Great book for a newbie flower farmer

books:


	• The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers, Revised and Expanded Lynn Byczynski Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008 - 284 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Flower Farmer is complete

Lynn Byczynski's book is terrific! It has all the information that you need to pursue a career as a flower farmer. It has given me the information that I was seeking to make a career change and become a farmer's market flower grower. Especially appreciated the "Source and references" section.

As valuable as it is indispensable

When they think of farming, most folk conjure up images of grains, vegetables, and livestock. One very active and lucrative area of specialized farming is the growing and harvesting of flowers -- mostly for the ubiquitous flower shops that are to be found in very town and village. Now in a newly revised and significantly expanded edition, "The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide To Raising And Selling Cut Flowers" by Lynn Byczynski (who draws upon her considerable experience and expertise as the publisher and editor of the monthly industry newsletter 'Growing for Market' and her operation of the Wild Onion Farm in Lawrence Kansas) is the ideal instruction manual and guide for novice and experienced gardeners and farmers alike who wish to take full advantage of new techniques for prolonging their harvests, utilizing greenhouses, selecting flower cultivars, and post-harvest handling for growers throughout North American supplying commercial markets with their flowers. Enhanced with a resource directory, complete with sources for seeds, plants, supplies, and expert information on organic production under the guidelines and standards of the National Organic Program, "The Flower Farmer" will prove to be as valuable as it is indispensable whether growing flowers for fun, family and friends in the back garden, or for commercial profit on the acres of a farm.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

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Great book for a newbie flower farmer

This book is a great resource if you want to grow flowers for a living. I have to warn you, if you love flowers as much as I do, you may have a problem cutting and selling them. Oh, well. I still do sell tomatoes.

Thorough book

My daughter picked this book out over every one she could find on this subject, after an extensive library search.

Not the best book on the subject

The author spends a great deal of time telling you how to plant, transplant, fertilize, etc. She spends way too much space on basics of horticulture. Surely, anyone interested in selling flowers already knows how to grow them! The Ball RedBook would be a better reference for plant-specific growing advice. This book has extensive information about marketing and field yields, but I would take her advice with a grain of salt. I do not agree with some of her calculations and her other information is so far off the mark that I do not trust her opinions in this regard either.

The best info in this book is from her "case studies". The farmers she interviews give good information about their methods and mistakes, but very few specifics about the most important topic: preservation. Just as top chefs will alter recipes so that no one can duplicate their materpieces exactly, most flower growers are very tight-lipped about their secrets and will write pages and pages without giving specifics. This book is true to form. "Proper contitioning" tips go no farther than adding sugar or asprin, or buying commercial (and expensive!) potions.

My greatest complaint has to do with her guide to cut flowers at the end of the book. Some flowers that keep beautifully (after conditioning) are dismissed as having "no vase life". For example: Poppies and Cleome are dismissed as lasting a day or two, but using certain methods my Cleome lasted 2 WEEKS in the vase and won a blue ribbon at the county fair, and poppies can fetch $5 a stem and last 7-10 days if you do it right. "Flowers for Sale" by Lee Sturdivant has much better conditioning and plant selection information.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Acre-for-acre, flowers are the most profitable--as well as the most beautiful--crop on the farm. In The Flower Farmer expert flower grower Lynn Byczynski provides a complete introduction to raising a cornucopia of cut flowers for home use and for sale to retail customers, florists, and other markets.

The book offers detailed, manageable plans for flower growing on a scale ranging from a backyard border to a half-acre commercial garden. It will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, including:

Home gardeners who want growing tips from professionals, so that they can enjoy an abundance of flowers year-round in fresh and dried bouquets
Passionate gardeners and small-scale growers who want to raise and sell cut flowers in season for additional income
Small commercial farmers who want to increase farm revenue or even make a living from selling field-grown, specialty cut flowers.

The Flower Farmer provides a clear, realistic look at both the benefits and the challenges of growing flowers organically for local markets. Chapters include information on:

The best varieties of cut flowers--an A-Z list of more than one hundred recommended annuals and perennials, spotlighting the cultivars that are grown by professional flower farmers
How to cut, store, and preserve flowers for long-lasting beauty
How to dry flowers for crafting or for a dried-flower business
Flower-arranging basics from a designer's perspective
Extending the season with woody shrubs and trees
Marketing options for commercial growers, including sales at farmer's markets, supermarkets, florists, and wholesalers.

Sprinkled throughout are profiles of successful flower farmers--from Vermont to California, Texas to Wisconsin--each of them providing a unique perspective proving that growing flowers can be as profitable as it is satisfying.

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