Walt Krukowski

Mountain Flower Farm

 Mountain Flower Farm is nestled in The Green Mountains of Vermont’s Mad River Valley. We are a family farm focused on quality, sustainability, and community. For over 20 years we have served discerning floral designers nationwide with grower direct overnight shipping. Our reputation has been founded on producing exceptional quality seasonal crops, like Peony, Lilac, Snowball Viburnum, and Hydrangea.

 Seasonal cut flowers love our cool mountain climate and rich organic soils! We take great pride and joy in producing some of the best quality fresh cut blooms available. Sustainable agriculture techniques like cover cropping, companion planting, and nurturing beneficial insect habitat provide the backbone of our #beyondorganic farming operations. Without exception, our crops are grown in vibrant, healthy soil, with a balanced biological ecosystem, certain to contain abundant nutrients, minerals, and live soil microbes. We never use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides.  

Our bloom schedule is delayed by Vermont’s slow to come and cool summer. When most sources for seasonal cuts have finished for the year, we are just getting started! Of particular note, is our peony crop, which is harvested from mid June - mid July. 

Show Notes

  1. Quality flowers stand out and your customers will be able to tell the difference and have the potential to lead to long term relationships with customers and clients.

  2. It’s important when selecting varieties of flowers like peonies to select varieties that are early bloomers and late bloomers to help extend your season.

  3. Spend time in learning all you can about the varieties that you grow.  Learn about their opening, holding potential, disease resistance, etc.

  4. Just remember that some of the older varieties of peonies that are widely grown are grown so heavily because they produce well for long periods of time.

  5. Newer varieties of peonies may be trickier, so make sure that you learn about them and realize your area or location might be more challenging for growing them.

  6. I want to encourage you to learn more about organic recommendations for fungal control.  There are products to help you and your plants produce the best flowers they can.

  7. Farmers markets are a great way to make community connections but there might be a time that your business may benefit from other outlets for your products.

  8. Efficiencies in business of any kind are key to helping to grow your margins and profitability.

  9. Soil is so key to being a good grower.  I loved what Walt said that soil has to be the number one priority, because that’s where everything starts.

  10. Cover crops are a great way to economically improve your soil.

  11. Lastly, grow what grows well for you where you are.  Why fight an uphill battle.