Best Care Tips for Fresh Flowers

Best Care Tips for Fresh Flowers

After a successful weekend at farmer’s market, design classes and hosting a Bloom Bar at our flower farm, there was one question from everyone that kept coming up: What’s the best way to keep our flowers looking fresh?

After 11 years of growing and selling cut flowers locally, we have some great tips to share to help extend the vase life on your fresh cut flower bouquet and we’re going to share those with y’all!

The first thing to consider is: did you purchase your flowers already in water, or was it a wrapped bouquet that you transported home out of water?

If you purchased flowers already in water, it’s okay to not fuss too much with them when you first get them home. The key will be to maintenance them each day afterwards, which we’ll discuss below.

On the other hand, if your bouquet was purchased and you had it out of water to transport home, such as a wrapped bouquet, before you place it in your water you’ll want to trim the bottom of your stems before putting it into your vase of water.

Prepare Vase

Anytime you remove your flower stems from the water, pockets of air get into the stems. To remove the little air pockets, you’ll just want to trim a small amount from the bottom of the stems before adding your flowers into your vase of water.

Make sure your vase has been washed out thoroughly with soap and water before you use it for your fresh flowers. Keeping all of your supplies clean for your fresh flowers will go a long way to helping your fresh flowers stay beautiful longer. This includes the floral snips, or scissors you use to snip your stems.

Add Sugar & Bleach

Add 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of bleach to your clean water

We’ve found that the sugar & bleach mixture works well in helping extend vase life for fresh blooms. The sugar gives your flowers something to eat and the bleach keeps the water clean. The perfect combination for fresh flowers!

The amount of each of these will vary depending on the size of the vase you use. Shown here is a 32 oz vase, hence the 1:1 ratio for the tsp. If you use half this size of vase, cut this amount in half.

Remove Foliage

Remove any leaves/foliage from the bottom of the stems - any foliage that will touch the water.

Removing foliage from the bottom of your stems, anything that will touch the water, will make sure your flowers stay beautifully for days. If any foliage gets into the water, it will start to break down and cause rot and bacteria. This makes the water ‘dirty’ and will shorten the vase life for your fresh flowers.

Taking a small amount of extra time to remove all foliage that will touch the water, before you place your fresh flowers into your vase of water, will ensure success in extending the vase life for your fresh blooms.

Trim Stems

Anytime you remove your flower stems from the water, pockets of air get into the stems. To remove the little air pockets, you’ll just want to trim a small amount from the bottom of the stems before adding your flowers into your vase of water.

After following all of the above steps, finish up by placing your fresh flowers in your vase.

Be sure to change the water every two days, following the above directions, especially re-trimming the bottom of the stems before you place them back into the water.

Vase life for your fresh flowers can vary depending on the type of flower in the bouquet; however, you can typically expect your fresh flowers to last between 7-10 days.

Glamping on a Flower Farm

It started in 2020 at the request of a couple visiting the farm for one of our popular Al Fresco Dinners with Tangerine Food Company. They told us they would LOVE to come to stay at our flower farm for a unique travel experience (thanks Gilmara!). Later that evening we talked it over a little, then we talked about it for a couple more months past that. We hashed out the the cost/benefit analysis, requirements for building, etc. It’s not the fun or sexy part of business, but it’s definitely necessary. After all of our research and number crunching was completed, we decided to move forward with putting everything in place for Spring 2021, to host flower farm glamping tent stays at PepperHarrow.

That’s when our first ever glamping tent was built on a beautiful, private area of our property with the intention to offer guests a unique flower farm stay experience.

Photo by Aly Carroll

When we first released dates for our glamping stay, we limited available just from Thursday-Sunday. It was our first year hosting and we really wanted to make sure we gave ourselves enough time to clean the tent and change linens in between guests, all while running a full time, thriving flower farm. It was the perfect way to ease into the cadence of hosting guests and running a flower farm.

Any guesses how it all panned out? SPOILER ALERT: It was a total HIT! We spent the summer and fall of 2021 fully booked up each and every weekend. We had the opportunity to meet many wonderful people through our hosting experience and loved all of the positive feedback guests gave us after their stays. After our first year, we achieved designated ‘Super Host’ status on Airbnb. Such a great first year accomplishment!

During the first year we also learned a lot about hosting guests on our farm that weren’t intuitive initially, like how to handle weather when guests are staying in the tent, and other important learnings. Starting with shortened availability really helped us get used to hosting while managing our flower farm as well.

Photo by Aly Carroll

What does a stay look like for guests who stay on our flower farm at the glamping tent?

The inside of the glamping tent comfortably accommodates two people with a large, king sized bed with luxe, soft linens, a small sitting area, chest of drawers, dining table and chairs. The windows inside the tent roll-up, as well as the front door, so there’s tons of opportunity to let in air for a nice cross breeze. On the front of the tent sits a cute bistro table and chairs, so you can sit on the front porch to enjoy a Madison County sunrise, or appreciate the lush, green landscape.

Outside is even more setup for living space! There’s a shaded special spot to the side, which has a small cooking setup: outside cook stove, grill and a small space for basic washing. There’s a hammock for relaxing, a fire pit area setup with a stack of firewood, and Adirondack chairs with a small table to enjoy an evening by a campfire.

Photo by Aly Carroll

Bathhouse accommodations are provided inside of our newly constructed event barn, located roughly 1 minute from the glamping tent by vehicle, or a 3-5 minute walk. Restroom facilities, with a hot water shower is available inside the bathhouse with towels, and basic wash essentials available. This isn’t the most glamorous thing to talk about, but so necessary to complete a perfect glamping stay.

A glamping stay at the flower farm is meant to be a quiet escape into the countryside, where you can energize your spirit and connect back with the land, but if you’re feeling adventurous, we also highly recommend guests explore the wonderful sites and scenes of Madison County.

Home to the famed Bridges of Madison County, you can make a whole trip out of visiting each of the covered bridges, as well as other local attractions. Once inside the glamping tent, you can find a list of our favorite places to eat, drink, grab a cup of coffee and other great local ‘must see’ places.

Photo by Aly Carroll

Even though the glamping tent is wonderful, it’s not even the highlight of the stay. Guests have unlimited access to our 20 acre flower farm. We welcome guests to walk our flower fields, take photos, and even to cut a bouquet to take home. There are roughly 8.5 acres of flower gardens to explore and enjoy, which many guests take advantage of.

Our 2.5 acres of lavender are made up of three distinctly separated beds, each dedicated for specific uses: essential oil, culinary, and simply to enjoy! The lavender fields are usually in bloom from mid-June through mid-July, but even when they’re not blooming, the fragrance from these beautiful plants are incredible. Need a nap in the lavender? Help yourself!

Can you just imagine yourself relaxing and enjoying a glamping experience at our flower farm?

XO Jenn and Adam

PepperHarrow Glamping Tent Tour

PepperHarrow Holiday Style Guide

We love to celebrate the holiday season here on the farm with a simple, rustic flair, inspired by the gorgeous scenery and wildlife that surrounds us. From cozy, plaid blankets around the campfire, to seasonal greenery wreaths adorned with dried flowers, every detail harkens back to country holiday celebration. Holiday decorating can be simple and tasteful by using paired down decorating techniques that won’t break the bank that will make your space look warm and welcoming for the season.

Recently, we were featured in The Inspired Room on Instagram for our signature farmhouse wreaths with rustic bells. Our lush wreaths were handmade with fresh noble fir boughs, and were peppered with dried eucalyptus leftover from weddings on the farm held during the summer months. We love repurposing materials and using as much as we can forage from our own property as possible. (More on some of the things we forage on our property to come.)

After that post, we had questions from all over the country about the ribbons we used for these gorgeous wreaths. as well as the bells. As with most of our decorating, it was very simple, but elevated. Are you ready to know just how simple they were?! The ribbons were pieces of fabric torn down the bolt and tied neatly to match the neutral buffalo plaid theme on the Flower Cottage. The torn edges give more of a natural look to these gorgeous wreaths, which compliments the all around organic nature of the wreaths and the surrounding country setting. Also added to these gorgeous wreaths were the now highly sought after, antique bells, which look like something from an old-time holiday scene. The bells can still be found here. Aren’t they gorgeous?

Each early winter we spend time walking around our property, gathering materials for wreath making to add little extra, what we call ‘sparkles’ to our seasonal wreaths. What types of materials do we look for? Well, native grasses are one of the top things we look for. We’re surrounded by prairies of switch grass, Indian grass, and little blue stem to name a few. We also gather rose hips grown on invasive multi-flora roses, empty seed pods from milkweed, red dogwood branches and any other pretty natural colored branches, such as birch, because we love those gorgeous catkins so much. We’re such foragers, we even take the kids camping in the summer months and do a little pine cone collecting as a fun family activity during our time spent enjoying the outdoors.

Dried flowers are making a huge comeback this year and have been incredible popular with our customers and with our retail customers like Des Moines Mercantile. We love this trend! We use a ton of dried flowers for our wreath making workshops and for our custom made wreaths from the farm. Running a successful flower farm, there’s always extra flowers to set aside to dry and we dedicate time each week to making sure some are set aside just for this purpose. We always end up using all of them this time of year, especially for our now famous, ‘Rainbow Wreath’ that was a hit last year and continues to be a fan favorite this year.

The inspiration for the wreath came from one of our wreath making classes, where a local creative told us she was going to use ‘all the colors’ for her greenery wreath and needed yellow flowers to add to it. We ran to our drying barn immediately and pulled down some dried Lady’s Mantle and we snipped a few sprigs from our yellow arborvitae bush. The finished wreath was so pretty and inspired the final design we made ourselves, shown below.

This month, we were featured in The Cottage Journal Magazine in the Garden Pleasures section, which features some of our decorating style. Don’t miss the little details, such as the dried apples and oranges you’ll see, as well as the pretty peacock feathers we added to our wreaths to make them look extra gorgeous. Below is a little peek at the feature, but you can see photos of our design throughout the publication.

We’re honored to be featured alongside our talented fellow flower farmers, as well as our friends and upcoming book publisher, Bloom Imprint. Be sure to check out the blue barn, decorated with lush greenery and red bows to celebrate the holiday season. So inspiring and oh so stunning!

To learn more about how to dry oranges to use in holiday decorating, view our instructional here.

Creating a warm, comfortable space is what we’re all about during the holiday season. Can you tell? We love to make magical experiences that make our guests feel cozy and comfortable, like they’re at a home away from home, so we’re always are sure to setup a warm beverage bar with coffee or hot chocolate. Guests love this little addition and it’s a great way to welcome and warm themselves after coming in from the cold winter elements. Everyone loves this tradition so much and hey, who doesn’t love to add all of the special treats to their hot chocolate?

Other ways to make your space inviting to guests is to add greenery on shelves, use it to decorate a holiday table, or any space! We love making simple garlands and other little embellishments with simple greenery. To check out how to make a simple greenery garland, check out an instructional video on how to make your own here. Making a simple greenery swag to adorn your fireplace mantle, drape over your windows, doorways, or over your bed is a perfect way to add holiday shine to your space. We love taking old branches from the timberland on our property, adding string to hang it and adding greenery. It has a very rustic, organic look that we love to use to decorate in our old farmhouse.

Also, don’t forget candles. Candles create a simple magical, warm effect and take very little effort to put into decorating. They do all the work! So if you don’t like the mess greenery can sometimes make, pair your style down to just include candles to add sparkle. We love using hurricane candle tumblers in gold to add a bit of extra warmth to our space, which. We love finding new, seasonal decor at Pottery Barn, like the plates and candles shown below.

Other inspiring ideas are to add fresh florals to your fireplace mantle for a dramatic effect. This is the perfect addition, especially if you’re hosting any special parties throughout the holiday season. We were inspired to try this statement piece after seeing stunning creations by Philippa Craddock, an inspiring and talented English florist.

Our little Flower Cottage is one of the highlights on the farm. During the winter, we use the inside as an art studio, where we paint and have a space to be creative. The outside is used as a backdrop for family photos throughout the holiday season and as a lovely backdrop for group photos for our wreath workshop attendees to use for a nice holiday photo opportunity.

Each year local photographers come out the farm for the Flower Cottage to shoot family photos for the holidays, engagement sessions, and senior photos. Who wouldn’t want to use this cute space as a perfect backdrop for photos? It’s a fun space to create in and the outside is the perfect little backdrop for photos.

Are you inspired to get decorating for the holidays yet? We know we are! Bring on the all the greenery, twinkle lights, candles, and hot chocolate. We’re ready to get our holiday vibe on, starting now. We can’t wait to share our decorating style with you for this season!

XX Jenn and Adam

PepperHarrow's 10 Year Anniversary!

IT’S BEEN A WONDERFUL 10 YEARS ON THE FLOWER FARM.

We’ve had so many success and failures over the last 10 years. It’s been full of learning and growing - of our land, flowers, and most importantly, in ourselves and our relationship. At times it hasn’t been an easy endeavor, but the reward of owning our own business, creating success, and growing the most gorgeous local flowers in Central Iowa has been worth all of it 1000X over.

Cute Celebratory Boards by @CakeDSM

Celebrating 10 years of owning a small business is pretty surreal. We high-fived, and celebrated this huge milestone, but we also found ourselves completely taken aback that it had been 10 years. It’s funny how the years seem to blend together and how 10 years ago almost feels like a yesterday.

We celebrated our special night with over 125 of our most favorite customers, they are the folks that have supported us and enabled us to hit this huge milestone. It’s with their support, encouragement, and love of our small business that has helped us build our dream into a reality! Okay, totally gushing over our customers, but y’all get the point. They’re the most wonderful peeps and have treated us so well over the years. Because of this, we treated everyone who came out to complimentary food, beverages, ice cream, and of course FLOWER BOUQUETS!

Yep, that’s right! We sent them out into our flower fields to cut their own bouquets to take home as a small token of our appreciation for them. It was the absolute BEST to see everyone enjoy themselves so much and to also see the beautiful bouquets they created. It was a hit with our Friends of PepperHarrow and something we’d like to treat our best customers to every few years.

Photo Courtesy of CakeDSM

Our 10 year anniversary celebration was not only to celebrate the farm, but we also held it in support of our local Madison County Conservation, who is building a new conservation center at Pammel Park. If you missed out on the opportunity to contribute, you can do so by scanning the PayPal QR code, below to make a donation. Or, you can send payments on PayPal via email address to: naturalist@madisoncountyparks.org

All proceeds will go directly to the conservation center as well as other nature enrichment activities for an outdoor classroom space. Next time you visit Madison County, check out some our treasured parks. You can get a list of them here.

Thank you so much for helping us celebrate 10 years and here’s to another wonderful 10 years of success to come! We can’t wait to share more of our flower farming journey with all of you, as well as more exciting announcements to come.

XX Jenn and Adam

Parenting While Running a Flower Farm

Let’s face it, being a parent is the hardest job we’ll ever do in our lifetime, but add work commitments, cleaning, making meals, and maybe, just maybe, squeezing a tiny amount time out for our ourselves to preserve mental sanity, on top of simply being a mom, is even more difficult.

The whole concept work/life balance thing is not something I’ve been good at mastering, but I wanted to share some of my own stories about running a flower farm while raising three beautiful children. The stories range from the good, to the bad, to the downright ugly. Raising kids definitely isn’t an exact science. I’ll also share some small, practical tips on how to manage a full-time job, but saving plenty of time for family time.

When we first started flower farming journey in 2011, our kids were so little. Our oldest was 7, followed by our 3 year old and finally, the baby, who was a 10 month old at the time. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into with trying to manage growing flowers and raising kids. It was totally ‘insane in the membrane’ as Adam always says.

One thing about running a flower farm many don’t always know is that both Adam and I are out in the flower fields for over 14 hours most days, sunrise to sunset. When the kids were little, it would be a constant struggle having them outside with us, trying to keep them entertained while we planted, weeded, watered, and harvested all of our flowers. AND all the while we were learning how to flower farm, which is totally different process than just growing a beautiful, bountiful garden.

The Bad

There were were many times I’d lay the baby down for a nap and would head back out outside with my little hand-held baby monitor. I’d work for what felt like 10 minutes before I’d hear her awake and start playing in her crib. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’d let her play for at least another 20 minutes until she’d start calling or crying for me. Looking back, this is a total mom-guilt moment for sure.

One of the funniest/scariest moments ever, was ‘loosing’ the baby, because I’d been outside working and had our oldest child take the lead on watching her. She crawled and snuck away from him while he was watching cartoons. After frantically searching for her for at least 10 minutes and after using my shrill, frantic, terrified ‘mom’ voice to call her name, we finally found her in the kitchen behind the island, playing in cups full of flour from the baking cabinet.

The Good

Raising kids and trying to work on the flower farm isn’t full of all bad stories. There have also been some really wonderful moments for both the kids as well as my husband and I. We’ve spent countless hours together working in the gardens, teaching the kids the intrinsic gardening learnings that translate to real life skills, sharing names of flowers, showing them how to harvest, and how to care for the land.

You might think these things would be a bad memory for them, and certainly it’s probably something that they don’t yet cherish yet, but I know they’ll look back on those memories fondly, remember the time we spent together as a family, and may even end up on a farm themselves later in life, chasing the intangible joy of their childhood

My most favorite family activity with the kids is watching them make their own bouquets with the flowers we grow. It’s very interesting to see their little personalities come out in what they design. The boys have stopped making bouquets at this point, but have benefited from our flower farming endeavors, impressing their dates with bouquets of flowers occasionally and even like our ‘free’ corsages and boutonnières for homecoming and prom dances.

I shared a little bit more about myself and one of my biggest joys about being a mom and running a flower farm on Des Moines Moms’ blog. You can check it out here: https://desmoines.momcollective.com/jenn-oneal-pepperharrow-farm/.

The Most Important Message of All
Running a flower farm and raising kids isn’t a perfect scenario, but you can find some sort of balance with it. The biggest secret to all of this is you have to give yourself a little grace, and not focus on perfection.

Did everything get done that you needed to get done? Probably not, but was it done good enough? Done.

Did your kids eat dinner? Okay, maybe it was a quick sandwich, but they did eat, right? Done.

Give yourself a little grace and know that no one is perfect and certainly no garden or flower farm is ever completely perfect, tasks are never completely done, the list just keeps going…for all of us, so there’s no need to strive for perfection and wear yourselves and your kids out.

Cherish every moment spent with your kids and also cherish the wonderful learning opportunities in the garden. Get them excited to see the first blooms on flowers they helped plant and give them freedom to cut blooms to enjoy for themselves and place in their rooms. At the end of the day you want to make sure yourself and your family are happy, healthy, and loved much. This is the most simple, best thing we can do!

XX Jenn

Photo by Leah Ried