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Ep. 88: Farming as Meditation: What Mindfulness Taught Chelsea Willis About Growing Flowers
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Chelsea Willis is the kind of farmer who notices the frogs in the dahlias.
She's the owner of Sweet Delilah Farm on Sauvie Island, just 15 minutes outside Portland, Oregon. But her path to farming wasn't traditional. With a background in psychology and youth counseling, Chelsea originally wanted to find a way to get young people out on the land, because she saw how much easier it was for them to open up when their hands were busy and their feet were in the dirt.
Then a piece of land became available. And then another. The second one, a former lavender you-pick farm, she closed on in two and a half weeks. She'd never planned to buy property at that moment. But it felt right.
Today, Sweet Delilah Farm is a space where community gathers. Chelsea hosts dahlia workshops, floral design classes, plant dye days, and end-of-season u-picks. She's growing over 88 varieties of sweet peas for seed production, tending close to 250 roses, and dreaming about bringing yoga and meditation back to the farm. For Chelsea, farming isn't just about production. It's about presence, connection, and leaving space for whatever needs to come up, whether that's a pest issue in the field or a conversation that needs to happen.
If this episode stirs something in you, I'd love for you to share it with a fellow flower friend. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you never miss a new conversation.
Resources and Links Mentioned
- Sweet Delilah Farm: sweetdelilahfarm.com
- Instagram: @sweetdelilahflowerfarm
- Wild Craft Studio (Portland, plant dyeing classes)
- Sweet pea varieties mentioned: Piggy Sue, King's Coronation, Prince of Orange
- Rose varieties mentioned: Dainty Bess, Coco Loco, All Dressed Up, Fun in the Sun
Guest Bio: Chelsea Willis is the owner and farmer behind Sweet Delilah Farm on Sauvie Island in Portland, Oregon. With a background in psychology, trauma work, and meditation, Chelsea brings a deeply human approach to everything she grows. Her farm is home to workshops, intimate weddings, u-pick events, plant dye classes, and a beloved flower truck. She grows over 88 varieties of sweet peas, tends close to 250 roses, and is passionate about creating space where people can connect with the land and with each other.
Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Chelsea Willis and Sweet Delilah Farm
00:00:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Today on the Backyard Bouquet podcast, I'm joined by Chelsea Willis, the owner and farmer behind Sweet Delilah Farm. Chelsea is a flower farmer, a youth counselor, and a meditation practitioner who brings a deep respect for human connection into everything she grows. For her, flower farming is personal. It's about connection to the land, connection to community, and being part of the meaningful moments in people's lives, including the difficult ones.
The Journey into Flower Farming and Community Building
00:01:26
Jennifer Gulizia
Sweet Delilah Farm began in 2016, rooted in Chelsea's long-held dream of creating a farm that brings people together. Over time, that vision has taken shape through her fields, her design work, and her flower truck, a dream years in the making, all centered around making locally grown flowers accessible and present in everyday life.
00:01:50
Jennifer Gulizia
In this episode, we'll talk about Chelsea's path into flower farming how her background in psychology and counseling informs her work, and what it looks like to build a farm guided by connection, seasonality, and care. All right, let's welcome Chelsea to the podcast. Hi, Chelsea. Thanks for joining us today.
00:02:09
chelsea willis
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
00:02:13
Jennifer Gulizia
It's such an honor to get to chat with you. If you don't mind just starting with who you are where you're located, and a little bit of a background about your farm for our listeners.
00:02:24
chelsea willis
Sure. So I'm Chelsea and I run Sweet Delilah Farm. We are located in Portland, Oregon on an agriculture island called Savvy Island. It's just like 15 minutes out of the city. um And I grow from typically we start our season in about February and we go through November doing all the flowers that we possibly can on the farm.
Farming Practices and Land Management
00:02:51
Jennifer Gulizia
You're harvesting flowers in February or that's when you start sowing your seeds for the year.
00:02:56
chelsea willis
That's when we start sowing seeds. Every once in a while, i will start tulips early enough to have them in February, but that's really when we get most things going and officially kind of start the season as in February.
00:03:09
Jennifer Gulizia
Gotcha. I remember back in college, this was, I'm dating myself now, probably about 20 years ago, my friends and I would go at a Halloween time and go get our pumpkins from Savi Island when I lived in Portland.
00:03:23
Jennifer Gulizia
And I don't remember back then. I mean, this is early 2000s. I don't really think there were any flower farms on Savi Island back then.
00:03:30
chelsea willis
I think there were just the big farms, some of them probably grew flowers. And then the farm that I ended up purchasing used to be a lavender, you pick farm, and that would have been there.
00:03:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:03:40
chelsea willis
But other than that, I think like all the flower growing on the island has popped up in the last like probably decade or so.
00:03:48
Jennifer Gulizia
Sure, like so many other places around the country. So let's go back to the beginning of your flower farm. You mentioned that where you are now used to be lavender farm. How did you get into flower farming?
00:04:02
chelsea willis
Yeah, so my dive into flower farming was mostly unexpected. i like you mentioned, I have a background in um psychology and trauma work and working with youth, and I had always wanted to find a way to incorporate um them tending land um because I found that it was easier to connect in certain ways and they would share more if it wasn't just like one on one sitting in a room focus, but we were like doing an activity together. And I think working on the land is so healing and there's, you know, science behind what it does for the like chemistry for our brain and whatnot. So that's sort of how i started um combining the two things that i really loved doing. then
00:04:52
chelsea willis
and then a piece of land became available and through ah another farmer, it was mentioned to me. And so I took a dive. I had never grown anything before. So it was just sort of a leap of faith. And I love, I've always loved flowers. And so it just seemed like a natural thing to try to grow them. And it's been, you know, a steep learning curve for 10 years, but I've absolutely loved every minute of it.
00:05:22
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. So when you found this piece of land, is that the lavender field that we were just referencing?
00:05:27
chelsea willis
No,
Farm Features and Event Hosting
00:05:29
chelsea willis
no. So I started on a tiny, it was an eighth of an acre in a neighborhood in Portland proper. So actually in someone's backyard that had been farmed before and so it was tiny it had a really cute greenhouse on it um and i was on a three-year lease there and when my lease was coming up i knew i wanted to expand the farm and i wanted to be able to have perennials and to dive into roses and so this um the property that i'm on now that was the lavend farm was another just very
00:06:02
chelsea willis
kismate moment where i was out here with a friend on the island and it was I was like, oh, there's a lavender farm. And we came over and there was a sale sign. And I think it was like two and a half weeks later, we closed the house.
00:06:14
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:06:16
chelsea willis
It was very, and it wasn't, buying a house was not my like plan at that moment, but it just felt right and fell into place.
00:06:24
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I love when those things serendipitous serendipitously happen. I think that's how you can say it.
00:06:30
chelsea willis
Mm-hmm.
00:06:31
Jennifer Gulizia
So paint a picture. What does your farm look like today?
00:06:35
chelsea willis
So today it, um we have, it's, it's essentially a square um and is very open. We have a 30 foot pergola that we do workshops under. And if people are having their events or their wedding or whatnot out here, they do dinners or all sorts of stuff under there. And then we put up a high tunnel last year. So we've got one 50 foot high tunnel.
00:07:05
chelsea willis
We've got a small like propagation greenhouse. um And then one of the things I wanted really badly when I bought this land was to put to have ah like a wooden swing set built. And so we've got a swing set, which seems to be more exciting for adults than kids, which I always find funny at like our on-farm events. It's always the adults on the swing set. um And it's mostly, i plant mostly in rows just for the functionality of growing since we do, you know, do it as a community, a space where community can come, but I also grow for production and whatnot. So we lay everything out in rows.
00:07:45
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you for that description. So did you keep the lavender or did you remove the lavender?
00:07:51
chelsea willis
We removed most of the lavender and then the last two seasons I've been sort of chopping away at getting rid of more and I've rehomed a lot of those plants, a lot of the healthy ones.
00:08:03
chelsea willis
But the I wanted to keep some of it since it was such a like this is such a well-known space and people, you know, have stories of like, you know, yours. Like I remember coming here for so many years. And so we do still have lavender. I've just downsized it a ton.
00:08:20
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. And then you mentioned weddings and events under the pergola. Do you do weddings at your farm?
00:08:26
chelsea willis
We do really small weddings, so the max capacity is 40 people. um But we've had a lot of very sweet like elopements, small weddings, proposals, birthday dinners, fun things like that. um I love watching people celebrate out here. And it's always just like such a special thing to know that people are like having these making these sweet memories out here.
00:08:53
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's awesome. And is that how you sell your flowers is to those
Workshops and Educational Initiatives
00:08:56
Jennifer Gulizia
weddings and events? Or what's your primary outlet for moving your flowers?
00:09:01
chelsea willis
Yeah, so mostly now it's straight to um like so direct a customer. if Whether they're doing their own wedding flowers, we do a lot of DIY buckets. That's a huge portion of what we do once the season really gets going. um I do floral design, but I've scaled back on that a little bit. We also host a lot of workshops, so a lot of the flowers are grown for...
00:09:26
chelsea willis
either design workshops or plant dye, because there's a lot of flowers that I can grow that also are good dye plants. And then we open up the farm for you pick events, especially towards the end of the season.
00:09:40
chelsea willis
But mostly now I do have some florists that I sell to, but that's not my wholesale is not my primary business anymore. the The production farming has become less and it's become more about what we host out here on the farm.
00:09:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. So it sounds like the bulk of your business is the workshops, you picks, and did you say plant dyeing?
00:10:04
chelsea willis
Yeah, um I have a friend that I work with that has come out here and taught plant dyeing class for many, many years now. And so people can come out and learn, you know, what what plants dye, what and like the colors. And it's always just really fun. So that's a popular thing out here.
00:10:24
Jennifer Gulizia
Nice. So people, are they harvesting the flowers and learning how to extract the dyes and make, do they go home with something?
00:10:32
chelsea willis
Yeah, so typically we'll do a class where they they harvest, they learn the process, and usually it's like a cotton bandana that they'll get to dye or like one or two, and they can do like tie-dye or patterns on it or just like a single color. And my friend that teaches has different ways of like shifting the colors. So there's all sorts. It's just so much fun for people to like see how many different colors you can get out of plants and really bright colors. So They get to take something home along with the education if it's something they want to do, you know, on their own and start growing some of those plants. And we walk them through like all the different plants that are here on the farm that they could dye with, even if it's, we usually do like three dye pots, but there's ah so many more options. So we walk them through all the different options that they could be growing.
00:11:27
Jennifer Gulizia
So you are mentioning dye pots and certain flowers. What are flowers that you grow specifically for plant dye?
00:11:35
chelsea willis
So typically the ones I grow, um, always Marigold. And then there's, um, Tango cosmos, which are the orange ones. They're smaller than normal.
00:11:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, uh-huh.
00:11:46
chelsea willis
Um, those cosmos are very cool. Um, the black scabiosa, I think it's the black night scabiosa, um, creates sort of almost a teal color, which is really wild.
00:11:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wow.
00:11:57
chelsea willis
Um, yeah, the black bachelor buttons, um, Black-eyed Susan, Dahlia is actually a really great um dye plant. And then we have a giant mulberry tree on the farm and the mulberry is always fun to dye with because it just gets that like really beautiful purple blue color.
00:12:15
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you have a favorite for using for dyes?
00:12:19
chelsea willis
Marigold is always my favorite. Every class, I'm like, I'm going to dye bandana with a different plant. And I have like probably 15 marigold bandanas because I lose my resolve at the end of every class. I'm like, no, I really want marigold. So it will always be marigold, I think.
00:12:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. do you have Do you just do the orange marigold? or i've I know there's so many varieties now of marigolds to work with.
00:12:42
chelsea willis
Yeah, we've done all of them and it still comes out with the pretty, pretty much the same color because from what I understand, it's more of actual like properties of the plant, not the color of the flowers for that.
00:12:54
chelsea willis
So we've thrown in like the red ones before the kind of like pink tones, the orange, the yellow, sort of all of them.
00:13:02
Jennifer Gulizia
And they all come out with a similar color.
00:13:05
chelsea willis
here
00:13:05
Jennifer Gulizia
Interesting.
00:13:05
chelsea willis
Yeah.
00:13:06
Jennifer Gulizia
OK. The dahlias, that was fascinating that you mentioned that. I hadn't really thought about dahlias for dyes. But a few years ago, a friend came and set up a slow motion professional camcorder for Frostmas. And it was so interesting to watch it, the video and replay.
00:13:26
Jennifer Gulizia
And as you see the sun come up and the dahlias start to fade, you see the color just literally dripping out of the dahlias. And I was like, when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, they do hold a lot of color pigment and inside them.
00:13:41
chelsea willis
Yeah, yeah, they really, it's surprising how well they die. I never would have thought either. That's so cool though, that process that you did.
00:13:49
Jennifer Gulizia
You have me encouraged to try it now. Do you have any tips for farmers who are listening who have never tried dyeing flowers?
00:13:52
chelsea willis
Yeah.
00:13:57
Jennifer Gulizia
How do you get started with something like that?
00:14:00
chelsea willis
Yeah. I think the most important thing, which I'm still intimidated by, even though I do it, is the the process to prepare the fabric so you can buy like blanks of you know bandanas or scarves or whatever you want. um but you have to prepare the fabric and it's called the process is called mordanting. And so there's different um different things you can use to mordant them. And so that's the biggest thing is to get your fabric prepared. And so that way it will hold the dye. it kind of opens up the fibers to actually hold onto it better. um So that's like, I would say kind of the foundational piece and
00:14:41
chelsea willis
I'll mordant like a whole like pack of bandanas. So I have like 24 of them and then I can just pull them out whenever I want to dye something. But then it's just sort of trial and error and having fun with like the colors you can extract and there's really great resources online.
00:14:58
chelsea willis
And also if you're local in the Portland area, there's a studio called Wild Craft that they teach a lot of like plant dyeing and whatnot, but there's really great resources out there.
00:15:09
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so let's talk about your workshops. You host what kind of workshops on the farm?
00:15:16
chelsea willis
I teach a Dahlia 101 class every spring, usually end of March, early April. And so that's sort of like start to finish dahlias. We talk about like we actually hands on dig them because I always leave some tuber clumps in the ground for the class. And so we dig them, we wash them off.
00:15:36
chelsea willis
They do the taxing process of trying to find the eyes. And so I make sure like everyone feels comfortable with their clumps of like figuring out what a Dahlia eye looks like, because that's such a, like, that's such a hard thing, especially if you're new to growing them.
00:15:53
chelsea willis
So they actually hands-on divide them. We talk about um the differences in growing from seed and show them how to take cuttings and waking up tubers kind of like start to finish how to grow them, what to look for like disease wise and pest management and all of that. So that workshop is always really fun. And then we have the dahlia sale like on the farm right after. So they get the people who come to the class get to shop first and then we open it up to the public. um I do some floral design classes with another friend in town who's a florist. So we kind of combine
00:16:29
chelsea willis
growing with floral designs. So we um I go through and harvest the flowers that we're going to be using and then talk about growing them and you know how to plant them, starting them from seed, all of that. And then my friend takes over and does the design portion. So that way, if hopefully people are inspired to go home and start their own gardens based off of what they designed and they really fall in love with that process. um So there's I like we like I like to mix in the education piece with the design piece or with being able to like play with the flowers. So I tend to do more of the education just because that's what I love teaching. And then I like to team up with either my friend who does the plant dye or the design stuff and just kind of collaborate with other creative folks.
00:17:18
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that you are involving other creators and other business owners into your workshops so that it's not just you teaching, but people are getting to meet another business as well that you are supporting along the way.
00:17:33
chelsea willis
Yeah, I think
Challenges and Legislation in Farm Event Hosting
00:17:33
chelsea willis
it's fun. And it's a way, like you said, just to support like each other because small business ownership and running a small business is not easy. And so whatever we can do to like, help each other out. I just love doing that.
00:17:48
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Now, not to get too political here, but there was quite a bit of Savvy Island farmers talking about farm stands in Oregon. So for those of you who aren't in Oregon, Oregon requires a farm stand permit to host different events.
00:18:06
Jennifer Gulizia
Have you been affected at all? Or do you have to have a permit to host workshops on your farm where you're located?
00:18:14
chelsea willis
it's It's a little bit of a gray area where I am because the where I live, it's there's two different counties and the counties have very different requirements. So um because I'm such a small scale and we don't host events every weekend, they're really spread out. It's on you know more private property, obviously, ah the insurance side.
00:18:42
chelsea willis
like covering the business side of it and everything. But um I don't typically poll permits because of the scale. You know, our classes are like 12 to 18 people. They're very small. um But it is affecting some of the larger farms, you know, right down the road from me. And I know this bill that is that they're working on right now is really like will impact those bigger farms. And the county does try to keep a very tight grip on everything small businesses do on this island but we also kind of have to work around that a little bit in order to run a business which is unfortunate um i really wish there was more space for agro tourism type stuff and more support and more you know
00:19:35
chelsea willis
protection and everything for it, rather than them trying to really like keep a very like stronghold on it almost because people want it. People come out here. i see people at all the other farms that I go visit and everyone just loves being out and experiencing these things.
00:19:53
chelsea willis
um So I really hope that it goes in a direction where there's more support and accessibility for farms to like offer more and continue to do these things.
00:20:04
Jennifer Gulizia
I agree. When I think of Portland and someone says, what farms are in Portland? I instantly think Savi's Island and think about the corn mazes.
00:20:10
chelsea willis
Thank you.
00:20:11
Jennifer Gulizia
and the I mean, those are the what drives people to a farm so they get to experience it. And I'm super curious and fascinated by this as a fellow Oregon farmer because I talk to so many people on the podcast in other states who have bed and breakfasts or Airbnbs or can host farm-to-table dinners.
00:20:31
Jennifer Gulizia
And don't have the same hoops to jump through that we do as Oregon farmers. And I know every Oregon farmer I talk to, we usually end up chatting offline about how hard it is to get permits for certain things.
00:20:43
Jennifer Gulizia
Like we had to do a pop-up tent this last year at our new farm because we don't have a permanent farm stand yet. And we have to know exactly where it's going to be before we can apply for a permit.
00:20:50
chelsea willis
Thank
00:20:54
Jennifer Gulizia
And now there's this new House bill. I can't remember the numbers, but by the time this airs, it will already have gone through the legislature. So I'm going to cross my fingers that it eases up. There's a proposal to hopefully make it easier to do farm events because like you and 12-person events have such a minimal impact on the traffic in the area versus farm.
00:21:17
Jennifer Gulizia
like Someone asked me when I said I wanted to do events, that are like, are you going to have like 500 cars? And I was like, no I'm talking about like 12 people coming to my farm. You won't even know that there's anyone there. so it's um something that I hope eases up for Oregon farmers. And because I think the agritourism is such an important piece of a small business, especially as a flower farmer.
00:21:39
chelsea willis
Absolutely. It is. And I have dreams of having a, like a B&B type thing. And I know that it would be near impossible to have, definitely not on Savvy Island because of the space, but um just in general in Oregon, its they would not be easy, which is unfortunate. And so I'm with you. I hope they make it easier.
00:21:58
Jennifer Gulizia
I know I agree. um Let's see here. I got so sidetracked there. I apologize for that.
00:22:04
Jennifer Gulizia
um You also host you picks on your farm. How do you host your you picks?
00:22:04
chelsea willis
you.
Marketing and Community Engagement
00:22:10
chelsea willis
So i don't we don't do too many um because it is also um production, especially as we like get into like things setting seed. But we always do the lavender just because I like to keep that going for folks who love to come out and do that. And at the lavender you picks, I typically have like cut bouquets and other things that people can um purchase or plant starts.
00:22:35
chelsea willis
And then as we're getting ready to wrap up the season right before we're going to chop everything down, i open up the you pick for everything except the roses so they can cut the dahlias, the zinnias, the cosmos, the marigolds, anything we've got going at that point. And that's always the most popular because I think people really love getting to cut dahlias. That's always like the feedback. um And that one for me is always the most fun just because people are so excited.
00:23:05
chelsea willis
to see. And I don't know if where you're growing, you have the little Pacific tree frogs, but we have frogs that like hunker down in all the flowers. And so most of the conversations I hear during the you pick at the end of the season is like, Oh my God, did you see the frog?
00:23:18
chelsea willis
And there's like 20 people surrounding the flower with a frog in it. And so it's just fun to like,
00:23:22
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, awesome.
00:23:23
chelsea willis
open the farm up and let people get to cut things. And again, it's an opportunity because I get a lot of questions like, what variety is this? I want to grow this next year. And so it's like, people are getting that hands on, know, experience, and then they're wanting to go home and plant things, which I just love knowing that like, people are going to have make their own gardens.
00:23:45
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so awesome. We heard frogs for the first time. We've only been on our property for one growing season. And we have a seasonal creek.
00:23:50
chelsea willis
Okay, yeah.
00:23:53
Jennifer Gulizia
And by the end of the season, when it was starting to flow again, i heard the frogs. And I got so excited. And I was looking through the dahlias because I've seen all the pictures, but I've never had frogs in my dahlias. So I'm hoping that this year we get some frogs in our dahlias.
00:24:06
chelsea willis
They'll come, they'll find them.
00:24:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. um We were a fellow field, so I just think it'll be a matter of time before they find the area. How do you market your events? Like, how do people know to come to your U-Pix or your workshops?
00:24:20
chelsea willis
Yeah, we do, you know, the like Instagram um newsletter, and then i have friends who will help share it through their avenues, whether it's Instagram or we sell weekly bouquets at a nursery in town, a local nursery. And so when there's events coming up and whatnot, um that information goes there also, because that's kind of the the right demographic who, if they're at the nursery, they're probably interested in plants and the things we would offer. um And then through, a lot of it is through word of mouth. A lot of it is like, oh, I saw, you know, I got the newsletter, like I'm going pass this information on that type of thing.
00:25:03
Jennifer Gulizia
Awesome. um What about your truck, your flower truck? Do you still have that?
00:25:10
chelsea willis
I still have it. It was at a commission last season because it was having a ah battery issue that couldn't get solved, but it's going to go back. back in this year. But yeah, the flower truck was just a something I dreamed about and thought it would be so much fun. So on the inside, it's kind of built out as a little flower shop with spots for buckets. And, and we did a lot of farmers markets with it and pop ups at other farms, we've done pop ups at nurseries, which again, was just really fun. um I've learned
00:25:45
chelsea willis
With that, and I don't know if it's different, just kind of like area to area, but um unless people are purchasing things that they need to go home, they're generally not purchasing bouquets of flowers. It was a lot of like.
00:26:00
chelsea willis
trial and error in the beginning and hearing a lot of people, oh, if I were going home, I would totally get flowers. And so that's why we kind of made it specifically more at um farmers markets. And I would always ask for anyone who might be thinking about doing it um to be towards the end. So then because we would get a lot of people when we were at the beginning saying, oh, I'll come back to get flowers.
00:26:22
chelsea willis
but they wanted to keep them in water. And so i learned if you put us at the end, our sales were actually much better because people were like, oh, I've got all my veggies and fruits and I mean i can like grab a bouquet and then I'm going home. And it just seemed to, it really changed things. um And that's why I like to do pop-ups at nurseries. Because again, people are buying plants. They're not going to leave them in their hot car. So they're like, oh, I can get flowers because i am already going home.
00:26:48
chelsea willis
um So it's been a little bit of trial and error of figuring out what sorts of things work better popping up like around brunch spots didn't make any sense as I learned because people were going to go do other things with the rest of their day.
00:27:03
chelsea willis
So now it's become more about finding those like nurseries and little spots where we know that what people are going there for is going to work with selling flowers. And that would be with or without a truck, just kind of knowing like, I guess that little bit of market research and trial and error.
00:27:22
Jennifer Gulizia
That's super helpful information. And what a great idea to partner with a nursery that, like you said, people are there buying plants. So you know they like nature. They like getting their hands in the dirt.
00:27:33
chelsea willis
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:33
Jennifer Gulizia
And the nursery is not your competitor. And so it's a nice complement to partner with them.
00:27:41
chelsea willis
yeah absolutely
00:27:44
Jennifer Gulizia
That's a great idea. Now, in the intro, I mentioned that you have several other career focuses.
Combining Counseling, Meditation, and Farming
00:27:52
Jennifer Gulizia
How do you integrate your flower farming with your counseling and your meditation practices?
00:28:03
chelsea willis
It's such a good question. um I would the youth. It's always um I had a job actually working with youth coming out of corrections for many years when I started the farm. So it was easy because I would we would coordinate days where our kids could come out to the farm. When I left that job, i teamed up with some organizations in town who would bring their youth out. And so um one of those organizations catered specifically towards house houseless youth and youth living on the streets. And so they would come out and a couple times a season and would either help with farm tasks or we did some plant diet days, we did some design stuff. So I really love teaming up with youth organizations who want to bring those kiddos out. And um it's always just about getting them to buy into like, you know, they're on a farm. Some of them don't want to get dirty, but I find by the end of, you know, a couple hours, they've like really
00:29:08
chelsea willis
open their minds to it. And a lot of them want to come back, you know, the next time. um And i just love that demographic. And I think they're, you know, there's not always a lot of opportunity to go do something fun when you're living in a lot of like stress or just survival mode. And so getting to do something totally different, um it's just really fun to watch them kind of open up and light up.
00:29:40
chelsea willis
My meditation practice and having taught meditation and being a practitioner has really informed just mostly how I move through my days farming. I feel like it because i oftentimes use the quiet time when it's just me on the farm, sort of as a meditation practice, I really spend a lot of time noticing what is happening and listening to the birds or watching like what the bugs are doing or really paying attention to what's happening with my plants. And I think that ultimately has
00:30:20
chelsea willis
helped me connect deeper with the cycles of every season, which through the years I've learned has helped me understand our pest pressure, especially with bugs, because I, I noticed them so much now that I'm like, Ooh, we're starting to have certain pests pop up. Um, and so I think a lot of it has been just about noticing when I'm on my own and just being in that really quiet space.
00:30:47
chelsea willis
Um, and it's also, I think really helped me not hold on super tight to like having needing everything to go an exact way um because anyone who's ever grown anything knows that like we don't actually get to control any of it. And so i think that practice has really helped me like be able to sort of take a step back and be like, okay, like that didn't work. We're gonna try again.
00:31:19
chelsea willis
which is not always easy. I mean, I've had things happen on the farm that I'm super bummed about, but the nature of having had that meditation practice for so many years, I think has helped me like just kind of breathe and we'll start over.
00:31:35
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. we We started meditating a couple of years ago and just that ability to take that deep breath and just be so present in the moment. You're right. I do feel like I notice what's happening in the garden or in the farm more and I can be more present and intentional versus trying to be like, okay, and then I'm going to be sowing these seeds and I need to go do this and that. You can really ground yourself in the moment.
00:32:02
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you still teach meditation?
00:32:02
chelsea willis
Yeah.
00:32:07
chelsea willis
It's been a minute since I have, but it's something I've actually been thinking more about. i also used to teach a lot of yoga on my farm and on other farms. And that part of like the yoga and the mindfulness practices, I do want to reincorporate back in because that's, it's such a part of,
00:32:26
chelsea willis
me and like things that are so important. And it's why I wanted to have land in the beginning was to have a place for people who were healing from trauma or dealing with enormous amounts of stress to just come and be able to reset a little bit. And so those are things that I've been trying to figure out how we're going to reincorporate them back in.
00:32:52
Jennifer Gulizia
I see more and more farms starting to offer yoga and meditation in the field. And I love that idea. i i mentioned it when I was trying to get my, I'm blanking on words, my farm stand permit. And they're like, oh, well, that's an event. and You're going to need an event permit for that. And then I was like, well, I'm going to put that on the back burner right now.
00:33:16
Jennifer Gulizia
But um I think it's a great idea. And it's one of those things that, I mean, what a beautiful spot for people. to be able to just relax, especially there's so many stresses a in the world today that if we can offer people the beauty of flowers and the opportunity to just relax, I think that's a really special thing.
00:33:36
Jennifer Gulizia
So what do you have planned for this next year on your farm?
Future Plans and Personal Favorites
00:33:41
chelsea willis
So this year we have got the, um, the Dahlia workshop will be coming up in the beginning of April and we've already got the floral design workshop dates set. Um,
00:33:53
chelsea willis
It's in July. I'll have to double check what date we chose. And it's going to be our typical lavender you pick and then um our end of season. But I am trying to... um I was deciding if we're gonna do a summer solstice yoga and you pick, that's what I've done in the past. And so people could come around sunset, we did a yoga class and then they got to pick lavender after. So I think I'm gonna bring that back. And then we have really expanded our sweet pea seed production. And so that will actually be a lot of this year as we were like
00:34:31
chelsea willis
we're like stealing rows of space from other flowers right now to try and expand because we've pretty much completely outgrown this space. And so we've been trying to figure out where we can just like tuck in like a couple more rows for sweet peas. So the seed production will be more and more as the years go. But this year, we're really putting more space in production for that than we did last year because um you all bought our seeds very quickly. So I realized we needed to have more of them.
00:35:04
Jennifer Gulizia
So you also sell seeds.
00:35:06
chelsea willis
I do. Mostly sweet peas. um I do dahlia seeds every year, but that's on a much smaller scale. But the sweet pea sale, we usually start in the fall, typically in mid-October. And then I do a couple um restocks before planting time so people have a few opportunities to grab seed.
00:35:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Is that your favorite flower to grow or?
00:35:31
chelsea willis
It is one of them. I would say sweet peas and roses are my favorite flowers to grow. Yeah.
00:35:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. And when do you start your sweet peas?
00:35:39
chelsea willis
I started them three weeks ago, but we're still starting. I, and up until like, probably the end of this month or at least for the next two to three weeks, we'll still be sewing sweet peas.
00:35:52
Jennifer Gulizia
So how many sweet peas are you growing on your farm?
00:35:56
chelsea willis
This year, that's a good question. Thousands. I'm just not sure where we're going to stop. I'm like really doing math of how many rows we can actually, because we still have Dahlia tubers that are going to have to go in the ground.
00:36:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:36:07
chelsea willis
So I'm like, how much space can we actually steal right now for the peas?
00:36:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Gotcha. And how many varieties? Do you know how many varieties of sweet peas you're growing?
00:36:17
chelsea willis
I've got over 88 the last count I had was varieties.
00:36:22
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow, that's a lot.
00:36:24
chelsea willis
It is a lot. And so, oh yeah.
00:36:25
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you have any favorite...
00:36:28
chelsea willis
um Piggy Sue is one of my very favorite sweet peas. um I grew King's Coronation last year for the first time and the color purple was just such cool color and it was a little different than things I've seen. And then Prince of Orange is one of my very favorite sweet peas. The color is just so cool and so bright.
00:36:51
Jennifer Gulizia
I haven't heard of that one before.
00:36:54
chelsea willis
it's gorgeous and i always tell people grow it with like a little bit of afternoon shade if you can because it seems to burn a tiny bit and it does really well with some shade but the color is this like most vibrant orange but there's like a little bit of red it's so pretty
00:37:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Have you always grown sweet peas or is that something new to your farm?
00:37:14
chelsea willis
no they were the first they were the first flower I planted on the farm when I started. i i was obsessed with them from the beginning and um have just fallen madly in love with them. I think they're such a cool plant and they're so much fun to grow.
00:37:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you just grow them for seed or do you also sell them to customers on Savvy Island?
00:37:37
chelsea willis
We sell them. We bring, those are one of the bunches that we bring into the nursery and we can't keep them stocked with sweet peas, especially when like King's Ransom is going because that color is so unique.
00:37:49
chelsea willis
um But yeah, that scent, it's like it really captures people. And so if they smell it and that was the feedback we you were getting, they would smell it at the register and people are like, I've got to take those home because there's nothing like that.
00:38:03
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so smart. That's a good strategic spot to put them because they do smell so amazing. I love that. Okay, you've mentioned roses a couple times. Tell me about your roses.
00:38:14
chelsea willis
I have, i think I'm close to 250 roses now.
00:38:19
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:38:20
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:38:20
chelsea willis
Um, chunk of them live up in Northern Washington on Whidbey Island at my parents' property right now.
00:38:25
chelsea willis
Um, because we had to move some up there for space, but eventually i plan on having them all in the same place again. um But I love roses. i don't grow them for production, really. Sometimes I'll throw them into bouquets or our buckets of flowers, but roses are really a flower I grow for myself. And just because I think they're so incredible and all the different varieties, the colors, everything, I'm just sort of obsessed with them.
00:38:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Now I'm curious, are your roses still blooming? It's February when we're recording this and I have roses blooming right now. It is the weirdest winter.
00:39:06
chelsea willis
Yeah, they're really trying to like I was out this morning looking at one of my plants and it's got new buds on it. Like, oh, man, I don't and don't know when to prune right now. I'm not doing it. I keep like talking myself out of it because I know we're going to get moisture again. But yeah, they are still going. It's wild.
00:39:24
Jennifer Gulizia
I know mine keep getting taller and I'm like, should i cut them back? I'm like, well, but what if we get a hard freeze all of a sudden?
00:39:28
chelsea willis
It
00:39:29
Jennifer Gulizia
And it's such a crazy year with them.
00:39:33
chelsea willis
it really is. Yeah.
00:39:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you have any favorite varieties of roses?
00:39:39
chelsea willis
Dainty Bess is my very favorite rose. um But Coco Loco will always be one the color and it's got a really good scent. um Those two are definite favorites. um What other ones do I really love?
00:39:57
chelsea willis
All Dressed Up is a really pretty pink. And i think Fun in the Sun. It's kind of this like yellow with some oranges, i think is also really gorgeous. There's so many, I mean, that writ list could get really long.
00:40:12
Jennifer Gulizia
I know I was ordering some new roses for our farm this next year, and I won't cut on them for several years. But I was kept making my list, and was like, okay, I cannot add this many roses right now. so I had to cut it back. I think I am adding like seven varieties. But I had to order, i think, like 10, minimum of 10 of each variety. So I think I'm getting like 70 roses.
00:40:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Actually, in a couple weeks, I think they're coming. I better get ready for them.
00:40:35
chelsea willis
That's amazing.
00:40:39
chelsea willis
That's going to be amazing.
00:40:39
Jennifer Gulizia
It's one of you order them like in the summertime and you forget all about it till it's like, Oh, your order is coming.
00:40:46
chelsea willis
And then all those holes have to be dug.
00:40:47
Jennifer Gulizia
this Yes. Well, we still need to, it's got cover crop right now.
00:40:50
chelsea willis
Yeah.
00:40:53
Jennifer Gulizia
So I need to prepare the area also for planting, I guess.
00:41:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, um, I'm curious. Do you see Any crossover or the way you approach farming, do you feel like your perspective is maybe different than others because of your background as a youth counselor and meditation practitioner?
00:41:17
chelsea willis
I think so. mean, I know just from watching how other people farm, which I love watching how other people farm because I always learn new things because everyone has a little bit of a different take in way they do it. But I will say I'm a far less like, um,
00:41:39
chelsea willis
like super organized, have my spreadsheets. We have a couple spreadsheets, but like I am very much I grow a lot by intuition and I grow a lot by really just watching what's happening and we adjust that way. And so I do think because of the way that I pay attention to the the farm and just the way everything's kind of acting as an ecosystem in total.
00:42:07
chelsea willis
um it's a little more hands-off in trying to control every aspect of it and there's a little bit more well we'll just sort of see what happens and i know i drive my farmers a little nuts sometimes when i'm like i have a list but i don't have a list because like i noticed this this morning and now we're going to change and go do that and so um a lot of the way that i farm and a lot of how i not necessarily teach my farmers, but anyone who spends time with me on the farm sees that it's very, um more by kind of walking around and like, oh, like this obviously needs some attention. Let's deal with this. And obviously we have lists of things we have to tackle. But I do think um I'm a little just more of that mind and how my brain functions. I like to really pay attention and go sort of
00:43:06
chelsea willis
bit by bit watching what needs to happen versus then kind of like big plan, see the big plan and then we're gonna like narrow it down. i kind of work the opposite a little bit, I think sometimes. um And I think the the fact that i see a lot of working with land as nervous system regulations. So when I have people out here, I notice, and I don't know if this is the same with other growers, but I noticed the conversations that come up and sort of the processing that happens
00:43:41
chelsea willis
I tend to leave a lot of space for that because I know it happens with people. And so um sometimes that will interrupt our days, which is fine. I'll farm later by myself. But if there are things that come up that need to be tended to because there's been space for that to happen, we leave a lot of room for that or I leave a lot of room for that. So it's a lot less structured, i think, than a lot of growers um because I'm sort of leaving space for whatever's going to come up. whether it's like plant based or person based to happen that day.
00:44:17
Jennifer Gulizia
That's really beautiful. Before flower farming, I would have never imagined the impacts that we have on people's lives or the way that flowers really impact people.
Emotional Connections with Flowers
00:44:28
Jennifer Gulizia
And I'm sure you have similar countless stories where you hear people's life story, they come and
00:44:28
chelsea willis
hmm.
00:44:34
Jennifer Gulizia
your a certain flower reminds them of a loved one who's no longer here with us or them getting to like come and put their hands in your soil just opens up wounds or healing. And I mean, it's brought me to tears hearing people's stories at times. So I think that's really beautiful that you leave that space for people.
00:44:56
chelsea willis
Yeah, i think it's important. And yeah, flowers are, you know, we use them to celebrate for all of our celebratory events and milestones, but they're also so important for grief. And I think like the grief part of it and the hard things we go through, you know, just a simple flower can have such an impact on people. And so I really like knowing that Like I love doing wedding flowers, but I really love supporting people with flowers when it's something that's harder or that, you know, something has happened, a loss or whatever it is. Like, I really love knowing that our flowers are showing up in that way too.
00:45:40
Jennifer Gulizia
It's amazing how many people will this reminds me of so-and-so. I know for me, bearded irises, I always feel like my grandmother is around. um Or i think of my father-in-law when I'm planting dahlias. He used to come and watch our daughter so I could plant.
00:45:57
Jennifer Gulizia
ah the dahlias. And i this might be a little woo for some people, but there's people that believe that water holds memory and flowers are 80% water. so I'm sometimes like, well, do these flowers carry the memory of our loved ones? And is that what evokes these feelings? And I know that might be a little woo for some listening, so I apologize, but um something going through my mind as we're talking about this and just those connections that we are able to create space for.
00:46:27
chelsea willis
Absolutely. Yeah, I love that.
00:46:30
Jennifer Gulizia
So sorry, I'm really good at um diverging there. um
00:46:34
chelsea willis
Yeah, I love
00:46:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Let's see here. Is there anything I haven't asked you today that you want to share with our listeners today?
00:46:46
chelsea willis
Not that I can not off the top of my head, i feel like you've asked some really great questions. So there's nothing like popping out now.
00:46:53
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. What about, do you have any advice for someone who's listening today and maybe wanting to create a little bit of space for either those opportunities for tending to their flowers or making room for people to come to their farm?
00:47:14
chelsea willis
I think one of the biggest things I would say for kind of anyone growing right now um is that there's no absolute right way to do any of this. We all get to pick the systems and the processes and everything that works for us. And i think it's really easy to overcomplicate it or compare ourselves and what we want to do And really, I would say, if you have an idea or if there's something that like you keep thinking about, try it. It doesn't have to be perfect in the beginning. It could be as simple as
00:47:53
chelsea willis
you know, bringing a flower to someone at a coffee shop you go to all the way and maybe you don't know, maybe they're having a hard day and that's what they needed. And and it creates that connection that it's like, well, you can come visit the space or maybe I want to like have a little like weekly, like,
00:48:12
chelsea willis
tea party in my garden for, you know, people who just want to kind of of come sit and have that space because we don't have a lot of opportunity to pause right now and like not be just inundated with such hard, heavy stuff all of the time. And so i think it can be like such small little steps of ways to connect with each other. And flowers are just such a universally connecting thing. and so...
00:48:40
chelsea willis
I think my biggest advice would be to not overthink it and to just try to connect with, you know, someone a few times, you know, maybe make it a like a couple times a week that you're connecting or whatever feels good and see what can come out of that rather than feeling like you've got to have a whole plan in place before you find a way to do it.
00:49:05
Jennifer Gulizia
That's great advice. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Chelsea, before we wrap up this year, I have started doing some quick fire questions and I'm trying to keep them the same for all guests. um So my first question, quick question for you here is what is your favorite flower to grow or work with and why?
00:49:27
chelsea willis
I think my favorite flower to grow is sweet peas just because I love watching them vine and they grow so quickly and they're just such fun plants to be able to use, whether it's the greens and the tendrils or the actual flowers. And I think the actual greens of the plant are sort of underutilized because in design they create so much structure because the way the vines are pretty strong. So they're they're one of my just very favorite plants like all around to get to work with and grow.
00:50:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Perfect. Thank you. And why do local flowers matter to you?
The Impact of Local Flowers and Floral Community
00:50:08
chelsea willis
Oh, they matter so much to me. I think, you know, getting to know your local growers is really important, especially as the environmental climate is changing, the political climate is changing, access to things that are coming from further away is becoming harder, things are getting more expensive. And also, i think um the the larger scale floral industry across the world is very exploitative of humans and the like chemicals that they are exposed to and all these horrific things. And so I think really,
00:50:45
chelsea willis
Sourcing from your local area where you know where things are coming from, they're going to last longer, you can make those connections with those people, the small businesses need support right now and it's just a way to like build that into your community to keep your farmers because farmers are really important whether it's flowers or veg or whatever it is right now it's really important.
00:51:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. What is one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
00:51:14
chelsea willis
I think it's a similar tone of understanding where your flowers are coming from and the amount of work that goes into it, whether it's large scale or small scale, but especially your smaller scale, like mid to small scale farmers are, it is so much work. It's not just us like harvesting your flowers. it is the whole winter planning everything. it is sourcing all of our seeds and tubers and bulbs, which is getting harder in some ways. It's,
00:51:44
chelsea willis
you know, we're hands on 365 days a year doing this. And i think people don't understand sometimes the value, especially in pricing is as our pricing has to increase because everything else is getting more expensive.
00:51:59
chelsea willis
We spend so much time hands on touching every part of the one flower we end up handing to you that it is truly a labor of love and it is not something that is a simple process. And so just understanding that like when we are bringing you all locally grown flowers and bunches at you know your farmer's markets and whatnot, there's so much time and sweat and love and tears and everything that has gone into those.
00:52:30
chelsea willis
um And so really understanding just the the fact that it is really a labor of love. I think anyone that makes it in farming years, at like, you know, long, long time, like it is because we really love what we do.
00:52:47
Jennifer Gulizia
That's beautiful. Thank you. Okay. The last of my quick fire questions is what are you most grateful for that flowers has given you beyond the blooms?
00:52:58
chelsea willis
I think it's really the connections I've made with people through them. It's the people I've met. I've met some incredible humans that I would not have met without doing this. And it's it's just so fun to watch those friendships and relationships build over the years when our, you know,
00:53:17
chelsea willis
initial point of contact was flowers. And now some of those people are the people I go to for just like, you know, anything or like we've built these really deep friendships. And so it's just that connection with other people.
00:53:31
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. The connections in this industry are so great, which is how I heard about your farm is at the end of last season, i asked our listeners who they would like to hear. And your name was mentioned multiple times. And so then I looked up your farm and reached out to you. So this was super fun. And I want to encourage those who are listening today, if you have any suggestions for future guests that you think everyone else would enjoy hearing from in the floral industry, I would love for you to send me those suggestions, whether that's on Instagram at the Backyard Bouquet Podcast or sending me an email or leaving a comment in our reviews. So um you guys really helped shape the direction of this podcast. And Chelsea, before we say goodbye today, will you please tell our listeners how they can connect with you outside of the podcast?
00:54:24
chelsea willis
Absolutely. um Instagram is probably the easiest way. um It's sweetdelilahflowerfarm on Instagram. um And you can also connect through our website, which is sweetdelilahfarm.com. But I'm most active on Instagram. And then um through our website, you can sign up through the newsletter, which is how we announce all of our seed sales, tuber sales, farm events, all that stuff.
00:54:50
Jennifer Gulizia
Wonderful. We will provide links to those in today's show notes so our listeners can connect with you. Chelsea, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been such a delight to chat with you.
00:55:01
chelsea willis
and Thank you so much for having me on. This has been really lovely and I love listening to the podcast. So I'm just super excited.
00:55:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, thank you. We'll chat with you soon. And maybe one of these days I'll make it out to Savi Island and I can see your sweet peas in bloom.
00:55:18
chelsea willis
Yeah, that would be awesome.
00:55:19
Jennifer Gulizia
All right. Thanks, Chelsea. Bye-bye.
00:55:22
chelsea willis
Bye.