Farmstead Flowers - Oxford, MS

There is something really joyful about flower farms. Bright bursts of colors filling rows and rows across the land, tall stems stretching towards the sky, waiting to be added to the most beautiful arrangements. A finite season of fleeting beauty, only lasting for a few days, but creating joy to fill entire spaces. Just outside Oxford, Mississippi, in what I think is north of the college town, where the rolling hills start to rise up a flower farm, Farmstead Florals, owned by Katherine Sharp brings seasonal beauty to cities all over The South. 

“I've always loved being outside, sweating, and getting dirty, but that lifestyle became all the more rewarding when I added flowers to the mix! It is hard to believe that I am in my seventh season raising cut flowers for florists and groceries” writes Katherine. “I came by farming naturally as my parents owned a vegetable farm in South Louisiana where I was raised but summer of 2016 I decided to put my own spin on the family business and started growing flowers here in Oxford. The feeling of planting a seed, watering, weeding, pruning, and nourishing it as it grows bushy with blooms coupled with the minor success that I had selling the stems was enough to make me go out on my own and make Farmstead Florals my full time job.  Slow and steady has been the motto as I grew from 3/4 of an acre to 5 acres all open fields, starting with selling just to one of the local florist in town and the Saturday farmers market to now 30+ florist and groceries across three states, 2 farmers markets, and our Self Serve Honor Stand on the Oxford Square.  

“Our meat and potatoes is selling wholesale to florists but most people around town know us for the "on your Oxford honor" self-serve flower stand we keep stocked 24/7 in the middle of downtown. Having not been an Oxford native I was at first a little skeptical of whether an unmanned, glorified lemonade stand with a cash box drilled into the side selling mason jar bouquets would work or not.  But having been rejected with an armful of flowers more than a handful of times I remembered my business mantra for success, "some say yes, some say no, so what, who cares, who's next,"  and decided to go for it!  I was amazed at not only how well the stand did from the sales side but also how quickly the community took to it, did right by it and claimed it and my budding business as a new fixture of our small town. My nickname soon became "the flower girl" and I loved it and was so happy to call Oxford my new home!”

Never before did I think of myself as a creative person until I found flower arranging. I love playing with the different textures and color pallets and watching as the bouquets change each week from May to October as different varieties come and go out of season. In the winter months when there is little to nothing to do but wait for the rain to stop and Spring to come, I found myself itching for a new creative outlet. With the few flowers I had hung to dry as an experiment I made my first dried floral wreath! Pleased with the final product, we strung some lines of twine and turned an old out of use box refrigerator for vegetables into a drying room for flowers! Now in October when the frost comes and kills all of our flowers overnight we put away our mason jars and get to work making wreath rings out of branches around the farm and using floral wire to secure dried and faded blooms to our natural base. 

One of my favorite things about living and working on a farm is there is a never ending to do list and an endless amount of projects you can inspire. I feel so fortunate to have found my passion and been given the opportunities to thrive so early on.