty but how I could possibly do that for others. I spent several months learning about growing more than just a small garden and flower beds. I immersed myself in learning and along the way I found other things that really sparked my interest and that was homesteading! Although there are some things that I am not interested in doing such as raising my own cattle or pigs for food I do want to cook more from scratch and make things such as soaps, lotions, tinctures and candles to help cut down on the cost of some things. I will be learning how to preserve the food I grow and be much more self-sustainable. We do already have chickens and we will grow our flock to include some meat chickens also. My mind is still contemplating a couple of sheep, but I haven't made a decision one way or another. I have started making my own butter which is SOOOOOOO easy! I made several batches and gave them as Christmas presents this year along with homemade flavored salts and bread (although I cheated a bit and used the bread machine for these!). We added some soaps into the mix as well. It was a good place to start and they all got be be my testers lol! I also made my first homemade applesauce which was good and some pickles that were not so good so I need to work on that a bit. I will be learning how to can and have purchased both a water bath canner and a pressure canner! I am so excited!!!!!

I have found so many you-tubers that I love watching and have learned so much from such as Bre from Blossom and Branch she is a flower in Colorado where I live although I live on the opposite side of the state! Jess and Miah from Roots and Refuge Farm and The Farmers Table, Michelle and Codi from More Than Farmers, Kevin, Jacque and team from Epic Gardening and Epic Homesteading as well as Jaques in the Garden. I also watch The Homesteading RD and Promise View Acres. I have learned so much from them as well as gaining A LOT of excitement in seeing several people living out similar dreams which has helped me see that it can be done. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication, but as I always told my kids anything worth having is going to be hard work.

I am still getting things started and figured out, but I am ready to do this thing! I have tried things here and there that I just couldn't seem to get off the ground and that bothered me when taking on this adventure until I realized that NOTHING I had done in the past stirred up an excitement and passion like these things! I do believe that I captured a glimpse of the calling God has on my life with these other things, and they were the stepping stones to get where I am going. Never despise small beginnings it says in Zechariah 4:10. I have spent the last year immersing myself in learning and will be applying what I have learned to move to the next steps. Not onl steps in my journey, but of taking the steps towards living out my DREAM and in doing so I hope to encourage some of you along the way!

Now... full disclaimer here... I am a novice at best so you will be hearing and seeing both my successes and my failures because there are sure to be several of both!!! My property is a hot mess in some places, and I haven't ever done regenerative gardening before so I will be initiating those practices into my space. I don't have an never ending budget either so will be sharing some things we can do that are budget friendly!

In addition to my own gardens (flowers, herbs, and vegetables) I am one of the gardeners at the 32 foot growing dome at our local hospital so I have learned A LOT about growing dome gardening as well, although a growing dome with a pond as the thermal mass is still different than the type of greenhouse I have. My greenhouse is small, but we are going to do the best I can to make the best use out of the space! I will share it all!

I sure hope you will join me and the adventure of seeing my dream come into a reality and if you like what you see you will share it along the way with your friends as well.

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope to see you in the days to come! Don't forget to check us out at BloomsnBlessings on You Tube, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest although some may be a bit more robust than others until I get things figured out!

Let's go spread some joy!

With love,

DeeAnn