Today we’d like to introduce you to Ceylan Odunkesenler and Daniel Rohrabaugh.
Ceylan and Daniel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We started farming specialty cut flowers three years ago after many years of maintaining a personal home garden. Initially, Daniel was most interested in growing vegetables when we met Erin, a full-time veggie farmer of Brightside Farm. Her operation inspired Daniel to become part of a work share with Joe Reynolds of Love is Love Farm at Gaia Gardens, where he worked in exchange for a discount on our weekly vegetable share. Through a combination of the work share and Ceylan working as a farmhand on a dairy goat farm that was host to an organic vegetable farm, Daniel found an apprenticeship with our friend Matthew Bagshaw who is now the farmer of Timpson Creek Farm.
We attended the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference in 2017, where we learned about cut flowers and pretty much became obsessed and determined to cultivate flowers. We met seven years ago and connected through our love of dogs, plants, and most importantly our close relationships with our grandparents. Cut flowers felt especially sentimental to Ceylan because they are a reminder of the love and support shared between her grandma and grandpa. We got to a point too where we knew so many vegetable farmers that we felt like the market was a little saturated and we wanted to support our friends, not compete, so why not offer an entirely different kind of crop.
Our name was inspired by our three sweet doggies. Ceylan is a bit of a linguist, fluent in three languages and with five years of Latin under her academic belt. While brainstorming farm names, we knew whatever we chose needed to share significance to both of us and to reflect who we are as people. We are adopt don’t shop kinda folks and it just so happens that each of our pups a terrier mixed breed. Many farms have really cute kitschy names and we really just felt like that wasn’t us and that we are more of a rugged DIY duo and transparency is important to us. Terrier is a French word that stems from the Latin root “terra” means earth so the literal translation is “Earth Dog.”
Has it been a smooth road?
Absolutely not. Land access is the greatest barrier to aspiring farmers. We struggled to find a secure, grow space that was both physically and financially accessible to us. We have had to vacate a previous grow space and even now it is still challenging as a renter because there is no true freedom or security in growing in a space that is not your own. The effects of climate change are also very real and I don’t think anyone experiences it as blatantly as farmers do.
Our winters are getting shorter and shorter and it is very hard to grow and produce quality plants in such unpredictable and sometimes harsh weather conditions. Southern farmers are never not battling weeds and insect pests so it can be very challenging when you are trying to employ exclusively organic practices like we do. We have definitely experienced our fair share of crop failures which are always a financial hit but often also an emotional blow. We have both totally cried over flowers.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Earth Dog Flowers – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
We are a small, ecologically-minded flower farm. It is just the two of us with some occasional volunteer help. We grow intensively on about 1/10th of an acre using cover crops, lots of compost, and organic amendments. We manage to produce a surprising abundance in a small area by spacing plants close together and by using small tunnels covered in clear plastic to protect the flowers from rain and cold. We have devoted a lot of time to educating ourselves on flowers that grow well in our area, and the right times to plant and harvest them. We also follow trends in the sustainable floristry industry, and we try to grow the most sought after cultivars.
The local cut flower market is pretty niche, but as more and more people become interested in where their food comes from, many flower lovers have become more interested in where their flowers come from. We have had good success selling at the Green Market and Piedmont Park and are looking forward to a second year there. We sell to a few local restaurants for table arrangements, as well as to local florists who value fresh, natural blooms that have not been sprayed with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and shipped thousands of miles from South America.
This year we are starting a small flower CSA. Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is a market model where people can support local farmers by paying upfront for several weeks’ worth of product. For vegetable farmers, that means a weekly box with a variety of what’s available. For flower farmers, it could be a weekly bouquet or a mixed bunch of what’s blooming that week. CSA helps to keep farmers farming even during lean months.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
We like the twelve-minute drive from our farm to our farmers’ market on Saturday morning. We love that there are lots of florists that are interested in buying locally grown flowers, herbs, and greenery. Our favorite thing though, is the Atlanta food scene. There is so much collaboration between local chefs and farmers that there are always delicious things to eat or places to try and the opportunity for local food makers to pop up all over the city is a special treat and privilege.
We hate that Atlanta is the literal capital of income inequality. We have the highest wealth and income disparity in the nation. Gentrification is rampant and local natives are pushed from their homes every day to make way for silly superfluous property development to be enjoyed only by those who can afford it. We hate the lack of affordable housing and designated green or agricultural spaces. When the Beltline was first being developed there were plans for edible landscaping and farm space but so far that has yet to come to fruition and seems very unlikely.
Pricing:
- Our flowers generally cost 1-1.50/stem, or $10-$20/mixed bunch
Contact Info:
- Website: www.earthdogflowers.bigcartel.com
- Email: earthdogflowers@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/earthdogflowers
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthdogflowers/
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