Who We Are

Helen Skiba chats with Jackson Rollett of No-Till Growers about Artemis Flower Farm’s farming practices: no-till on clay soils, integrating cover crops, no-till in flower production, intercropping with cover crops, mulching, fertilizing cautiously, and more.

An ecology-focused farm pays attention to the interconnections that allow us to grow our flowers. We make space for all the living creatures that make their home on the land we cultivate, whether they are nematodes, spiders, Say’s phoebes, bobcats, earthworms, bumblebees, foxgloves, or humans. We use homemade biological amendments from Korean Natural Farming to add nutrients and native organisms to our soils, limiting inputs from outside the farm. We use vermicompost produced here on the farm by Ver de Terre, one of the Collective members. We avoid pesticide use with IPM methods like cultivation, physical exclusion, and supplementing our farm’s ecosystem with insect predators like green lacewings, predatory wasps, and ladybugs. We are a no- and low-till farm, limiting disturbance of our soils so that the bacteria, archaea, and fungi have a chance to build their homes and create ideal plant growing conditions. We practice as much cover cropping, mulching, and animal integration as possible on our small scale, always seeking to protect our soils the way grass did when this land was native prairie.

By growing over 100 species of flowers, we invite diversity to our farm and provide nectar sources not only for honeybees, but for native bees, wasps, butterflies, and hummingbirds. We plant native and ornamental perennials to hold soil, provide overwintering habitat for birds, and to create windbreaks and microclimates on the farm. We use drip irrigation to limit evaporation and water use. We buy long-lasting materials for the farm like woven landscaping fabric, instead of thin-film plastic mulch, canvas sandbags instead of flimsy plastic ones, and invincible Winstrip seedling trays over thin plastic ones that need to be trashed every year. In our studio, we use rental vases to avoid the massive waste common in the wedding industry, as well as durable mechanics like chicken wire and flower frogs in place of carcinogenic and micro-plastic producing floral foam. Any packaging is compostable or recyclable, from the tape we use to package our bulb and tuber boxes, to the cards in our bouquets. 

We believe our people practices are sustainable, too. As part of the Treehouse Farm Collective, we are creating an interdependent web of farmers and communities that, because of its diversity and depth, is strong and resilient. We strive to give our employees the best working environment possible and cultivate a farm workplace that values and protects, rather than exploits, the passion of young people for nature, farming, and a truly regenerative world. By inviting customers to the farm for dinners, workshops, and flower pick ups, we help human beings build connections to the landscape and ecosystems where they live, and to revel in the beauty, strength, and meaning of the land. 

Helen explains how she integrates saving flower seed into her production field for on-farm use, how and why she chooses to save certain varieties, and everything about dahlia tuber propagation and sales.

The Treehouse Farm Collective discusses land access and our model that respects both pre-existing individual farm business autonomy, while reaping many of the benefits of farming closely with others. Shout out to collective members Nelson and Matt who were present in spirit.