New business owner Taylor Doerksen never enjoyed working in an office, so when her side gig of growing flowers began blooming, she quit her daytime job to pursue this colourful initiative full-time.
The Eyebrow-area resident started Red Barn Flower Farm —16 kilometres from the community — in January. She planted the seeds that month — “My house was a zoo” — and once the floral collection began blooming in May, she quit her insurance job to take on this challenge.
“I worked at a greenhouse in the springtime, too, so that kind of inspired me to do this. And I just wanted something that brought me outside,” said Doerksen, 21.
Doerksen has also been growing sweet corn on her parents’ farm for the past three years and selling it at farmers’ markets in Moose Jaw in the early fall. With a laugh, she said the flower money should help her survive financially for the rest of the year.
Running the business has been amazing, although Doerksen pointed out that the hardest-working people are usually
self-employed and have no time off — something she is experiencing first-hand. Moreover, besides helping her parents with their farming operations, she must regularly water and weed her garden.
“But other than that, it’s so freeing because … if I want to take a day off, I don’t have to ask anybody. So that’s really nice,” she said.
Doerksen finds ideas for her bouquets on Instagram while she acquires her seeds from other flower farms in Saskatchewan. Furthermore, she puts in plenty of effort and planning to ensure she is prepared for the future, especially since she has many ideas of what she wants to do differently next year and what she wants to grow.
For example, she must consider the colour palette, types of filler flowers, the size of flowers, and certain species that bloom at particular times of the year.
“It’s just one big puzzle that sometimes doesn’t fit together. But it’s art. Art’s interpretive,” Doerksen chuckled. “So I always say that if I make a bouquet that looks kind of ugly, I’m like, well, somebody will like it. But it’s fun; I love it.”
Doerksen admitted that the first bouquet she made this year wasn’t great, but she has become better through practice and watching videos. She expects this work will help her produce better floral arrangements next year, similar to her struggles with growing corn in her first year before succeeding in the second year.
The Tugaske Library’s 50th-anniversary tea party was Doerksen’s first official event for which she provided bouquets. With a laugh, she said she wasn’t as organized as she should have been, but “that’s how it goes” for the “life of the unorganized.”
Besides catering events, the new business owner also has roughly 30 subscribers, where women place orders and she provides them with floral arrangements once or twice a month from May to September.
“So that’s the other part of how I make money doing what I’m doing … ,” she chuckled. “If I have extras (of bouquets), I just make a post on Facebook and they’re gone within an hour. So I never have a shortage of customers, which is nice. I’ve got a good customer base here … .”
While Doerksen doesn’t think her age is a negative factor, something small that bothers her is most of her friends are in university. Yet, she shrugs off that concern since she never found anything in post-secondary education that caught her attention, while she can teach herself using the internet.
“So I’ve just always been kind of a go-getter. It’s kind of been like what my dad’s been like too. I don’t know; I guess I’ve kind of taken after him,” she said. “And honestly, if anything, I see it (my age) as something that makes me want to … do really good.”
The Red Barn Flower Farm can be found on Facebook and Instagram and at Moose Jaw’s farmers’ markets.
