So, what do you like best about what you do?” This question was tossed out at Frank while visiting with Johnny’s Selected Seed’s founder Rob Johnston at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) conference last February. Frank is not usually at a loss for words, but a noncommittal “Uh…I don’t really know…” was all that would come out. Lots of ideas were clashing together in his brain– all the great stuff about being your own boss and working outside and raising a family, the plants, the food, etc–but no single idea could filter to the top. Working against them were all the rough spots that come with being a self-employed farmer: drought, labor, long hours, cash flow (it was February), labor, grasshoppers, labor. What resulted was a blank stare as Frank looked over Rob’s shoulder at the colorful photographs in the Johnny’’s booth. “Uh…”

“That’s an easy one.” Pamela said, when Frank returned with the story. “We get to learn something new every day.”

Isn’t that the truth?! Every day has a new set of challenges. Like the time a few weeks ago when Frank got a call late Saturday afternoon. The one-ton delivery van was broken down in the left hand lane of a downtown Austin freeway, after the farmers’ market. Our market worker was new, the truck was big, there was a four-hour wait for a tow truck, and there was a cop behind the truck demanding that we get it off the road. Frank learned how to handle all this by telephone from a remote location (our farm!). After a $254 towing bill to get it home, we found out it was out of gas. (Frank had to learn to control his temper at this point!) A different driver had brought it back with no gas after Friday’s deliveries. When questioned, he said “Well, you don’t have a written policy that the driver is supposed to fill up every trip.” (Frank was backsliding a bit on the temper lessons. That guy no longer works here.) Why the market driver didn’t look at the gauge is still a mystery.
So, the big thing we are learning this year is to write it all down. Lists. Job lists, picking lists, trip logs, instructions, you name it. Things as mundane as “Check the fuel gauge on every trip.” The goal is to someday have a complete manual of everything that we do. Probably a pipe dream, considering the complex nature of farming, but we need to try. One of the first things we are working on is a guide to harvest, and we thought it might be interesting to share some of what we are putting together.

Basic lessons in harvest
Although our crew this year is experienced in picking, we start each season back at the beginning. That means clean buckets. Before anything is picked, buckets must be clean. We have a set-up on long, trough-like photo developing tables that we got second hand. The guys are given a list of sizes and quantities to wash. Buckets are first washed with detergent, then given a Clorox rinse and stacked to dry. We can’t overemphasize the importance of super-clean buckets. Bacteria are the main reason flowers go down, and dirty buckets feed bacteria. It is that simple.

For cutting, we use Felco # 2 pruners. These are available through any horticultural supply company. They are expensive and everyone is issued a pair at the beginning of the season and asked to put their name on them. They are to be kept very sharp, and have adjustments for keeping them in good working order. Ergonomically, they are the best we know of for working all day without wrist strain. They come in other models, and left-hand versions, but we like the basic #2.

Now here’s the hard part. How to cut. Every plant is different, but there are some basic overall rules. We need consistency. We have two uses for the flowers–straight bunches or bouquets. We need our pickers to be the first step in consistency. So with each flower, we set guidelines as to stem length, stage of harvest, leaves stripped, etc. We make it clear what flowers we need cut for bouquets and what will be straight bunched.

For making bouquets, it is important that the flowers are all cut to the same length. When Pamela gets the flowers in the shed, she lays them all out on tables, and when the stems are a consistent length, it eliminates one step in making the bouquets. Our standard length for a bouquet stem is 24 inches. This is measured in the field by using Frank’s arm. With his arm bent, it is the length of his forearm from the elbow to the tip of his fingers, plus 4 inches. Frank will cut a stem, and then hand it around so everyone can see where this measurement would be on their own arm. We will periodically check this because it is easy to “drift” off course. We call it the Theory of Relativity. When you start off with a 24-inch stem, that is the relative baseline. But over time, you tend to drift to longer or shorter stems, and then each stem that we cut becomes the new relative baseline, and everything is cut even to that. Pretty soon we have a bucket of 16-inch zinnias that we can’t use. So we get the crew to keep referring back to that arm measurement.

The actual movement of picking will, overtime, become a zen-like activity that shouldn’t require too much thought. When we pick a zinnia, for instance, we pull up lightly on the stem using our two forefingers on our left hand. This movement will show you which stem down below that you are aiming for. Then, by holding our left hand in a consistent position, through practice, we learn just how far we need to lean over to cut the stem at just the right length. After a while, can almost do this without looking. As the left hand pulls up, the right hand goes down, and if you always keep your hands the same distance apart, the stems will be the same length. Practice, practice. As we are reaching down to cut, we actually move our eyes ahead to he next flower to be cut. By holding tension on the flower with your left hand, you can feel with the tip of your Felcos if you are about to cut the correct stem. It will be taught, like a guitar string. By keeping your eyes one step ahead of your hands, you can really fly down the row.

How to cut, hold and strip foliage
We can cut, strip, and hold a lot of flowers at the same time. The key here is to hold the flowers so they are hanging down. Many people try to hold the flowers up, like a bouquet, while picking. This works against gravity, and the bunch is always trying to fall apart. We hold all the flowers in our left hand (assuming right-handedness) using the last two fingers to hold the bunch. Tip the flowers toward you as you reach down to grab the next stem. You can hold a lot of stems and still have your thumb and forefingers open to hold and strip stems. Once the stem is cut, we transfer it to our right hand (holding our Felcos in the last 2 fingers), flipping it upside down and then pulling it through our thumb and index finger of our left hand to strip the stems. All in one motion. This leaves the cut end even with the bunch in our left hand, where we reach out a finger and add the stem to the bunch.

It is very important that all the cut stems are even. If they are not, then they won’t all be in the water in the bucket, and some will be wilted before you get them back. We watch our pickers carefully on this one because one careless worker can ruin a lot of flowers. One time we rode this point too hard, though. All the flowers started coming in amazingly uniform, but just a little too short. What was going on? Turns out the guys were making a second cut every now and then to even up the bottoms of the bunch. Trouble with this was that they first evened all the tops, and then cut the bottoms level with the shortest stem! There’s that Theory of Relativity again. So we have a stated policy–NO RE-CUTTTING! Never. We’ll handle that in the shed. The best way to keep the stems even is to periodically give all the stem ends a little tap with the side of your Felcos. This taps down the long stems. We get in a habit of doing that every few cuts.

As our hands fill up, we need to get the stems in the buckets. The golden rule here is to never set the bunches on the ground. Never! First of all, they pick up dirt and bacteria. Secondly, there will always be a bunch or two that gets overlooked. We hate finding a dried out bunch of flowers lost in the row. If we set flowers down, we try to set them on some Tenax netting off the ground. We designate one person on a picking crew to carry flowers from the pickers. Their job is to mix up the picking solutions, carry the flowers down the row for the other pickers, and get the flowers out of the sun as fast as possible. At first, no one wanted that job because it didn’t seem macho enough to run around carrying flowers for others, but it soon became apparent that this person had to hustle! It is probably the hardest job of all, and commands respect. We use one person carrying for 5 other pickers. The carrier does not pick unless things are running slow.

Using this system, it is important that all pickers work in a group. We have one guy who likes to work by himself, and if allowed, he’ll run off and start picking odds and ends in other beds. We’ll show up and he’s off “beetling about” alone, running up and down the row to his bucket. We have to gently shoo him back into the fold.

The carrier is also responsible for mixing the hydration solutions for picking. Hydration solutions are basically a surfactant that breaks down the surface tension of the water so the water can travel more easily up the tiny capillary tubes in the stem. Here in the Texas heat, this is essential. There are several kinds of hydrators. For our sunflowers, we use Hydraflor, from Floralife. We cut and bunch sunflowers in the field, set the bunches for half an hour in Hydraflor and then transfer them into clear water. Sunflowers are the only flowers that we field-pack. Hydraflor can burn petals if the stems are left in too long. For all our other flowers we use Chrysal OVB. Flowers can remain in OVB until processing. The exception is zinnias. They can get over-hydrated and the stems curl, and in really hot weather, the petals can get burned.

We move them to clear water after an hour or so. Both solutions are available at floral wholesalers.

It is super important to mix these solutions correctly. Otherwise they could be ineffective, or even worse, burn the flowers. OVB come with the directions of one capful to 4 gallons of water. We have to watch the crew for “drift”, when they start passing up the measurement, and start using the “Bloop” system. We’ll catch someone looking around, and then just tipping the jug of OVB and giving a generous “Bloop” of concentrate into a five gallon bucket. No way, Jose! It is bad for the flowers and wastes expensive concentrate. So write it down. We have a “No Blooping” policy.

Packing the buckets is always an issue. As the buckets are filled, they are moved into a box truck and out of the sun. We want to efficiently use those expensive buckets of OVB solution, so we want them full, but the temptation is always there to overpack. We say you should always be able to slide your hand down in the bucket alongside the stems. We always check the buckets when they arrive from the field, and often have to separate flowers into more buckets. This especially happens to the buckets that are picked in a rush just before lunch! So our policy says “Do not overpack”.

Market preferences
As we mentioned above, sunflowers are the only item that we pack in the field. But we do separate flowers for straight bunches and bouquets while cutting. Mostly we do this with tall flowers such as larkspur. One set of pickers goes down a row and picks all the stems over a certain size, and then another set follows right behind and gets the bouquet material. This helps avoid having to separate the stems back in the shed. Also, we strip more leaves off of bouquet stems tan we do from straight bunch material, so this makes it easier for pickers to strip leaves consistently.

When cutting tall stuff like larkspur and lilies, watch out for that Theory of Relativity again. For tall stems, we usually say “cut to the ground”, but soon the stems will get a little shorter, and a little shorter, but they are still “relatively” taller than the bouquet stems. What happens is the pickers bend over a little less each time, and pretty soon we are leaving 8 or 10 inches of stem back there in the row. Ouch. That can be the difference between a bouquet stem and a premium stem. So we have a “Cut to the ground” policy.

Trying to pin down anything in farming is like going after a moving target, and harvesting is even more so. All of these parameters can change depending on weather, time of year, or even the type of customer or orders we have. One year we had a florist order a quantity of long-stemmed zinnias. We have to retrain the crew to cut them long, just for one day. One guy got really frustrated! So we really are all constantly learning.

Inspired to raise a barn
Earlier we mentioned the PASA conference. (pasafarming.org) Frank was invited to speak at the conference last February. It was really an amazing gathering of farmers. There were about 1600 like-minded farmers all in one room! More than we have in the whole state of Texas! Logistically, it is a miracle they can host that many people and feed them all great, locally produced food. Make time to go to next year’s conference. Frank came home all fired up to build a big Pennsylvania-style barn at our market! The idea has taken on a life of its own, and with the help of a bunch of local carpenters and woodworkers, we are going to have an Amish-type barn raising on Saturday, July 22. We are styling the barn after a local 100 year-old German dance hall. It should be quite an event. Watch our web site, www.texascolor.com, for more info.ï ¹

Pamela and Frank Arnosky are the owners of Texas Specialty Cut Flowers in Blanco, Texas. They produce 20 acres of cut flowers, which they market to supermarkets, natural foods stores, florists, and direct to the public at their own farm market.

The Arnoskys are the authors of We’re Gonna Be Rich: Growing Specialty Cut Flowers for Market, which is available to GFM readers at the special price of $15 plus $4 shipping. To order, send a check to GFM, PO Box 3747, Lawrence KS 66046; or phone toll-free 800-307-8949.