What a joy to hear from Christina Natale, the farmer behind Little Hen Farms, situated on 4 acres in North Haven, Connecticut.

At Little Hen Farms, they specialize in growing cut flowers for special orders, DIY buckets, and wholesale, while also beautifying their surrounding area.

While they only farm on about half of their available land, they do so intensively. Along with flowers, they have a small flock of chickens and a large garden where they grow food for their family and friends.  

They grow as naturally as possible, without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, and with minimal tillage. Their flower arrangements are whimsical, wild, and bring the garden indoors!

Check out Little Hen Farm's website for more about their farm, and follow them on Instagram for flower farming inspiration! 

Talk about your flower journey - How did you get started?

I've been farming on and off in some form or another since my first job in high school. After some indecision in college, I landed on a Plant Science/Ecology degree, which led me to realize that I have always just wanted to run a farm myself. I worked on and off vegetable farms for the next decade learning the ins and outs. Still, it wasn't until I had a side gig assisting a really talented floral designer in Philly (shoutout @textureflorals) that I realized the market for local flowers was there. I have always had a creative side, and I feel like farming flowers has united my love for working outside in the dirt, and also creating beautiful things. LHF is going into its 6th official season this year and we're more excited about growing flowers than ever!

Tell us about your farm and anything you specialize in:

We have 4.5 acres but only really grow on half of it. We intensively grow about an acre of annual flowers and have slowly been adding to another acre of high-value perennials for cuts. We love growing in the spring and fall seasons and have been slowly moving crops away from blooming in high summer when flower sales dip and temperatures rise.

Talk about anything you love about using Rooted! 

Rooted is amazing! Since our farm's conception, we've been a part of The Connecticut Flower Collective, which now uses Rooted as its selling platform. Before Rooted, we were using spreadsheets to handle our inventories and it was a logistical nightmare for someone like me who does not like being on the computer much. Rooted makes the inventory updating process so fast and easy. I love that we can easily change out pictures of the product we are selling and update quantities in seconds. It's also pretty amazing that as a Collective, our buyers can shop through all of our grower's inventory in one list.

What advice would you give your past self or someone just starting out on their farming journey? 

The advice I would give to someone just starting out on their farming journey would be to go work on some farms for a season or two. Learning on the job is the best form of training I received and learning from farmers who have systems in place can help you figure out what kinds of systems you want to implement. Also, I would give my past self the advice of not trying to do everything at once when I first started. Grow a few things well and expand from there as your market demands it!

What’s one thing you wish more people understood about flower farming?

Many people think that flower farming is just traipsing around a wildflower field in a dress picking and arranging flowers... oh boy are they wrong! Flower farming is still farming, and while yes, it is GORGEOUS sometimes, it's also muddy, cold, wet, windy, buggy, hot as hell, and so much physical labor. I love it and wouldn't trade it, but people have misconceptions about what actually goes into growing flowers at a marketable scale. There's also this misconception that local flowers have to be dirt cheap. Farming is expensive, and farming specialty flowers that our customers want to buy is expensive! We're all just trying to make a living.

What’s one small joy in your farming routine that never gets old?

Oh boy- I love, love, love walking around my farm in spring and peaking at all the perennials waking up. I feel like every day I go out there's something new sprouting and it's honestly my favorite thing to watch.

BIG thanks to Christina for sharing about Little Hen Farm's story.