What a year 2022 was! The Covid pandemic affected many people in different ways. We all changed a little, if not a lot, in its aftermath. Some people went back to school to study a different industry, others decided not to return to work at all, businesses reevaluated and rebranded in more efficient ways, and then there are people like me who waited until after the pandemic to quit their cushy job and start a brand new business. Overall, I think we all see life a little differently now and covet the important parts of this life a little closer to our hearts.
I have been gardening for all of my life. Some of most found memories are of my childhood home in Missouri are when I was working in the garden with my mother, hanging out under the trees that we had planted with my favorite pup, pulling weeds from my neighbors garden (she offered to pay me a quarter per weed and regretted that later), and roaming around my grandmother’s garden in Illinois where she grew abundant amounts of mint and gooseberries that could be eaten straight out of the yard. My first science experiment was in the fourth grade where as I decided to grow beans with various amendments found in the common household kitchen to see which would show the most improvement in the plant-sugar won by the way, no surprise ending there.
Farming is a part of life in the Midwest and the rural school I attended was heavily weighted in agriculture. We didn’t have a football team, but our FFA team usually kicked butt. The majority of my classmates were raised on farms (I was too, but it was a different type of farm that we won’t go into today). During that time big business began using ruthless tactics to take over small farms. I won’t go into too much detail about that here, but here is an article by Vanity Fair that pretty much sums up what was taking place-https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805. Though this article was written in 2008, this really began in the 90’s when Monsanto purchased biogenetic companies such as DeKalb Genetics. Some Farmers willingly followed Monsanto in hopes of greater returns, some farmers were bullied into using their products, and others resisted-sometimes to their demise. What I experienced was friends turning against friends, neighbors turning against neighbors, even arguments breaking out in Ag class. Ultimately, this left a bad taste in my mouth for a future in the agriculture industry and it turned me off of pursuing a career in Agriculture for a long period time.
I do not share this information to turn everyone against Monsanto (I of course, am entitled to my own opinion). To this day I have dear friends who are bountifully employed for the company and defend it fiercely. They do make valid points, such as-How are we expected to feed a growing over population without genetically modified seed? Mind you, as I write this I am enjoying a bowl of oatmeal that is very likely full of glyphosate, also known as Round up-a chemical created by Monsanto. Perhaps they are right, maybe there was no way to avoid this. Maybe our overpopulation and overconsumption led us to this point and it is the only way to handle the situation that we have created. I am simply sharing this information to help you understand why it threw me off of my path for a while. In some ways it caused me to become lost, bouncing around majors in college like education, psychology, business, and artistic design. It just didn’t seem as though I could find my purpose and I ultimately graduated with a Bachelors of General Studies and a lack of concentration in any career field.
In my career, the path of least resistance typically endured. It seemed that the best way for me to make a living was through the service industry, specifically bartending, which could be very lucrative though it does not support the healthiest of lifestyles. As my career progressed, I found the Resort/Lifestyle industry to be even more lucrative with its big salaries, big benefits, and earlier evenings. This is where I was when Covid struck. At first, like many places in the hospitality industry, panic set in and everyone was laid off. However, just a few days later a handful of us where called back. As it turns out, the gated community industry was busier than ever and just a handful of us where expected to run it alone. I worked hard during this time, sometimes over seventy hours a week, taking on many new roles within the company and learning new skills such as hiring, payroll, SOP’s, Inventory, ordering, and planning events. Many of my coworkers refused to come back to help because the unemployment was so lucrative. I can’t say that I blame them, but I can say that I was jealous and resentful and that lingered within me. Meanwhile, the only place that I found solace was while I was at home, working the dirt and improving the soil, enjoying all the miracles of nature. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that if I was going to work this hard to run a business, it should be a business of my own that I feel passionate about. Why not turn my refuge into my business? After much research, an agribusiness class, and writing a solid business plan, PearlGirl Farm was created (Established in 2020, but officially official in 2022).
My family had moved from Missouri to Upstate South Carolina in 2008. We have a sensible brick home on just under an acre of land. In the early days I had grandiose ideas of creating a food forest and selling organic produced. I quickly learned that the Carolina clay was a different beast than the sandy soils of Southeast Missouri and most of my time was spent researching new innovations and ideas in the natural farming movement that could help to improve my soil without the artificial chemicals used in big AG. Soon I began experimenting with the methods used by Chris Trump in the Korean Natural Farming method and the back to Eden method taught by Paul Gautschi. I was amazed at how in a few years my hard red clay turned into rich, soft, dark soil full of microbes and fungi. I could finally grow food in a natural way, but the amount I could produce was limited on such a small amount of acreage. Then, in the nick of time, came the slow flower movement. A Philosophy of beauty, nature, sustainability, and locality. This was a philosophy that aligned with my own. This was the path I wanted to take to create joy for customers and have a lasting positive impact on the environment.
Growing flowers does not require massive amounts of space, in fact you can plant 9 sunflowers per square foot. In a ten foot bed, that would produce 90 sunflowers in about 60 days. That same bed could be replanted 3 times in season (I would rotate crops, but for theoretical purposes let’s continue). That one ten foot bed is capable of producing 270 flowers in a season. So, no, you do not need a ton of acreage to produce bounties of beauties, what you do need is tons of experience, planning, seed starting, planting, and feeding the soil. There is a lot of work that goes into raising a seedling from starting the seed under the best conditions for that plant (temperatures and moisture levels), to slowly acclimating the young seedlings to the exterior environment, to planting out and caring for the seedlings in the field and protecting them from weed and pest pressures. This is not an easy task when you are working a full time job. There were many occasions in which a freakishly strong storm would pop up while I was at work and all I could think about were the hundreds of seedlings that I had acclimating outside that were now lost because I wasn’t there to rush them inside. There were days that I rushed off to work and forgot to water trays in the greenhouse that ultimately didn’t make it because I didn’t make it home on time before their demise. Time and planning are indeed the most important assets to a flower farm. So, in the summer of 2022 I resigned from my job and started to focus on farming full time. It is with some fear and some confidence that I begin this journey, but I finally feel as though I have found my path again; right back to my roots but with a better understanding of what a farm should be.
Thanks for Reading My Rant!
Julie Rainey
PearlGirl Flower Farm
Seneca, SC
PearlGirl Flower Farm 
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