The Beginning of Grumbine Acres

To say that our little farm is a dream come true sounds like the beginning of a floofy fairy tale. While there are no magical fairies here that do the work, (trust me, I know exactly who starts every seed and plants every flower around here) it is a place filled with tiny people that would be our five children running through the garden and picking flowers at sunset. Josh and I have always talked about owning a farm someday that would allow us to utilize our giftings of hospitality and be a special place for our community. We looked for a farmette for nearly a decade but struggled to find one that checked all the boxes, though some were beautiful. While we are missing a trinkling stream here, we did manage to find a place that was close to family, a short drive to our church, a few acres for the kids and animals to roam, and road frontage to easily welcome guests to enjoy our farm.

I longed for a place to grow a garden of vegetables and a big garden of flowers. Josh longed for a barn for our kids to learn the joy of caring for animals. We still have a lot of things we want to see happen here. We envision farm-to-table dinners in the garden and being able to offer a market cafe someday. We purchased the property on auction in January of 2024. We felt torn over whether or not to even bid as we know properties like this don’t go cheap. We prayed for weeks and decided on a number we were willing to bid to. On the day of the auction, we won the farm with that exact number. While it hasn’t been easy and this farm still feels like a stretch for us some days, we have been dedicated and worked hard to invest in it, and we trust that our obedience will pay off some day and we will see some truly divine things happen here that will allow us to pour back even more into the people of this community.

We jumped into our first season of flowers in April the year we moved in with little idea of what we were doing. Sure, I grew some zinnias in my backyard before, but I never started anything from seed. I planted several rows of flowers that I started in our kitchen window before I had any grow light set ups. We certainly made our fair share of mistakes these first few years that cost us a couple thousand dollars in the process. Flowers we invested in didn’t pay off and we purchased commercial flower materials that we navigated away from because it just didn’t feel like the best way for us. The highlight of our first year was our sunflower field. We succession planted rows of pro-cut and commercial sunflowers in our front pasture and hosted an awesome weekend of food and flowers. Hundreds of people came out to enjoy it and we were thrilled!

We then decided to wildly invest in pallets of pumpkins and host a pumpkin patch designed for little ones to enjoy. Sadly, our fall event, while still successful, was very wet and we ended up taking a loss on the pumpkins. At the end of the season, we nearly lost the tent we were selling out of as a storm came through and nearly blew the tent away. Josh and I along with one of our incredible neighbors held it down until we could manage to dismantle and salvage the tent. Since then, we had a shed built by our good friend, Calvin, who nearly froze many days in our garage the following March as he framed the walls. We kept him well supplied on coffee and fresh baked cookies as our kids learned how to bake and use the coffee maker to ignite their own hospitality giftings.

We opened our 2025 season with a brand new shed with shelves and a farmhouse sink. I planted rows of flowers mostly by myself for a month straight while working on some impressive tan lines. Again, it was a year of learning. Some rows of flowers bloomed before anything else and had to be replaced mid-season while other rows needed better staking and were falling over after two summer storms rolled through in the same week. There were flowers I discovered I was allergic to and while very beautiful, didn’t work for our customers. We did a few smaller events, our sunflowers were not as successful and the amount of flowers, storm damage, and constant weeding took a toll on Katie who was left to manage the farm on her own. By the end of the season, we were contemplating whether there would be another one.

Here we are in 2026 and after many pivots and navigating a pregnancy, we have decided to press forward on a smaller scale. Again, there have been challenges, like months of nausea, seeds not germinated and some trouble with our seedlings. But we are still looking forward to offering a cutting garden of annuals and perennials, a sunflower patch, and homegrown pumpkins this year with many other dreams being held with open hands for the right time. We are sure you will enjoy the garden even more this year as we have been making changes to make it a really beautiful regenerative and inviting space for birds, butterflies, bees and people alike.