Hi and welcome back to Dish the Ditch, the podcast that digs deep into the stories behind Australia's flower growers and florists.

Today I'm joined by Sarah from Quail Cottage and Ash from the Wildflower Academy and Film and Foliage to talk about the harvest.

A brilliant click and collect model connecting micro flower farms with local florists in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.

We chat about how it all began, what it takes to run it, the challenges of small scale flower farming, and the beautiful community that has grown from having something like this.

Whether you're a grower, florist, or simply passionate about supporting local, you'll love this inspiring conversation as much as I did.

Let's get into it.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wondry people of the Kulin Nation, the traditional custodians of the land where this episode of Dish the Dirt is recorded.

I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Tall Strait Islander peoples whose deep connection to land, waters and skies continues to nurture culture, community and creativity across this country.

Good morning.

Hi, Ash.

Hi, Sarah.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm good.

I'm good.

Thank you.

So you're on the podcast today because I really want to chat to you about the harvest, which is a collective.

Would you call it a collective?

Yeah.

We call it a click and collect.

OK, sounds like that, but I want to hear a little bit about your backgrounds before we get into it.

So, Sarah, do you want to start off telling me where you are, what you do, who you are?

Sure.

So we are in Newcastle, the Hunter Valley area.

I am from Quail Cottage.

That's my farm name, business name.

And I started gardening in 2020 when my cousin gave me a packet of Zinnia seeds and I got addicted and I had three years of kind of practice.

And then in 2023, my partner and I bought our first home and moved in in January that year.

And I slowly started taking over the lawn as one does.

And there's not much lawn left now.

And I shared my sort of gardening journey on Instagram from the start.

And I was selling just bunches on Facebook Marketplace.

But then I think I shared a photo of flocks.

It was something more unusual on Instagram.

And a florist reached out and wanted to buy.

And I loved the interaction of dealing with a florist so much more than dealing with the public like I had been, because they got so much more excited about the flowers because they know more about the flowers.

Yeah.

And so I just gradually shifted to selling exclusively to florists and I grow on, I'm on an urban farm in Maitland and it's less than 1000 square meters, so less than 1/4 of an acre.

So I have to be really strategic about what I grow and the space limitations there.

So we focus on mainly like high value niche crops that more profitable for us that we can really cram in and do a lot of implanting with.

So like corn, cockle, pansies, flocks.

Sangua Sorber is a new one that has been super popular and I can implant that one, which is great.

Yeah, that's me.

I'd grow some normal stuff as well, like zinnias and cosmos as long as they're, you know, profitable per square meter and a really high yielding.

Yeah, awesome.

I want to touch on the profitability of things in a minute.

But Ash, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yes, I am a wedding florist.

I've been in weddings for 14 years, I think.

I think it might be coming up to 15 years, which is wild.

I studied at TAFE, kind of just did it for a fun thing.

And then it wasn't meant to be Korea, it was just meant to be a side quest.

And then realized I was obsessed with it.

I've always been creative and loved working with my hands, but I didn't know I could really have a career out of it I suppose.

And then I I worked for a few other people over the years, got lots of experience.

Love, just love doing weddings.

Was gravitating towards that so much.

Obviously tried every other thing in between and then kind of fell into starting my own business.

I rejected it a lot at first, didn't really like the business side as per usual love just being creative.

And then and I started to actually really I started to learn about business and realize how much I could control my future and how much I made and how much time I had off and the types of people I worked with and realized OK, business is kind of cool.

And then I actually as my business grew, I also started coaching on the florist.

It really took off during COVID because there was no weddings, but there was a lot of people who started diving into floristry.

And also I had the time to set up and actually help people with coaching and realize, OK, you can do it online.

You don't have to do it in personal workshops.

So you can reach more people.

And they built a sort of coaching platform called Wildflower Academy, which is a program for wedding florists to join.

Learn how to fall in love with business, double the income, have their workload, learn how to be profitable and actually enjoy their business and not just burnt out and and poor, which is so common.

So now I do both a, the coaching took over.

It's so enjoyable, so fulfilling.

I now get to sort of handpick my weddings.

And it's also opened up opportunity now in my life to be able to do things like harvest, which is so cool.

So I yeah, wedding florist and floral coach.

Yeah, amazing.

Tell me, how did the harvest, how was the harvest born?

How did it happen?

How did you find each other?

Do you want?

To talk about this.

Yes, there I've always, I mean, not I've always actually, I basically use 99% locally grown florals and I've always loved meeting the growers, talking to growers, going to their farms, being creepy on their flowers.

And there's a few like I sort of realized there was a few micro farms in the area and I always wanted to source from them.

But the just the distance, they're all around 30 to 40 minutes away in different directions.

And so if you had time in a quieter season, you could go out and visit the farm.

It was really cool.

But in the busiest seasons of the weddings, it was unrealistic and they were growing and the cool shit.

So Sarah was one of the few people who delivered because her partner Sam would work in Newcastle.

So he would deliver flowers to your warehouse.

And it just, I was like, this is amazing.

I can actually buy from you consistently.

Whenever Sam would deliver, we'd have a big gap about flowers.

And one day I said this is like, this is so great that you deliver.

It's really amazing.

I want to be really honest.

If you didn't, I wouldn't be able to source from you guys.

I wish I could source from more farms.

I wonder if there's an opportunity for the growers to come here because I actually have quite a large warehouse.

It's a little bit excessive to be honest.

I said I've got the space, I've got a bit more time in my life.

Do you think anyone would be interested in just?

I wish everyone would just come to me.

It was almost out of laziness.

Yeah, yeah.

Convenience.

I was like, I want to buy from you guys, but I don't want to drive out to your farm.

I'm sorry.

I like, I wish I had that time, but it's I already drive 2 hours to the markets, city markets and back on Wednesdays and I can't go and drive around to every farm as well.

And he went back and talked to Sarah, who jumped at it.

I'd been like brainstorming A collective sort of idea for about 12 months with a lot of the local growers here, but we just couldn't seem to make it work because you need someone to run it.

It's almost like a business within itself really.

But a collection point is, I mean, it is how it sounds.

It's a collection point.

We bring flowers here and the florists come and pick up their pre-orders.

There's some like extras for people to browse.

But yeah, it's mainly pre-orders at a collection point.

Yeah.

So Sarah called me, I think that afternoon, yes.

Straight away.

And then we went for a coffee and kind of one of the biggest things we both put down, I was like, I can't run this all the time.

I don't want to be wrangling people.

I just want people.

I just, I was like, I can OfferUp my space, but I can't start another business.

And then we just talked about kind of what we didn't want to do and what we were able to invest into it.

Then we went out and reached out to our own communities.

So I'm friends with so many of the florists in Newcastle.

So I was messaging them being like, is there any interest?

Sarah was messaging her growers doing the same.

And there was just this big resounding yes, we would be interested.

So from there, we decided to make it a thing and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

So hi, Sarah, do you want to talk me through how it works on your side of things?

Right from sort of, yeah.

How did you find, I know you use a platform.

How did you find that through to getting everyone to drop off it at Ash's studio?

OK, so where do I start?

Let me start with the platform first 'cause that's probably caught people's attention if they're listening, because there's not a lot of options in Australia for us as far as availability lists and ordering platforms for wholesale in the US They've got rooted farmers and gathered flora, which incredible, but we don't have access to them here.

Yeah, so I went down a big rabbit hole looking for something and I ended up finding on Reddit a platform called Floralist.

So it's like Florist but list at the end.

I.

Always say florist.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's meant to be.

Looked at that and it looks pretty good.

Yeah, it's great.

It's super simple.

It's free and how it works is you like, list your products with photos and rough availability windows when they're going to be blooming, price pictures, pictures, yes, stems per bunch.

And once a week I update my availability on there and send an e-mail out to all my florists and they place orders through there.

There's no like payment functionality on Floralist, which I it's that's fine.

I send invoices through QuickBooks anyway.

But yeah, I get an e-mail with the orders.

And a lot of the growers at the harvest have started using Floralist too and love it and all the florists really like it too.

Makes it a lot easier.

I know a lot of growers will send just like a list or even a spreadsheet and not having that visual aspect is a bit tricky for flowers being so visual.

Yeah, I is being able to see the flowers so important do you think Ash before you buy just?

From Oh my God, it's so important because we're looking at our mood boards and our visual briefs and then we're looking for it's almost like scanning a menu looking for the vegetarian dish.

You're looking for the colour and the and the visual elements that you need for your wedding.

So if you're reading a list of Latin names of flowers, it's hard to.

I hadn't.

Even thought about.

Pull that out and then think about whether that would work in with all the other elements of your wedding.

Whereas if you.

So Sarah's the first florist grower I know who used this and one, I'm an impulse buyer, so I would buy a lot of stuff that I didn't realize I wanted that week.

So that probably benefits her.

And if you didn't have a wedding, I realize I don't have a wedding, but those pansies are really cool.

But the other thing is you can instantly see, OK, I need blue flowers.

Yes, she's got blue pansies.

OK, perfect.

I can Chuck that into my wedding.

You can even filter.

You can filter as well, like if you're after blue you can filter to blue flowers if someones got that much product that you need to.

Yeah.

So yeah, for me it makes it easier in my brain and I guess as a pulling together a vision, it'd be like if somebody listed out red dress or something like that and then you're like, I just want to see, I want to touch the clothes and look at them and see how they look in the body and blah, blah.

Like it's just like for me, it's so much easier to see it all in as an actual.

The pictures make a big difference to me.

Yeah, only a few growers in the Sydney markets as well actually put their stuff up on social media.

And they're the ones that I think personally I buy from the most because I'll go on their stories the day before the markets and see what they're harvesting.

And it's makes such a big difference to be able to see it.

Yeah, yeah, you can get in, get what you need and get out faster as a forest, I imagine.

Yeah.

Well, you can reorder it knowing that it's going to be there because it's so as we all know, like you don't know what's going to be at the markets half the time and there might be something they randomly cut that they've never had before.

So being able to secure that before you go in and not miss out on it is really cool.

Yeah.

So with the harvest.

So do farmers have individual profiles or do they use the harvest profile to put up their flowers?

Oh, on floral list?

Yeah, sorry, on floral list.

No, it's all all of our growers operate independently, so they've all got their own accounts, like mine's quail cottage.

Yeah, yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

So you just go.

As a yeah, we've just offered a space for people to come and like connect with florists basically, and for the florists to collect their orders.

But the main thing we wanted was like, we can't sell for you and you need to sell to the florist.

So like, you need to invoice your own flowers.

You need to promote your own flowers.

You need to make your own connections.

Yeah.

So it's not a Co-op like in the US There's a lot of co-ops and collectives and they from what I can understand, they operate like a business in themselves.

So there needs to be someone to run them.

There needs to be systems to manage combining invoicing and combining availability and orders.

And like I said, we don't have access to those platforms here.

Yeah.

So this just, yeah, having it as a collection point and not a Co-op made it a lot easier.

Yeah, awesome.

I think, too, it sounds like it's a bit more sustainable when everyone's working for themselves rather than, yeah, a Co-op, which I've, you know, I've interviewed people before running coops and eventually somebody gets burned out and it becomes to be too much.

So from starting out and putting your availability onto the platform, your photos, then what happens from there?

You get your orders in, you catch and then what happens?

Yeah, so orders come in.

Me and my partner Sam get out in the garden the night before with our head torches on.

We both work full time, so it's all after hours.

And then we get up early the next morning.

It starts at 7:00, which because a lot of the growers, we all either work part time, some of us work full time also for the florist, the retail florist, you know, being able to get here before their shops open.

Yeah.

So we get up early, the growers

get here at 6:30 to set up and the florist will arrive at 7.

And the the flow of it is really efficient because we've all got our pre-orders separated.

Some forests, if they're in a rush or if they've got kids with them because they're going to do school drop off, they can just race in, grab their buckets or we all help them out to their cars to load up.

A really good setup here as far as the flow of cars.

Goes.

That's something to consider, isn't that?

Follies.

I just always have the trolleys out ready and then sometimes people will message me and be like, can I just pull up and can you?

Yeah, so we we all help each other out.

Sometimes people come in and have a cup of tea and sit for an hour and chat.

And sometimes people are like in and out, which is fine.

Even if like if a grower doesn't have flowers that week, they'll often still come because they'll get FOMO.

So come and have a cuppa and catch up.

And it's so nice to be able to as, as a grower, it's nice to be able to catch up with other growers and they like become your friends instead of your competition.

Actually, you had something really, you said something really good about this.

Yeah, I feel like the the community part was like something that we really loved as well.

It's not just a collection point.

We called it collecting Connect.

Kind of a joke on click and collect.

Yeah.

One thing I found that I really noticed, especially after the first one, the first opening day, everyone from Newcastle came to check it out and support it.

Like all the Newcastle before.

I was looking around the room and I realized, you know, there's always a little bit of beef and stuff between people sometimes.

And I was like, there's so many people in this room that wouldn't probably be in a room together at times.

But I think it really breaks down when you're seeing each other once a week and you'll see each other consistently.

It breaks down that filter of Instagram, for example, you're on social media and maybe somebody in your community in your area is booking jobs or, you know, sharing wins or something.

And depending on how you feel, it might make you feel a little bit like crap or in comparison, or maybe like I don't.

You know they're I.

Don't know, it's, it hits you like it's all it's.

Yeah, everyone has their little thing.

That is one thing when you see it on social media while you're sitting there scrolling and you're not feeling great.

It's another thing when you see them in person and they actually share the reality of their day.

Or they're, you know, they're sitting there with a kid on their hip trying to grab the flowers, being like, I'm, you know, I'm excited about this wedding, but I'm stressed and I can't, can't wait to do it.

And then suddenly they feel more human.

And I think it breaks down a lot of that, that competitive feelingness when you actually see people in person.

And that is one thing I really love about what we've created is that we have created this community where it feels so much more supportive and less like, I do think in Newcastle, we have such a beautiful community in the wedding industry especially.

It's amazing.

But takes it further to see each other once a week and pop in and say hi.

Yeah.

And it's also built community between the florists and the growers really big way and being able to have that weekly touchpoint.

I mean, I've become friends with a lot of the florists now and having yeah, a weekly catch up with like it's like a feedback loop as well.

And you can adjust your crop plan for quantities if people are absolutely loving something or or if a florist points out to you that they've noticed that they've got a heap of weddings booked with, I don't know, green seemed to be a thing there lasted then.

Yeah.

And yeah, having that in person chat is a lot more beneficial than just on Instagram or just like doing a quick delivery to a shop and then taking.

Yeah, and I can imagine that it works well for farmers, too, because I know when I was going out to small farms myself and they're getting like four or five florists popping in for a chat and a walk around the farm and to pick up buckets, their whole day is like, actually destroyed.

Haven't you got what you're doing in the middle of a farm?

Yeah.

So I can imagine this works so well for that.

And you've kind of, I was going to say about the community side of things and you've sort of answered everything I was going to ask you.

It sounds really beautiful.

And are you able to sort of mentor growers coming into the industry through the harvest?

Is that what happened in a way around like pricing?

How many stems per bunch?

Massively, that's been really helpful as far as Ash giving feedback and an idea on how to present them as well.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think being able to, I didn't really expect that that side of it because we before had a big catch up with all the growers and it was me and everyone full of growers.

Never heard so many people no doubt about soil in my life.

But I was a bit, I was like, what are we talking about, guys?

And the one big thing that came up a lot in the chat, which I wasn't expecting was I didn't realize a lot of these people hadn't sold to florists in that way.

And they were like, can you teach us how to price?

And one thing that we were actually before we built the harvest, one thing we did was we as we're setting it up, I actually asked, I was like sort of getting ideas from ChatGPT on what we should be doing to do it properly.

And one thing I asked was what, what issues do you perceive could happen from this?

Like what, Like what problems am I missing?

What could we troubleshoot right now?

And one thing that it really pointed out was the issue of the HMC pricing.

So it's actually illegal for an industry to all collude on pricing, right?

And I hadn't thought about that.

So we talked about that because like if.

All of us sold our zinnias for, I don't know, $1.20 a stem.

That's collusion and price fixing.

So you can't avoid it all the time.

Some of us do have the same price, but that's just, you know, random.

But if it's a little bit of difference in our pricing, we do try to aim for that even if it's, you know, somewhere in the $0.50 range.

It would be unfair for all the growers to just put all their prices up at the same time, because then we all like all the florists have to.

That's the Yeah.

So it was really interesting and I hadn't thought about that because, yeah, it makes sense.

It makes sense also on a much larger scale, like grocery shops and stuff like that.

I I hadn't thought about that.

So we from the get go, before we'd even started it, we kind of had that in place that while we can, because the girls would often ask me what should I charge for this or they'd ask them or somebody else and we'd have to give ranges.

And I'd have to say, look, this is what, you know, maybe it's Sydney market.

So it lands between here and here.

And I would maybe say like, you know, choose what you want to price it at.

I would say a few things that maybe make a difference on how I would purchase, whether like the stems are longer or the flower heads bigger.

That, that was something I found a lot of girls were asking me like, Hey, Ash, like I've just grown these, what should I charge for them?

And I had to be kind of careful.

There's also this side of me that's like charge less because I wouldn't buy them.

And then also at the same time being fair to them.

So that was a tricky 1 to navigate.

And I found that I was having a lot of chats with growers sort of, you know, you sit in chat throughout the morning and sometimes they would hang around afterwards and they would, they would be like, you know, I didn't sell out of my flowers or something like that.

And we'd have to have a lot of chats because I think they the, the thing that I took in a lot.

And I always see this if I see market stalls or empty cafes, it breaks my heart.

I want to see people busy and successful.

So I would be like, I want you to sell all of your stuff, but you also need to market.

You still need to market within the group.

We have a Facebook group and I was like, you need to, I gave you all these florist emails in Newcastle and you have access to plus 50 florists in the Facebook group and you haven't posted anything and you haven't shared it And you haven't, you know, maybe you didn't show up last week or something like that.

And I had to sort of chat with them about like, that's, that's in your power to do that and that's on you as well.

I can't sell the flowers for you.

So I, I got really hung up on it for a while.

I had a few chats with Sarah because I was getting anxious.

I was like, is anybody?

You were like feeling responsible for everyone's sales, Which, yeah, you're offering us this platform.

It's not.

It's not on you to sell our flowers.

But yeah, it's one thing to send an availability list out, but it's another thing to push it on social media.

Checking your emails is like a task.

Sending an availability list out, You're adding to people's admin and not everyone's going to open it.

So sharing on.

We've got this closed Facebook group for the harvest.

OK, sharing in there with like current photos as well.

Like I'm out in the field cutting this or I was, I was going to share this later, but I suppose I'll just jump in now and.

Yeah, do it.

And do it.

I use the Instagram close friends function to communicate directly with my florist.

I heard this on another podcast and I wish I could remember who said it so I could give them a credit because it's really clever.

Because not only are you sort of creating a buffer between what you're putting out there and like the general public.

So if you're sharing like pricing or something like that, that you don't necessarily want the public to say, but also sharing on close friends, it pulls it to the front of your stories.

Like if I was to share a story and Ash is on my close friends list, when she opens her Instagram it's going to be one of the first stories that pops up.

Yeah.

So I found that really helpful with like marketing to the florists as well.

Yeah, being like top of mind, which is good.

Yeah, amazing.

So what's been, I guess, the biggest success individually since you started the harvest?

My thing that I cannot believe that I get is, I mean, I sacrifice my mornings for it,

but I get in at 6:30 to let the growers in, and then I go and look through all their buckets and get to pick out the best.

And it's so good.

It's my dream to get first access and I, yeah, it's the best.

I love it.

So I go around like I help them unload.

I'm like, hello, like, is that available?

I would like that, please.

Thank you.

And then by the time the florists come in, I've already picked out all my bunches.

So it's a bit selfish, but I mean I wake up early for it.

Yeah, you're gonna have some perks.

Absolutely.

That's my favorite part about the whole harvest, yeah.

Mine is probably doing the harvest has forced me which it's not in my nature to be like this but it's forced me to be quite ruthless with what I grow and how I grow and made me become more strategic and data focused which I am very hungry for information.

I'm naturally that way inclined but I never expected myself to become like a data nerd because numbers aren't my thing but turns out I am that way inclined.

So since starting the harvest I've really changed how I grow, not as much what I grow.

I am growing more and more unusual things because I've just learned that to be profitable on a small space, you've got to be able to really pump stems out and be growing things that are high yielding.

But for it to be worthwhile for us growing, Sorry florist buying smaller quantities because I can't sell like 500 white dahlias.

I can't grow that it, it has to be something unusual like the cherry on top of a design to be worthwhile than buying in smaller quantities.

So yeah, I'd say that's my biggest success, becoming more strategic and data focused.

Yeah, I did want to ask you about the profitability of your flowers and growing in a small space because, yeah, it sounds like you're doing it so well.

And how did you, how did you get to this point where you decided, you know, that flocks and corn cockle were your thing?

And did you start off with dahlias or?

Yeah, I started doing all the typical things, yeah.

And I still do grow some dahlias because I love them and I would get FOMO if I did.

Yeah.

But for me, they don't make a lot of sense because they're, I mean, there are some varieties that are high yielding, but in comparison to other things like I wish I had the numbers for you, but corn cockle is, I don't know why I'm like commercial growers don't grow it because it is.

So I shouldn't say that no commercial growers that.

I've passed for it for.

Years it is.

You have no idea how many times I've texted my growers saying can you please grow this and I've I assumed it was hard.

To grow Is it hard to grow?

No.

Not at all.

I direct seed it.

You can plant the plants 5 centimeters apart so you can fit so many plants into a square meter.

I don't know the mass but a lot and I cram probably more than that in because I do direct seed fairly heavily and I don't thin even though I should.

And each plant produces like 5 stems.

I would say pretty like long stems.

I cut long stems that are really branching and then I inter plant or I on either side of my corn cockle beds, I plant either flocks or pansies.

And those I also plant 5 centimeters apart to encourage like stem length because those are both naturally shorter plants.

But if you cram them in then they fight for sunlight and lengthen.

And another one is Sangu sorba that I've found this year.

It's a perennial.

Have you seen it before?

No, I'm I was like, should I Google?

I'll start here.

Amazing, it's been so.

Private to me, I probably know what it is.

It looks like a little Raspberry or a Mulberry on the end of like a really.

Wispy stem.

Wispy, skinny but sturdy stem.

Really long stems.

They're so long lasting and really easy to grow because they're a perennial.

They'll get better every year.

So I another rabbit hole I went down because I couldn't find any information on growing them as a cut flower.

I ended up in a Facebook group in the comments and found this guy.

I think he was from Japan and yeah, I think Japan and he was the largest wholesale supplier of sanguisorba in Japan and like exports it.

And I was asking him because I couldn't find anywhere how many stems per plant because this comes into my data hungry mind.

How many stems per plant will this thing produce once it's established?

And he said that the, like, traditional variety, I wish I could remember what it was called, but the most basic variety will produce up to 60 stems per plant after the third year, which is epic.

Yeah.

And that's going on for this either.

Well, someone must be because you're able to get it wholesale only, so a commercial farm must be on to it, which is good because I could have sold like thousands and thousands and thousands of stems this season because it was so popular.

Yeah, amazing.

I spent last.

Year at New York Plama.

Yes, and was obsessed with it.

And I got so excited when I saw you using it because I just bought it.

I'd.

Never seen it.

I was like, what is this magical Raspberry?

Yeah, but with the Sanguasol bar and like profitability and cramming stuff in small spaces, Yeah, learnt that you can cut them back in winter because naturally if if we were in a really cold area, they would just die back to the ground and then we shoot the next year so we can cut them back and through winter in to plant them with other things.

So I've done anemones and pansies in between mine this year, yeah.

Great.

So the harvest has how many growers all together and do you keep on taking more people or do you have to vet people?

We've got about 10, maybe 12 growers, OK.

And yes, we do have to vet the growers.

I have to vet the growers and it's one of the hardest things for me because I want to include everyone but we've only got so much.

Space.

It's a big.

Warehouse, but still, there's only so much space when people are bringing buckets and buckets of flowers.

So I've kind of had to come up with a standard response when someone inquires and ask them about their crop lists and what sort of scale they're growing on.

And at this stage, we do have a little bit of room, I'd say, but we'd only really take on new growers if they were growing something either different to what our current growers do or like at scale.

We couldn't do a grower growing at a larger scale of more common things that the retail florists would just buy week after week.

But yeah, vetting growers has been a tricky one for me to figure out.

But I think I've with the help of ChatGPT once again I've got my standard response and I don't feel as bad now.

We definitely talked about this a lot because when we first started it, we started the Facebook group and we just put the call out saying like, you know, to any florist, reach out to other florists and send them the link to the Facebook group and saying with Sarah to the growers.

And one thing that I talked about, Sarah, was that there's a lot of growers who grow the same sort of stuff and it's, it's nice, but we don't want to have, you know, super direct competition.

And we also as florists, we want variety.

So I was like, what we're missing is a rose grower and an awkward grower.

And, you know, we've got dahlias, we've got a lot of dahlias, but we want variety so that we can have that, that mix when we come to the harvest.

And then the other thing was we wanted people to come each week.

There was a few people who were just growing a few small things and just wanted to pop in.

And I wanted a consistent base or growers that had enough stuff in the time to come in consistently.

So we should actually mention that we have a grower fee, which just covers the use of the space and Ash's time, obviously, because she's getting here at the crack of dawn and the amenities and the cleaner and tea and coffee.

Yeah.

And we also have a contract as well to protect the warehouse and just like set boundaries and stuff.

We I guess again, thank you.

We did sort of wanted to set it up properly from the beginning.

So we have a growers fee, which is actually a three month minimum.

It's for the full three months of each sort of season.

And we didn't want it to be just like a pop in pop out for hobbyists or people who just grew a few things.

We wanted it to be a commitment and a community, so we do try to encourage growers to come even if they don't have lots of crops to have.

The fee also covers access to the Facebook group, which is access to basically every florist in my world, which is a great resource if you're trying to sell flowers.

70 members of the.

Yeah.

So Sarah vets the grower.

She's the official grower Wrangler.

If anybody messages me, I just send them straight to Sarah, and then she sort of has a chat with them about what they've got to offer, lets them know about the fee or that.

And I vet the florist.

So if anyone tries to join the group, I make sure they are a florist.

We don't let the public in.

We've drawn a really hard line there.

The main reason being that, well, one of the reasons was because it is in my personal warehouse that like people could be taking stuff or damaging my product.

I just don't want random people in my warehouse.

And then the other reason is I really wanted to protect the floristry industry in that I didn't want the restaurant that maybe would have bought flowers from a florist to be able to just come and access the growers.

As much as I want the growers to sell their stock, I want I want people to buy from florists.

Yeah.

So I really want to protect my industry.

And that has led to some awkward situations where like, friends and family have wanted to come and check it out because they're like, what a cute little thing you've started, Ash.

And I'm like, you can't come to it, though.

And I've had to be quite strict with that.

So if anybody joins, they have to say they're a florist or a grower.

They have to say their business name.

I give them a little lurk and then they're allowed into the Facebook group.

But we have sort of really strict line there.

Yeah.

And if we charge the florist, we do not charge the florist.

OK.

Yeah, no.

Yeah.

No, that's fine.

So that takes me to, I guess like what do you think has been the biggest kind of environmental impact for starting the harvest and having locally grown flowers in your area?

Obviously locally grown flowers are super important as far as environmental issues go, even down to like the fumigation of imported flowers coming into Australia and forests handling them so soon afterwards and there's there's no safety info on that.

Is there no?

No.

So there's, there's that side of things and also most local growers that I know, small growers are using regenerative practices.

So there's that side as well, yeah.

Yeah, also.

And how do you think it helps florists stand out by using locally grown flowers.

For me, I, I used to use imports and preserved and all of the gross stuff and there was definitely a point when I think I went through a bit of a phase of doing those dried installations with preserved flowers and.

Yeah, didn't we all?

I finished making one one day and was just looking at my hands and it had to dye and the smelt bad and I was just like, I don't want to touch this and I can't.

I don't know How I Met.

I just one day was just like I'm going to use locals only.

It was a big learning curve for me because you're just limiting your supply so much.

But I actually genuinely think it made my work better and stand out more.

It allowed me to be more creative as a florist and it forced me to look at the design elements and treat flowers more like a art medium than just a fulfilling A brief or like just going and buying a flower on the mood board because I couldn't anymore.

I had to think about what that flower actually brought to the design and then go and find a local flower that deliver the same thing.

So for me, I think it made me a better designer.

My clients cared for it.

When you think about when you consider anything organic or locally grown or sustainable, you know, at the markets or anything or at the shopping center or anything, it's always more expensive.

Like that's the luxury item.

So it allowed me to step into this like new like value that I had within my business that attracted different types of clients who cared about that.

The thing is, it's not always easy for every florist to do this.

And as much as we can try to be as sustainable as possible, we still have have a break to deliver, we still have a service to do.

While I, you know, I do so much educating with my clients and I have so many great community relationships with growers, I'm able to do that.

Not every florist has the time to go to Sydney Flower markets, the time to pan pick the flowers, clients who understand.

So creating Harvest has allowed the florists in Newcastle to access the local growers in a more convenient way, which makes the choice to buy local easier, which is I think sometimes we think that there needs to be supply to be, there needs to be demand to create supplies.

So we think OK, if people want the locally grown flowers then we'll grow the locally grown flowers.

And I've had a lot of chocolate growers about how if you actually supply it, people will buy it more.

We don't know it exists.

Sometimes Sarah's are growing corn cockles and suddenly we have access to these amazing flowers that no one else in Australia really has.

And it really it stands out workout because, you know, brides are like, who has these amazing corn cockles?

And they're like, only these florists can access them because we can only get them from Sarah and Bridge.

And so it separates your work in that you can have a rare flower or an interesting flower that nobody else has.

It also means that you can promote the value of like I'm sourcing from a grower who's like 40 minutes away, which is really cool to be able to say.

And there's that storytelling element there too.

Even the retail florists, they love the fact that they can talk to their customers in their shops about our farms and what we're doing and show them our Instagram pages.

Yes, it's really cool.

And the other thing that I found out in that so we had a breakie in the last day of harvest before the winter hit, and I was chatting with Katie, who doesn't always come in because she, she and Sarah sort of sell together.

She's got to do school drop off so I I bring her flowers for her.

Yeah, and I was chatting with her about that and I said how has it been?

You know how how you been and how's and she said, honestly, Ash, you've created like I've doubled my crops.

I, I think you said you've doubled your sales and she's like, I've planted so much more because I didn't realize that my business can be so much more.

It's not just a little farm like I have access to people who buy it now.

Yeah, the Harvest turned Katie's business from a hobby into an actual business.

She's got an ABN now.

Yeah, she said she was intentionally keeping herself small because she.

I didn't want to cross the GST threshold and stuff like that.

And she's like.

I was the tax, yeah.

Yeah, like that was scary to her.

And now she's like, no, I'm like, I have this.

This can be bigger, yeah.

And.

It's super exciting, it's inspired a lot of growers.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That was one of the questions I wanted to ask you.

How has it changed?

You know, how has it changed for farmers and for florists having the harvest?

And you've just answered it there, it sounds like.

Such a precedent sales and.

Movement, yeah, and encouraged people to actually think about growing flowers as a business because I think so many small scale farmers get into it because they love flowers but don't necessarily think about the business side of things and had to make it profitable.

So this sounds like you're kind of pushing people into that right direction, which is really cool.

Definitely.

I think there's one thing that I love that Sarah and Katie do together and it's so genius because for me as a as the florist side of the harvest, I want the growers to have more on the floor.

A lot of the time they just had the pre-orders, which is fine.

It's sensible because you don't have any loss.

But for me, I can see that a lot of florists won't come in unless they know that they can look around and grab more stuff.

Maybe they haven't pre-ordered.

I'm not a good pre orderer, so I like to sort of see what's on the floor and I know that a little grower sort of hold back because they don't want to cut stock and not sell it of shrink.

So I found out that you guys were doing this cool thing where actually you can explain it better than I can.

So I exclusively sell to florists just because I don't have, I don't have extra time to be selling to the public as well.

So Katie uses any leftover flowers that I have from the harvest and sells them in her roadside stand.

And a lot of the other growers have like they do farmers markets on weekends or they sell in little organic grocery shops.

So the harvest is only one day a week.

It's not enough a grower like there'd be too much waste.

So it's there's, it's like supplemental to existing sales outlets.

But yeah, teaming up that way limits waste while still having extras for florists to browse.

Which I think I know a couple of girls at Sydney do that.

They do the Sydney markets and then they sell to the public on a Saturday, for example.

Yeah.

Which I just think is so smart because you, yeah, the florist get first dibs.

I know you, you bring Katie's flowers to the market so she can do a school drop off.

We still get access to blue flowers, which are stunning.

And then in reciprocal like then you get to put your flowers on her stand and I'm like, that is just so genius.

Yeah, yeah, we used to be.

Buys them off you.

Sierra, so she buys them.

Well, Katie's.

Katie's one of my best friends.

Sometimes she sticks with money, but usually I'm naughty and I, I give them to her if I don't have a lot left.

If there's three brunches left, she can just have them.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, at least.

An ideal one.

They're not going.

To waste.

They're not going on the compost bin that way.

Yeah, good.

So what do you get asked most about the harvest when other growers from M florists hear about it from other states asks?

A lot how to run it?

How to make set it up?

Yeah, so I went to the Grow Not Flown conference recently and chatted to a lot of people about the harvest and there was just so much interest in how other people could replicate it really because there's gardeners and growers are very generous and community minded.

I found there seems to be a lot of little grower communities all around Australia, like little groups of growers that are all friends.

We listen to all these podcasts from the US that talk about collectives.

There seems to be a lot of interest in Australia about setting stuff like that up and this sort of format just makes it so much easier and it's so much better for community I feel cuz we're teaming up the you're the customer.

Yeah, you don't usually team up with your customer.

Yeah, which I hadn't thought about.

We were talking about this earlier and I was like, yeah, I probably wouldn't start a business with my brides.

Yeah.

But it makes sense to do this.

I didn't question it at the time.

I was like, yeah, let's do stuff together.

Even though I'm buying from the gorillas.

I don't know.

We're all on the same page.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's all been like a win, win situation.

And I guess you've answered how people could set this up in this podcast at the.

Start One other thing people would need to be mindful of is just to like check their local council rules and talk to their insurance providers, like the hosts insurance provider to make sure all that's good.

But yeah.

Yeah, because I know that you've made a note that, you know, if you only have basic public liability insurance, it won't cover something like this.

So to make sure that you.

Won't cover a market.

Yeah, yeah, we.

We don't do any money exchange on the like, all money goes.

Through we all invoice after the fact, there's no it's not a market.

So that's why we made sure it was a collection point only.

So it's it's not a place where we are selling products or yeah.

So I didn't really want to deal with all of that.

Yeah, fair.

Enough.

And so we're very careful with how how we how we set it up so that we didn't have to deal.

With so you didn't have to increase your insurance.

Literally, I didn't want to.

I mean also, so the zoning here is different and I didn't yeah, it's a lot of paperwork and there's also other local markets like wholesalers not far away and we didn't want to step on any toes or and.

They have their place.

We we need wholesalers still.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Great.

So is there anything I haven't asked you that you really wanted to share about the harvest?

Collaborative crop planning, can I just touch on that?

Yeah, please do.

Yeah.

So with the community aspect and getting to catch up with our fellow growers every week, there's also the collaborative crop planning that comes with that.

We haven't been that great with it yet, but I think there's so much potential which can help with a oversupply of things.

Like if we're all growing queen lime red zinnias, then, you know, it's not ideal.

Yeah, but there's also the reverse of having enough of certain things that are going to be super popular.

I reckon most of us growers could grow corn cockle and would also sell.

Well, one thing that we, I did in the Facebook group was I started a thread for florists to share what they want.

So there's so many flowers that we see.

I mean, we see it in like American farms and stuff as well, where we're like, I wish we had access to this, like the corncockle and mascari and just the cool flowers that we can never access.

And I mean, that's what I think a lot of florists really see harvest as, is like access to the stuff that we can't get at city markets as well.

There is some is an education piece that comes with this though because there's certain flowers that small growers it's just not feasible for us to grow.

A local rose grower would be great but for for roses to be profitable and a real really worthwhile for a grower they need infrastructure really and same with orchids.

Orchids needs like a shade house and all sorts of things.

But what it allows the growers to see is what what we're seeking out, which I think is cool.

I mean, there's a few girls at the Sydney markets who always ask me like what what's coming up?

What's in the trends?

What are your weddings looking like for next year?

What should I plant?

Which is so cool.

But not every grower will do that.

So having we get to voice to the growers what we want and then the growers can say, OK, yeah, I'm going to grow that or I'll plant it at this month and then you plant the next.

Yeah, yeah.

We can like collaborate session plant as well, so and we've all got little microclimates so that kind of happens naturally anyway.

Like my corn cockle will be finishing up as someone else's starts, but we can also plan for that intentionally and it also helps with crop failure as well.

If someone has a has crop failure, if someone else is growing that, then it's fine.

A few of us growers had issues with locks per this season, but it's going to be fine because other growers are growing it.

Well, yeah, I've seen when I'm coming at 6:30 before, one of the growers has obviously messaged the group saying I can't fulfill my order because I this happened to my crop.

And then everyone else has just pitched in and maybe it's Cafe Le Dahlias and being like, here, you can have my like, sell.

They'll send a bunch to the other grower.

And it's funny, even if I've got 4 stems and another grower has 6 stems and we always seem to be able to produce enough.

Yeah, which is great for the florist because then they get their order delivered.

Which is it?

I think it works so well in that way.

It's not like, well, sorry, I'll, I'll sell it to the girl or the florist.

Then you can all pitch in and help each other if something's happened.

I mean, there was a blackout with Dee's farm and she like her pool room was affected.

And so there's obviously things just happened with the weather and the crops.

So to be able to help each other fulfil your orders is really cool.

Yeah, it's that coming back to that whole community as well and working together and having that support instead of just being out on your own.

So you sort of have that collective mindset, but you are selling individually, which is I think.

Yeah, yeah, there's the, the competition element is kind of removed because we have such a large market here.

There's so many florists, there's so many event florists.

We're in the Hunter Valley, so it's a wedding hub.

So we could all be producing at Max capacity of our plots and still not have enough flowers.

So it really removes that competition element.

And in Australia we I think it's like 50% of Australian flowers are still imported.

So there is plenty of pie to go around for everyone.

Yeah, great.

So let's do a quick rundown of how to start.

So like, let's just go through five points.

This may be for anyone out there wanting to start a harvest.

And.

Experience one, what do you do #1 I'm going to check.

Find a space.

Yeah, you need a space.

Yeah, my space was really ideal size wise, but also location wise I'm like on the edge of Newcastle.

So for the florists who live in Newcastle, it's 5/10/15 minute drive for most of them.

For the growers, it's kind of not too far in town.

Parking's easy because we're not in town.

Yeah, parking's easy, Loading is easy because I've got a loading dock situation.

So that was perfect.

Me like my space would just happen to be good for that.

I think you need somebody to connect with the florist community and the grower community.

Yeah, I think collaborating between florist and growers works really well.

I think setting your boundaries at the start is really important.

That's something I'm proud of what we did.

So we have a contract for the growers.

We have the the fee.

We wanted it to be 3 months minimum.

I should.

Sorry, this is kind of off topic, but on the three months, the way we do it is we've got 2 sort of seasons.

So we run September to mid-december and then we have a month off over Christmas and then we start back in January through to Mother's Day week.

So it's kind of like not quite the seasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put up that way.

Yeah, awesome.

And then we, I think I really like that we kept it to just florists and just the growers who are attending.

Yeah, I think that's helped maintain the integrity of it.

What else would you say?

Start a Facebook group.

Maybe the Facebook group?

Right, thank you.

One thing we realized was because at first we were just getting the growers to sort of send out their list as emails.

And then one day one of the girls was like, I just picked these.

Would anybody like them or posted a photo of the the actual like part like what they just caught or before they cut it they would say hey I've got this and send a photo.

The orders suddenly went up when people posted the pictures in the Facebook group and said who wants 10 bunches of this or who wants 5 bunches of this and suddenly all the florists.

I think it's also.

A like almost like a shoe sale vibe.

Like people are are fighting for it when it gets posted in a public group because people can like comment and be like Oh my God, this is gorgeous.

I wish I had a wedding that had this color this week.

Yeah.

Well, I think it creates urgency and scarcity immediately because you're fighting because I, if I don't see it in time and I miss out, I'm like, so that's worked really well as a way to push product more.

Mm Hmm.

A few of the growers have really clued into that.

The, I think having each individual grower do all their own invoicing and communication out.

We don't let them do any ordering as much in the Facebook group like, well, like Keep.

It as a separate.

Yeah, finalise everything outside of the group, whether it's your Instagram DMS or emails, however you want to do it.

We constantly ask for feedback from fluorescent growers, so we're trying to improve.

One thing we also do is we, we attract data of attendance of florists, growers, what's been grown and we try to attract, we try to attract growers and making if they're happy to share that gives us information for potentially new growers coming in if they want to see if it's worthwhile.

But also for next year, we can go, oh, like this week was really busy or this week was really hot or these flowers.

Slow and slow.

All these flowers are available at this time of year, so having that data, instead of basing it off sort of emotion I suppose is really handy.

So we every single florist that comes in the door, we track down who who they are.

And if you can, rope in a third person to help.

With that, our beautiful friend Megan does that for us.

That's great because Spreadsheet clean.

I'm often chatting with the growers and Ash is chatting.

I'm not.

Caffeinated at that stage.

Having someone in the background to, you know, stalk what's going on, Yeah, very helpful.

I always finish off with kind of fun questions.

So what three things would you take from your farm or your studio if you had to leave quickly?

Do.

You want to go first.

I would somehow take my entire vase collection.

I love my vases so much.

I'm a vase hoarder.

I think I would take my trolleys because they are my favorite thing.

Ever put your vases in your trolleys?

Yeah, I would take trolleys and probably the pansies that Sarah brought in this morning.

So they're like sitting in my fridge right now waiting for me to play with them.

They're so divine.

I think it was your first bunch of the seasons.

So they're not very tall.

They're probably not even 15 centimeters tall.

But Ash will work out a way to use them.

They're so cool.

Yeah, for me, I would be.

I'd have two practical ones.

I'd take 2 perennials that I could divide to quickly be able to propagate more plants, so I'd take sangu sorba and chocolate.

Cosmos, you wouldn't take the corn, Coco.

They're they're from sea, they're fine, they're easy and one more like sentimental joy.

Bringing 1 is my favorite rose, which is Princess Charlene de Monaco.

It's so beautiful.

It's got like ruffled edges to the petals, like almost scalloped and it's like an apricot color and smells obviously like rose, but like citrusy rose and so beautiful.

I don't grow it to sell.

I just grow it for me as a gardener.

It's my favorite garden plant.

That was only two.

Yeah, the two there was Sanguis Silver and.

OK, got chocolate cosmos right.

OK, you're snack 2 together.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite tool?

Yes, the zipper, which is I put a reel up recently because it's so hard to explain.

I think I only put a reel up about it two weeks ago so people can go and look at that how it works.

I love direct sewing.

The less things I can start and see trays the better.

So how it works is one side digs like a little shallow trench for you to sow your seeds into and then you flip it over and the other side has these like angled go and watch the reel and it fills the trench back in so that you don't have to so.

You know your hands and.

Needs to like cover the seeds back over.

So that's the zipper and I bought it from Active Vista.

I worked on a flower farm for a little while and I needed one of those because planting at seedlings and seed.

You can use it for actually.

Ended my career as a flower farm.

Yeah, it's back breaking.

But yeah, you can use it for seedlings as well if they're short enough to fit under the tool.

I used it for paintings, one of those.

Yeah, And Ash, do you have a favorite tool?

Yes, I do.

I don't use it very often, but it's so cool.

It's think of like tree loppers, but it's on a really long stick and there's a rope and you can hook it so it's so tall, like it's 3 meters, 2 meters tall maybe.

So you can reach branches up really high and you can hook it on a branch and then you pull the rope and it, the blade must be so sharp because you don't have to pull it that hard and it just slices through.

It is the best foraging tool.

So there's a few trees that I hit up, but yeah, it's it's so good and you can get stuff very high up and it's efficient.

I don't know, I just love it, I feel.

Like I don't know, these are both unique tools.

I've heard about the Ori Ori knife that many times so I just want to hear about it again.

Yeah.

These are great tools and.

Do you have somebody?

What was that?

My tools from Bunnings Hi Hey guys in the world they should spot.

Me that should.

Well, thank you both for being on the podcast today and I hope that we've covered everything because this is something I've thought about, you know, since I started the podcast, when I was going around buying flowers from local growers, I was like, how can this be easier?

There must be a better way.

So to hear how this works.

I have seen your eyes light up a few times.

Yeah, I'm like, Oh yeah, it's so.

It's just a genius plan.

I love it so.

And I think it's achievable for people around the country to be doing this.

Much more achievable than a collective.

Yeah, so thank you for sharing.

A huge thank you to Sarah and Ash for joining me on Dish the Dirt and sharing the story of the harvest.

I loved hearing how collaboration, creativity, and community can transform the way flowers are grown and sold.

If you'd like to connect with them or learn more, you can find their details in the show notes.

As always, thank you for listening and for supporting local flowers.

Don't forget to subscribe, share this episode, and leave a review.

It really helps more people discover these incredible stories.

Until next time, keep celebrating the beauty and resilience of our flower community.