22 hours Ago By Teri Cadeau
FREDENBERG — Kendra Martin was looking for something new to add to her family's farm a couple ago. Her parents, Lucy and Lee Older, have run the business in Fredenberg Township for over 25 years. "When I went to visit my in-laws in Ohio I saw some flower-picking farms where you got a mason jar and could walk through the flower garden and pick what you like," Martin said.
"I thought it was a fun outdoor experience that we could start." Last year, the you-pick flower garden went well, according to Martin, and the flower growing side of the business, Golden Hour Gardens was born. But last spring, the tulips came in while it was still cold outside, so Martin decided to pivot.
ADVERTISEMENT "It was so chilly out and it just didn't make sense to have guests walking around and being really cold while cutting tulips," Martin said. "So we thought it would make sense to have a place where we could showcase products and let people purchase them. And that's how the flower stand came to be.
" The name of the flower farm comes from the time of day photographers refer to as "golden hour." That's the hour before sunset or just after sunrise, which Martin said "looks magical" on the farm. Selling farm goods by the side of the road with a self-serve kiosk isn't a new concept.
Martin recalls setting herself up as a kid at the edge of the farm to sell vegetables to passersby. But Martin's found her bouquets taking off. She's been experimenting with the types of flowers she grows and creating bouquets based on what's blooming this week.
"It's not like growing vegetables where you can kind of plan for all your tulips to be ready by this week," Martin said. "That's been something new for me to learn, you have to wait and see, you can't necessarily judge by when things came in last year." Though Martin said she did plan for her sunflowers to grow later into the season.
Last year, her sunflowers bloomed in early August, but her customers didn't seem to have an appetite for them. "Then September hit and boom — everyone was into the sunflowers," Martin said. "People seem to associate them as a fall flower, so that's when they want to buy them.
So I planned for that this year and it seems like people are into them." ADVERTISEMENT Martin said the flower growing has been different from vegetable gardening because some plants thrive better than others, depending a lot on the conditions. "We had that experience a little bit this year with some peonies," Martin said.
"We bought quite a few of them and we're kind of surprised at how few of them survived. They're a lot more touchy than vegetables." The growing space is also different for flowers, as Martin said she used to be able to till the whole rectangular garden bed.
Now she has to create 10 separate 100-foot rows of flowers, with a large patch of sunflowers to the side. Changing the farm isn't new to Martin's family. When the family purchased it in 1997, it had been a beef and turkey farm with a cattle operation and meat processing plant on-site.
The Olders grew mostly hay and vegetables until they started the flower garden last year. "They'd always wanted to run a farm and they've done a lot of updating to it over the years," Martin said. "And we're one of only three to four farms in the Fredenberg area, so it's a fun little area out there near Island Lake and Fish Lake.
" Martin said she'll continue to put out fresh flower bouquets and some fresh vegetables for sale until the first frost of the season. The stand can be found at 6339 Lavaque Road. Visit " Golden Hour Gardens" on Facebook for more information.
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