Why I Started a Small-Scale Flower Farm (And How a Blueberry Field Became Sugar Flower Farm)

If you've ever wondered how Sugar Flower Farm came to be, pull up a chair — because this one starts way before the first zinnia seed was ever sown.

I grew up on this property. The land that is now covered in dahlias, snapdragons, and zinnias was once a blueberry field. For years, our family farm was called JenDon Farms (named after me and my brother), which my parents thought was perfectly sensible and which I have always found wonderfully, endearingly unoriginal. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.)

It was a good childhood on a good piece of land. But from as early as I can remember, it was flowers that captured my heart. The look of them, the smell, the colours, the textures — I couldn't walk past a garden without stopping. While other kids ran past flower beds, I lingered. Something about them just got me, in a way I couldn't quite explain then and honestly still struggle to put into words now.

The Spark

For a few years, I had been following Erin Benzakein of Floret Flowers — if you're in the flower farming world, you know exactly who I'm talking about. Watching her build something so beautiful and intentional out of a piece of land, I felt something shift in me. Not just inspiration. A calling.

I kept looking out at that blueberry field and thinking: what if?

What if this land could grow something different? What if I could transform it, row by row, into a flower field? What if I could build my own farm story, right here on the same property where I grew up?

So I signed up for the Floret Workshop, took every note I could, and decided to find out.

The Name

Before I tell you about the chaos and the dump trucks and the very steep learning curve, I want to tell you about the name because it means everything to me.

On this property, there is an original building that my Nana called the Sugar Shack. We still call it that today. It's one of those family names that just sticks, the kind that carries a whole person inside it every time you say it. When it came time to name the farm, Sugar was the only word that felt right. Sugar Flower Farm. A little sweet, a little old-fashioned, and completely tied to this land and the people who came before me on it.

Year One: Giving Myself Grace

Here's something that might surprise you: until 2021, I had never grown a single flower from seed. Not one. I know, it's hard to believe given what the farm has become, but it's the truth, and I think it's important to say out loud because I don't want anyone to think that flower farmers are born knowing how to do this.

We are not. We learn. We figure it out. We make a lot of mistakes.

Going into that first season, I made a decision that I think saved me: I gave myself the grace to let it be nothing more than a large cutting garden. Not a farm. Not a business. Just a big, beautiful, experimental growing space where I was allowed to get things wrong.

That mindset shift mattered more than any tool or technique I learned that year.

Making It Real

Of course, giving myself grace didn't mean going in halfway. It meant going in wholeheartedly, with realistic expectations.

My dad agreed to pull out all the blueberries. If you've ever seen a blueberry field, you know that is no small favour — those roots go deep, literally and figuratively. My mom became my right-hand woman, showing up season after season in a way that I will never be able to fully thank her for.

Dump truck after dump truck arrived to drop off fresh soil and compost. I invested in landscape fabric and irrigation. I poured over seed catalogues for hours, circling varieties, cross-referencing bloom times, building and rebuilding my lists. I was trying to take the vision in my head — this lush, abundant, romantic flower field — and figure out how to actually make it exist in the real world.

There were mistakes. There was trial and error. There were moments of genuine "what am I doing?" doubt.

But there was also this: at the end of every long day, my heart and soul were full. And that feeling told me everything I needed to know about whether I was on the right path.

Why I'm Sharing All of This

I'm starting this blog series because I wish, back in 2021, I had somewhere to turn that felt real. Not just beautiful Instagram photos (though those are great, and yes, I post them too), but actual honest information from someone who had been in the dirt and figured things out the hard way.

Over the next 30 posts, I'm going to walk you through everything — from how to plan your first cutting garden, to growing from seed for the very first time, to harvesting and arranging and maybe, eventually, selling your flowers if that's where your path leads.

You don't need a blueberry field. You don't need a Nana with a Sugar Shack. You don't need to have grown flowers before.

You just need a little bit of land, a willingness to learn, and — if I can pass one thing on to you from my own experience — the grace to let the first year be exactly what it is.

Next up in this series: How much space do you actually need to start?

I'm Jen, the owner and grower at Sugar Flower Farm — a small organic flower farm in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, growing on the same land where I grew up. Follow along on Instagram @sugar_flowerfarm for behind-the-scenes farm content, arrangement inspiration, and seasonal growing tips.