We recently connected with Lauren & Jason Murvine and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lauren & Jason, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
In the fall of 2021 we (my husband Jason and I with the help of our kids) purchased and planted 660 bare roots and launched our peony farm without any real experience growing peonies.
There is a level of risk and worry in doing something for the first time especially in such a large volume. However, after a series of events, it seemed like a logical step. In 2020 Jason and I purchased my families 7 generation farmhouse on 2.5 acres. We often dreamed about what we could do with our acreage down the road that would keep the property in agriculture. We had implemented several test projects on our land (pigs, cut flowers, apple trees) in order to to experiment with what we would want to have.
When our space was evaluated for tax purposes, we were told that the grassy 1/4 of an acre at the corner of our property would need to be used for some sort of crop or our property taxes would be higher than anticipated.
I mentioned to Jason that if he were going to plant something over there I might like to have a row or two of peonies. Jason researched it and learned that peonies could be a profitable business on a small plot of land. Soil test confirmed we had a great spot to give them a try. After a couple of years of tending to the plants and navigating their different needs, we’ve learned to care effectually for our plants, and harvest and hold our crop.
The second part of the challenge has been marketing and selling our fresh cut peonies with no local/ simple funnel in place to do that. We’ve managed to sell out our stems each year and we’ve hosted two well attended “Peony Festival” events last year. We call that a huge success for the beginning of our operation. We plan to continue our Annual Peony Festival as well as You-Pick Events for years to come.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Sure! Both of our backgrounds are very diverse. Jason has worn many hats with experience as a personal trainer, as a public health inspector, and as a State Park Ranger in North Carolina. He is also a skilled photographer, Timberframer, and he has a knack for growing & fixing whatever he sets his mind to. We met when I happened to come on board as a personal trainer at the same facility and we married 2 years later. I spent 9 years in education, before becoming a stay at home mom and launching my decor business “Walnut Ridge Wedding Rentals.” Two things Jason and I have in common is our strong enthusiasm for planning events and our eye for detail. I believe that our unique job experiences and histories have given us an advantage in bringing events to reality here at Walnut Ridge Farm.
We aim to offer the experience of visiting a small farm to people who might not otherwise get that chance. There’s a beauty in peony flowers themselves and we believe that experiencing them out in the open on a historic family property with a view is wonderful combination. We aim to offer a charming wholesome experience for each visitor who attends our festival or purchases our flowers. Our farm is a place to breath a sigh of relief, take in the beauty, and enjoy a picturesque evening in the country.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Since the beginning we have made an effort to just be ourselves and genuinely share what we are trying to do here on the farm. We (Jason and I) have not been afraid to be the face of Walnut Ridge Farm.
Our advice would be to just get started, make your posts personal and be consistent with your sharing/posting. Put some thought into several quality posts that might attract your audience and express your passion for what you are doing, especially in those early days.
Fortunately for us, in the same year that we launched our Facebook and Instagram page, we ran across old video footage of my (Lauren’s) great grandpa, grandpa, aunts uncles and dad working on our farm in generations past. Jason was able to weave that footage in with our own photos and videos to make a heartfelt video that expresses our dream for the farm and the history it holds.
We were able to embed this on our website and share on social media. That video alone brought us many new followers and eager festival goers. Together, Jason and I make a pretty good marketing team.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I remember one night in the middle of peony season, standing in our garage in wet clothes at midnight, removing the leaves off of flowers after a failed “You-Pick” event that ended in a thunderstorm. We had been working at this for several hours, and when I stopped to count what we needed to do to go in and go to sleep, we still had hundreds of flowers to process.
When our flower season is at it peak, we harvest three times each day. Each time you harvest the “ripe” flowers, you must de-leaf each steam and wrap them in paper to be dry-held in a flower cooler. On this particular night, we decided to allow some flowers to fully open in the field and host a last minute you-pick event.
Our spur-of-the-moment advertising didn’t get the reach we had hoped for. Only 6 people attended our You-Pick event, so after the visitors left there were hundreds of blooms left in the field to be harvested and that’s when the rainstorm moved in.
On that night, our first festival hadn’t happened yet. I remember feeling exhausted, very defeated, and a bit worried that this was foreshadowing to what our attendance might always be for farm events.
We managed to sell all of the stems from that night to local florists and remain optimistic for the festival. Within 2 weeks of this let-down, we hosted 800 visitors at our festival and finished the year with incredible sales and a highly successful season.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.walnutrigefarmohio.com
- Instagram: @walnutridgefarmohio
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/walnutridgefarmohio
Image Credits
@lavender.and.mint_photography