We’re sitting at Kate’s kitchen table on a cold December day. The snow is piled high outside and it’s white everywhere you can see, but a ceramic holiday tree with bright lights shines inside on this table. The greenhouse just down the driveway is cold and full of summer’s supplies now in winter storage. The rows of flowers rest beneath the snow, already deep for December. The native wildflowers show their winter presence despite the snow and cold. And Owl Forest Farm waits through the winter. Kate Ingrid Paul and her husband both have off-farm jobs. That’s what makes this all possible. Kate tried full-time farming and ran a robust vegetable CSA for six years (2013-2018), but she was always scrambling for winter jobs to pay the bills. In 2019 Owl Forest Farm transitioned to predominantly a flower farm and began to wholesale flowers to local florists and offer CSA flower shares. Such is the story of many small farms on the Iron Range. They try something, adapt and change, find a new market, and move forward. They’re resilient, they’re surviving, and they’re locally grown.
Owl Forest Farm sits on land where Kate’s great-grandfather tended his cattle after arriving from Norway in 1893. Kate grew up here, playing on this very land, but left for 17 years, then returned to find a life closer to the land. Owl Forest Farm started in 2006 with 1.5 acres planted, then expanded to over 4 acres in 2013 and now has 6 acres planted. Kate has always farmed without chemical pesticides or fertilizers, instead using extensive cover cropping, compost and manure to enrich the land. There are always living roots in the soil, a key principle of soil health. In 2018, she applied for and was awarded a USDA Value-Added grant for 2019-20 to add a building to be used for equipment storage, processing and packaging, education, and walk-in coolers. USDA provided 25% so Kate and her husband had to finance the balance. Farmers need good relationships with bankers.
The new building is in the background.
The building is up and functional and the inside is coming along. When I visited, the classroom space was being finished. The walk-in coolers were installed, and the farm equipment was securely sheltered from the weather. There’s drying space upstairs for seeds, herbs, and dried flowers. And one large cooler serves as a root cellar, preserving summer vegetables for winter consumption.
In the near future, Owl Forest Farm is looking to the Natural Resources Conservation Service for financing to add a third well. Well water from Kate’s house and her mother’s nearby house supply the greenhouse and gardens right now. But more will be needed as they move into higher volume flower production. Last year, Owl Forest Farm sold wholesale flowers to Virginia Floral and Silver Lake Floral in Virginia, Range Floral in Hibbing and Eveleth Floral. You might have received a bouquet with local sunflowers, statice, straw flowers, zinnias, peonies, flowering herbs or amaranth. And that’s a BIG deal! Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the U.S. come from other countries, even other continents where workers, often including children, labor for minimal amounts and endure exposure to pesticides and other chemicals. And when these flowers are shipped to the U.S., any sign of insects results in another fumigation leaving a toxic residue for florists and customers here.
Local flowers are different. They move from field to vase with little interruption. They are grown locally and transported minimally. And at Owl Forest Farm, they are grown using organic practices, ensuring you a chemical-free gorgeous product with a long vase life. It all begins in very early spring in the greenhouse where seeds are started on heat mats using succession planting. They are transplanted outdoors to the 4.5 acre fenced garden (deer love to eat flowers) and planted in rows where landscape cloth helps control weeds. Weeding is still an enormous job, though, as weeds sprout up in the openings cut for flowers. It’s a labor of love, done on one’s knees.
The most recent work on the farm centers around a Minnesota Department of Agriculture AGRI Sustainable Demonstration Grant, a three-year grant for research on herbaceous peonies. The goal is to grow and evaluate multiple varieties of peonies for production in USDA Zone 3 (cold!). In the fall of 2018, they transplanted 1.388 bare root peonies into rows in the fenced garden. Thirty-two varieties of peonies are represented (who knew there were that many varieties???), with differing bloom times and colors. The second year involved feeding with composted manure and organic granular fertilizers and an organic anti-fungal agent. The new shoots were staked and carefully labeled, and, of course, weeded. This coming year Kate will be recording bloom times, duration, colors, hardiness, and fungus susceptibility, with special attention to number of blooms per plant and late season bloom potential. In northern Minnesota, late blooming peonies could extend the season for the national and international cut flower markets. Elsewhere in the U.S., peonies bloom in May and June and then the season ends. This research could kick-start a new commercial enterprise that would support small farms on the Iron Range.
Kate will also be broadening her flower CSA to include sales of fresh flowers for weddings and events and u-pick days right on the farm. She’s looking to use the new classroom for workshops on floral arranging and gardening basics. And the farm is available for professional photographers wanting spectacular backdrops for graduation photos, engagements, weddings. Interested photographers can email owlforestfarm@gmail.com to inquire about fees per 4-hour session. It was fun to hear about all the possibilities here at Owl Forest Farm and to see yet another farmer who is growing something we all love and doing it locally.