We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kathryn Davis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kathryn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Funny story on coming up with the name for Our Farm Fresh. We had the vision and started the process of growing fresh vegetables with the intension of delivering them directly to the consumers in a weekly share of the crop grown. As well as an add on of beautiful freshly cut cottage garden flowers to brighten their day. The selection of varieties of vegetables and flowers had been decided on and seeds were ordered, the garden layout was drawn up, the low tunnel was ordered and ready to be delivered, our delivery areas decided on, and all we needed was a name to start advertising the shares we had available.
We struggled with something so simple, yet complex, a name, my husband and I. Did we want to use our names, Davis Family Farm, C & K Farm, etc? Our list of possible farm names was long and we didn’t feel any of these names really gave the consumers the idea of what our business was or what we had to offer.
One day, as we were getting seriously close to the deadline on choosing a name for our business, we were driving up to our small country acreage, 1900’s farmhouse with the full front porch and a cozy 2 seater swing we built ourselves, the frost glistening on the massive maple tree guarding our home. my husband and business partner says, “Honey, what should we call our farm?”
We looked at each other and simultaneously said “Our Farm” and laughed. It took having the name said out loud for us to finally decide on a name for our business that supplied fresh products grown on our farm to consumers in our area. It’s a simple name, yet it says so much about who we are, what we stand for, and what we do. This is Our Farm, we do this all together as a family. Our Farm where we raise our children. Our Farm where we grow.

Kathryn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Our Farm Fresh is a small family farm located in beautiful Southeast Minnesota. We are the Davis family, Craig, Kathryn, and our 2 boys Emerson and Mason. Our family business is a Greenhouse, Flower Farm, and Florist providing our local area with the freshest flowers and plants we possibly can.

We are a unique florist, a farmer florist, as we grow many of our own cut flowers, during our growing season, that we use in our floral arranging for everyday arrangements and wedding florals. Flowers that are a little more difficult to ship, flowers that are a little more difficult to find and source, flowers that are picked the day before they are delivered to ensure the longest vase life and freshest look for the event they are needed for. The flowers we use, that we have grown here on our farm, have a little extra specialness and a connection to us, giving you the opportunity to know where your flowers came from. Each arrangement, bouquet, and centerpiece is created special by Kathryn. While the Minnesota growing season isn’t very long, we do try to extend our growing season as long as we can by using a short hoophouse and our greenhouse after the spring bedding plants and hanging baskets have been moved out. The rest of the year and during winter months, we source our flowers as locally as we can.

In our greenhouse side of the business, we grow thousands of colorful and unique bedding plants and huge, gorgeous hanging baskets (mini gardens as Kathryn calls them, because each basket is uniquely designed) in the spring, glorious mums in the fall, and offer spectacular outdoor winter evergreen arrangements individually made by Kathryn, handmade wreaths created on site, and displays designed at your location. All of our plants are grown here, including mums, which you will see starting to grow here the beginning of June from a tiny plug to a fully blooming beauty in September.

Since Kathryn was a toddler, her interest in flowers and things that grow took root. Spending time outdoors, in the flowers, in the vegetable garden, playing in the dirt, with her mother and grandmother sparked the interest and kept it growing. In her school days, Kathryn took interest in arranging flowers and started entering her designs in the local county fairs. receiving many ribbons and praise, she continued to create more and more. During a high school trial mentorship program, she found herself at a local greenhouse and learned so much from her mentors there, sparking a new interest in growing in a greenhouse. Later she would manage this same greenhouse location for several years before heading out on her own.

Craig grew up on a farm raising hogs, vegetables and strawberries. His family was very loving and influential in his decisions and where life took him. Starting early, Craig learned the business side of running a family farm, marketing what you raised, and communicating well with others. He raised acres of fresh produce and strawberries that were made available to consumers at the local farmers markets. Craig has lots of knowledge in business and is the main marketing person here on our farm, traveling to local farmers markets and promoting our products.

Together we make a great team and have the knowledge and experience to enjoy growing our business for our family for years to come.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Over the past years Our Farm Fresh has evolved into what it is today. There have been several factors that have changed the original plan of delivering fresh produce and flowers to becoming more focused on cut flowers and bedding plants.

Our original plan of business was to find a way for us to work together as a family, grow a business that our children could grow up learning from, stay closer to our home and community, and support us financially along the way. Craig was traveling all the time as a fieldman for a company that worked with marketing farmers products. Kathryn was working on a grocery delivery route that she took over from Craig when he took his new fieldman position.

Being a young family with our son, Emerson and Mason on the way, we knew we wanted a change. Something that would keep us closer to home and something we could call our own, something we could do from home with 2 young kids.

Having successfully grown a large market garden several years before, we decided it would be amazing and beneficial to offer a fresh vegetable delivery service, as it too was lacking in our area as something offered. We wanted to deliver directly to each person/family to create the connection of farm to table, quite literally. Little did we know, a pandemic was on the horizon.

As the uncertainty of many things came into play, we saw our vegetable delivery take off, but not the flowers so much. We committed to providing 16 weeks worth of fresh vegetables and our garden overproduced. It was hard to market the extra with the events that were taking place, so much was donated, which we were happy to be able to do. The flowers also produced like crazy! We set out to market the fresh cut flowers to local florists and grocery stores. While we sold some that way, our best market on the extra flowers was offering a create your own bouquet self serve tent on the weekends. So many smiles and happy people. We all needed a little bit of extra happiness, kindness, and colorful flowers that summer. We ended up setting up 2 tents full of flowers to keep up with the demand.

While the interest in vegetables started decline, the locally grown flowers interest started to increase. We were asked more and more to create arrangements, bouquets and weddings! We started the bedding plants and hanging baskets which took off great as well. Each year we learn what works best for us, where our time and effort is best spent, and what is most received by our community.

Because of the support of our customers and having faith that our business will succeed and continue to do so, we keep going forward and are excited for what the future has in store for us. Keep your chin up, don’t give up. Even though things might not go exactly how you had planned, you will find out what does work best for you, and do that.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Definitely one of the best ways for us to build our reputation and business was and is our great customers and them spreading the news of our business by word of mouth and social media posts. Happy customers sharing their experiences and their pictures from weddings and events is amazing to help others decide if we are the right choice.

Providing the best quality and freshest flowers and a unique product has helped our business to become a name people remember when they find the need for fresh flowers and their plants in the spring. Bringing the best we had to the local farmers markets as examples of what we had seasonally also helped those who were looking for future flowers decide on choosing us for their flowers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ourfarmfresh.net
• Instagram: ourfarmfresh
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ourfarmfresh
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ourfarmfresh2996

Image Credits
Photos by Kathryn Davis/Our Farm Fresh LM Photography