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A podcast focusing on the perspectives, lives, and stories of Kansans to provide greater insight into the state we all call home.
AAK_Ep45
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Local TikTok Find: McPherson Antique Store Ad That Cracked Us Up
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[00:00:00]
Sydney Collins: So there's um, an antique store in McPherson that, did some very good, TikTok and it just made me giggle 'cause it was local. And I was like, why is this on my TikTok feed? 'cause it was local. So here you go. Here's your market.
TikTok: Here in McPherson, Kansas.
Sydney Collins: TikTok for the day
TikTok: every day, hundreds of antiques are left behind here at the Arks Antiques flea market.
Every time people walk past and leave them on the shelf, their happiness slowly dwindles.
But with we can drastically improve the lives of these antiques. Each time you come in and purchase something, you're not only giving that antique a new lease on life, but also giving hope. Do those left behind, but maybe tomorrow might be their day. I could feel it today. Today is my day, so stop into the arc.
Antique Simply Marcus today to brighten the lives of some of the vintage and antique [00:01:00] items we have here at the store.
Why the Ad Works: Sound Effects, Song Choice & Instant Nostalgia
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Sydney Collins: So, hi. Good
Tanner: marketing.
Sydney Collins: I was 10 outta 10. The thing that makes it so good was the added sound effects. Mm-hmm. And you really felt the, the Well,
Tanner: the song with the sound
Sydney Collins: effects. Well, the song with the sound effects, but I'm saying the sound effects made it feel more like,
Tanner: but anytime you, the dog and
Sydney Collins: the
Tanner: song is, yeah.
Anytime that song comes on, that's exactly what you think about and you stop and you just, you, you at least give that a little more time because of that song and then the sound effects. Yeah. That was good.
Sydney Collins: God bless Sarah McLaughlin.
Welcome to Ask Kansan + Meet Today’s Guest (Vail Family Farms)
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Tanner: Welcome to Ask Kansan,
Sydney Collins: where we're amplifying, connecting and uncovering stories across Kansas.
Tanner: Today we had another great guest [00:02:00] on, uh, with us, um, Ashley Vail, uh, from Vail Family Farms. Yes. And it was, it was a great conversation.
Sydney Collins: It was a great conversation. And if you're wondering why Tanner's here, not Gus, Gus decided to go on vacation with his lovely wife.
Um, and they're having a blast, down under in Australia. Probably back by now when this airs, but, um, so the lovely tanner, our photojournalist is joining us today. So, Tanner was able to, um, talk to Ashley and get a, get her on, um, the episode today. And I learned a lot more about, uh, flower farming than.
I did before.
Tanner: I've known Ashley for a number of years and, and she's great. Her and Matt both are just amazing humans. And, uh, yeah, I mean, the, the world of flower farming is, is not something that most people think of. Uh, you, like she said in her episode, you just go to Dylan's or wherever.
Yeah. There's the flowers, but how do those get there? And, and, um, yeah. It was a great episode. Yeah.
Sydney Collins: So, without any further ado, here is our conversation with Ashley.
Getting Set Up: Ashley Joins the Conversation
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Sydney Collins: Hello? Hello. How's it going?
Ashley Vail: It's going. [00:03:00]
Sydney Collins: Have a seat. We'll get y'all set up here. Feel free to set up a little bit if you want. So short. Okay. You can just Okay. Fist away and however comfortable you wanna.
Ashley Vail: Okay.
Sydney Collins: Yeah.
Ashley Vail: All right.
Tanner: How are you?
Ashley Vail: Good, how are you? Well, can you introduce yourself or our audience?
What Is a Specialty Cut Flower Farm? Size, Scale & What They Grow
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Ashley Vail: So my name is Ashley Vail and I am the owner of Vail Family Farm.
Sydney Collins: And what does that all entail? Vail Family Farm. What do you guys do? What do you guys have?
Ashley Vail: What
Sydney Collins: are the goods? We
Ashley Vail: are a specialty cut flower farm. Um, we're about seven miles north of Salina and we're going into our sixth season this year.
And what does specialty cut mean? Specialty cut, just means, so we're a specialty crop producer.
Sydney Collins: Okay.
Ashley Vail: we only grow strictly cut flowers, so nothing else. Um. You might be familiar with, you know, like traditional [00:04:00] farming or
Sydney Collins: even veggie farming, but that's all we do is just flowers. It's just flowers. Cut flowers.
Yeah. Like can you give us kind of a size of like, what do you mean by that's the only thing that you have like
Ashley Vail: So when people think farm, I think they sometimes think of like acres and acres. Mm-hmm. Of things. But we live on five acres, but we have a half an acre of cut flowers in production.
Wow. And that doesn't seem like very much when you think of traditional farming, but a half an acre of cut flowers is a lot of flowers.
Tanner: You really utilize the space Well,
Ashley Vail: yeah.
Tanner: Yeah.
Ashley Vail: Yes. Everything's planted very close together. You can grow.
Sydney Collins: Thousands of flowers on just half an acre.
Annuals vs Perennials: The Peony Pivot (and Saving Your Back)
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Sydney Collins: So now, are these perennials that you're growing every year that they just naturally pop up?
Or do you have to plant every year? What kind of, what's the difference between like when we think of traditional farming, it's like, like, okay, we have to till, we need to plant, we have to.
Ashley Vail: Yeah, well we, it's a lot of the same process, with the Cut Flower Farm. [00:05:00] So our first five years we focused heavily on annuals.
So that means every single year we would start thousands and thousands of seeds inside our house 'cause we don't have a greenhouse, and then we would plant them out. that is a lot of work. It's
Sydney Collins: intense.
Ashley Vail: And so in our second year, so it was in 2022. We planted, about a thousand peonies, which are perennials.
Mm-hmm. and because we love them so much and because, uh, our customers seem to love them so much, we planted, another 900 this fall. Oh wow. So. We're focusing a little bit less on annuals. We are still gonna plant them 'cause people love them. But as far as, for, for me and my back mm-hmm. I, I decided, you know, we can plant some more perennials and people really, really love peonies.
So we we're, we're going that way. Okay.
How It Started: Pandemic Chickens to Full-On Flower Farming
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Ashley Vail: what made you guys go into the flower [00:06:00] biz. So, I don't know what, where I thought flowers came from before I started this. Uh, you know, I just thought you go to the grocery store or you go to your local florist and the flowers just magically appear.
Mm-hmm. that is not the case. So we got started because it was during the pandemic, we got chickens. And chickens are the gateway to
Tanner: natural progression.
Ashley Vail: Exactly. Chickens are the gateway to farming and all sorts of other things. So we started off selling our eggs, from our flock and our original flock.
We had like five. Quickly doubled and tripled and quadrupled. much to my husband's dismay, he built one chicken coop and then a week later we were like, this isn't gonna work. We gotta build another one. we got up to 45 chickens at the, oh my goodness. At the peak. I was on social media, on Instagram and you know, I was getting fed all this chicken content.
TikTok: Oh yeah.
Ashley Vail: I saw [00:07:00] somebody in Michigan who was flower farming, and I was like, that looks really cool. I feel like I, I could do that. Mm-hmm. Keep in mind had never grown anything in my life except for children. Like, that's, that's it. So, but I just, I don't know. I don't know why I'm like this, but when I decide I'm going to do something, I just.
Fully commit. And so that's what I did. Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of people advised me to start off small. They were like, you know, plant like a 12 by 12 patch. See what you. See what's easy to grow. See what people in your community like. and I planted a 60 by 80 field that first year.
Year One Reality Check: No Tunnels, No Tractor, Just Prairie Ground
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Tanner: Can we go back to, to that first?
'cause you weren't doing this full time No. When you first started. And tell us a little bit about that first year on, did you have the hoop houses or the, the, the houses? Um, things like that. Tell us what that first field kinda looked like.
Ashley Vail: Um, it looked like a whole lot of nothing. We didn't have a, we didn't have a, a high tunnel.
We didn't have any [00:08:00] structures that we were growing in. It was literally just, a flat part of our acreage that we have. And there's not a whole lot that's flat out there. but we just decided to go with, with that section. It looked like it was gonna be the best. I had a friend of mine who I went to high school with who was a farmer, and I said, Hey man, I don't have a tractor.
Can you please come and help me? And he did. Um, he drove his tractor like an hour away from his farm. Oh my gosh. All the way out to ours. And he did that first till because. Well, number one, I didn't have one. And, uh, we needed something heavy duty because where we live, um, used to be 40 acres and it's been broken up into little five acre lots.
and so there was cattle on it before. I mean, I, I don't know that it had ever been farmed. Yeah. so he came out, it was
Sydney Collins: probably real compact.
Ashley Vail: Oh yeah. Yeah. It was, um, it's just prairie grass and mm-hmm. It was like a, probably would've been like a hayfield. and so [00:09:00] he did that for us and. Now we've definitely expanded and um, it was my second or third season, I think it was year two.
Yeah. I was like looking at my neighbor who had a tractor and I was out there doing something, you know, really labor intensive. I think I was shoveling dirt and I just thought, man, I really wish I had a tractor. And so I talked about that on, Instagram and. Bobcat is a local company and they saw it and they came out and let me borrow a tractor for a week.
They came to get it and they took it back for a day and I was like, we gotta buy this tractor. I can't look without it.
Tanner: They knew what they were
Ashley Vail: doing. They knew what they, they did shout out us, Harvey's. Yes. Erin, Erin. Erin knew what she was doing. She knew what she was doing, and I'm so, so, so glad she did that though.
It really saved us. Yeah.
[00:10:00]
Extending the Season: High Tunnels, Grants & Kansas Wind Survival
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Tanner: So when you, when you were in that first year before you, before you built the high tunnels. Your growing season was significantly less than it is today.
Ashley Vail: Mm-hmm.
Tanner: So talk about that transition from now, from then till now you've got two high tunnels. Mm-hmm. And you are basically year round, um, working on this now.
Right,
Ashley Vail: right. So before we had any growing structures, we could really only grow in the summer. because as you know, anybody who's lived in Kansas or even been to Kansas for a day You know how, Crazy. The weather can be. So our growing season was really limited to the summer, like June to the first frost, which is, you know, could be October, could be September, just [00:11:00] depends.
so I really wanted to extend our growing season and one way to do that was by growing in some sort of a structure. Uh, so we purchased our first high tunnel, um, and we still have it today, but it was, it's 50 by 12. but I was able to cram a bunch of flowers in there, and we could extend our season, all the way until November.
Sydney Collins: Oh, wow.
Ashley Vail: and we could start earlier too.
Sydney Collins: Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vail: After we got one, of course I was like, man, I need another one because I wanna grow more. And so we actually got a grant through the NRCS, it's called the Equi Grant. And. We were the first in our county, so we're in Ottawa County to do this. And so we were all learning together.
but we got the grant fully funded, and so we were able to purchase an even bigger tunnel and a more robust tunnel because that first one we've, we've gotten really [00:12:00] lucky. So the first season we put up that smaller tunnel, that was the December where we had like 110 mile per hour wind gust in Salina.
And it, it. Hung in there.
Sydney Collins: Oh, wow.
Ashley Vail: Um, and it did really well for three years, but we've had to replace the plastic on that one. This other one, it's just much more robust and it's not going anywhere. That's good. And unless you know tornadoes, but other than that, we're good. And so, that's been really nice.
So we were able to double our spring production, which is one of our biggest, um. Biggest seasons, we saw a lot of flowers.
Selling the Blooms: Subscriptions, Farmers Markets & U-Pick Events
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Ashley Vail: in April and May, what does distribution look like? So we are direct to the consumer. and one of the main ways that we do that is through a flower subscription service. So just like you would get a subscription for.
Mm-hmm. Anything else? It's the same thing just with flowers. and we have done that. We've [00:13:00] done spring, we've done summer, we've done fall. I've even done a winter one 'cause I've grown tulips indoors. Um,
Sydney Collins: oh, okay.
Ashley Vail: In months. Like these, I did take this winter off, but, so that's the, that's the main way.
we have. A lot of subscribers who have been with us since the very beginning. And I look back at those pictures and I'm so glad that they had held, had some faith in me on, because I look at those first bouquets and then I look at, you know, what we have now. And it's, it's a lot different. but we have many, I would say 30 that are still with us from our first season.
and then the other thing that we do is also the farmer's market here in Salina. Uh, so we do that in the summer months, and then we also have folks come out to the farm so that they can cut their own flowers. Oh,
Sydney Collins: brilliant.
Ashley Vail: So we do a lot of private events, things for like baby showers. We have a book club that comes out every summer, sometimes twice a summer.
Uh, we have one group that they came out like four [00:14:00] times last year. They, they get together every month. They just come out and you get to cut your own bouquet, make your own arrangement. I show you how to do it. And it's so funny how everybody's ends up totally different even though they have the same flowers, but.
Sydney Collins: So do you, grow all the like extra greenery and things like that for your bouquets as well, or do you have to kinda outsource that?
Ashley Vail: so when I first started I kind of thought I had to grow everything. and so we did grow a lot of greenery, but what I've found is that nobody ever asks you for more greenery.
They ask you for more flowers. So there have been some times where I've supplemented and I usually try to get, things that I supplement from other flower farmers in Kansas. Mm-hmm. You would be shocked at how many flower farmers there are
in Kansas. Yes. And I'm friends with all of them. So you have to kind stick together.
because we're, you know, we grow a unique. Product, And there's unique [00:15:00] challenges that come with growing in Kansas. so we, I mean, we've all suffered some sort of crisis from the weather. so I try to go through them and then if I can't get anything, through them, then I might go to a local wholesaler.
But really we are not growing any greenery anymore because it's not what people want.
Tanner: Your space is, is prime, right? You'd rather be growing flowers in that
Ashley Vail: size. I'd rather be growing flowers. Um, and, and yeah, like I said, I've never had anybody ask for more greenery, but I have had them ask for more flowers so we stick to stick to the blooms.
Bouquets & Weddings: Design Pressure vs Being the Grower
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Sydney Collins: putting a bouquet together is an art.
Ashley Vail: Mm-hmm.
Sydney Collins: lots of trial and error. Um, I learned this through trying to do it myself for my wedding and epically failed and my aunt was like, you gotta stop and did it for me. So how was that learning process for you? Or did it come naturally?
Ashley Vail: Oh, no, no, it did not come naturally. Like I said, when I first started, things looked a lot different than what they do now. Um, I've [00:16:00] done a lot of education you know, I've had people teach me who are much better at it than me, and I do try to. Remind people that I am not a florist. I, I much prefer to be the grower.
Sydney Collins: Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vail: so I have had others teach me. But also something else we offer is, um, buckets of flowers for things like weddings, um, events. And I have dabbled in, in the wedding thing. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't think it's, for me, I mean, it's a lot of work. It, it's, well, it's not so much the work. I can handle the work.
It's the pressure. Yeah. we're, we're really sticking to offering those buckets. Mm-hmm. Um, and, you know, we give tips for people on, you know, how many flowers maybe that they should be putting in a bridal bouquet or a bridesmaid bouquet. but I, I do let. Leave that up to, uh, the per the customer.
Yeah.
Tanner: Same with photography. I stay away from wedding photography. 'cause the pressure.
Ashley Vail: Exactly, exactly. Every time I've done it, I've, you know, everybody's really liked their, their [00:17:00] flowers, but it is just,
Tanner: you just don't, you don't get any joy out of it. So it in turn
Ashley Vail: Right. I, I really, like I said, much prefer the growing Yep.
Sydney Collins: Mm-hmm. Growing
Ashley Vail: versus the designing.
From Nursing to Farm Life: Making the Jump + Family Behind the Business
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Sydney Collins: we're super informed of what you are doing now. What is your, you're a nurse, right? Mm-hmm. You actually went to nursing school?
Ashley Vail: Mm-hmm.
Sydney Collins: What was kinda that pivotal point? You're like, okay, I don't need to do this anymore. I can just farm full-time.
Ashley Vail: everybody kind of goes through this, like I've talked to other flower farmers mm-hmm. Um, who maybe have full-time jobs outside of their farm or part-time jobs I just kept track of how many things that I had to say no to. while I was working full-time as a, as a nurse and. You know, then I was able to make that jump.
I went part-time for a couple of years. I actually do still work outside of the farm, but I work remotely.
Sydney Collins: Oh.
Ashley Vail: At the farm.
Sydney Collins: Gotcha.
Ashley Vail: And it's weird 'cause I am, they hired me because I'm a nurse, but I'm not [00:18:00] doing like bedside care or anything like that. you know, flower farming is, is really what I love and what I would like to do.
All the time.
Sydney Collins: how much is your family involved? Or is this kind of a you thing or is everyone kind of chipping
Ashley Vail: Oh yeah, yeah. No, this is a family business and that's why we're named Vail Family Farm. Mm-hmm. So when we started, my kids were younger, they were both in grade school. they're teenagers now and.
I don't share them as much on social media anymore, but they're very much there. Mm-hmm. Um, like for example, my son last year, last summer, spent, well spring into summer, spent that time weeding the pe Andy field. it was a huge undertaking and he said afterwards, he's never gonna do it again, but it's time again.
He is like, okay, I wanna drive my car. I want gas money. So we'll do that. And then. Could not do it [00:19:00] without my husband, Matt Vail. So he is responsible for all of the infrastructure on the farm and we're kind of past the point where we're putting in more. Mm-hmm. But man, he has done a lot and anytime something breaks, you know, he's the go-to.
‘Reluctant Flower Farmer’: Matt’s Role and the Support System
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Tanner: Tell us a little bit about, on social media, you refer to him as the reluctant flower farmer. So tell us how that, uh,
Ashley Vail: how that came up. So this was not Matt's dream. Okay. he did not expect to, you know, when we got married almost 15 years ago, this is not what either of us thought we would be doing.
Mm-hmm. But thankfully, he's very supportive. I could say I'm, you know, I'm gonna bring home a giraffe today, and he'd be like. Great. And he'd, you know, help me take care of it. How high of a fence
Tanner: do we need?
Ashley Vail: Right? Yeah. How high of a fence does it have to be? you know, it's not his dream, but he's very supportive.
So I call him reluctant farmer husband. It's, uh, and you know, there's a theme.
Reluctant Farmer Husband: Military Life Meets Flower Farming
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Ashley Vail: This [00:20:00] happens to a lot of people, who get into flower farming. A lot of the husbands are reluctant but supportive. Mm-hmm. So yeah, most people know him as that, that's how he gets identified in public as, as reluctant farmer, husband.
Tanner: And he, uh, he still serves. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and was deployed. Uh, tell us a little bit about, Being involved in the military and, and what that was like for you and your family, um, when he was deployed and still just got a promotion. Mm-hmm. Um, so tell us a little bit about that side.
Ashley Vail: he was married to the Army before he was married to me.
he has been in, I think it 23 years now. and so when we first met, he, uh. You know, we got married and then he did get deployed while I was pregnant with our first, and he has not been deployed since then. But there's, you know, always that, you know, that can always happen.
TikTok: Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vail: But honestly, I think the military really prepared him for farming, for
TikTok: flower farming.
Ashley Vail: Yes, it did. [00:21:00] Because, he's very perfectionist and he, you know, everything has to be. Just so I am not that way, and I'm kind of like a, whatever, you know? Well, it's, it's all gonna work out. so we definitely balance each other out in that way. yeah, I, I'm glad that he has had the training that he is had because he has to, he has to deal with me.
How Many Flower Farmers Are in Kansas? Finding Local Growers
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Sydney Collins: I kind of wanna go back to. The Kansas Flower Farmers, can you give us like a round like number of like how many are out there that we don't know about?
Ashley Vail: Oh gosh. Um, well, there's another one, um, that serves Salina. yep.
Sydney Collins: Yeah. Did not know
Ashley Vail: that. Yes. Um, they're also at the farmer's market. there is one probably in every county.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I can't speak for Western Kansas, but mm-hmm. North central Kansas to the east, I mean, 50. Probably, yeah. I mean, maybe more, maybe less, but there is so many of us [00:22:00] out there, and a a lot of people just don't know. So I would really encourage you, you know, even if you're, you're not in Salina, um, of course we'd love to see you.
Mm-hmm. But, if you're far away, you should definitely look within, within your county.
The Biggest Challenge: Kansas Weather, Wind & Growing Zones
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Sydney Collins: Mm.
Sydney Collins: What are some challenges that you've kind of run into while, kind of exploring this venture?
Ashley Vail: I would say the biggest challenge has is always, and always will be the weather. there's a lot of unique circumstances in Kansas because we get very hot and we get very cold.
when I first started, I noticed how. People just have like the most amazing flowers and it didn't seem like they had to work as hard as I did. And [00:23:00] that's because they live in the Pacific Northwest where they get a lot of rain. they don't have the same pest pressure that we do. maybe they don't have a drought or they, and they don't get near as cold.
And so. When I see anybody getting into this, especially somebody that is in the Midwest, I tell them to, of course, get their information from the experts, but it really helps to get information from somebody who lives within your growing zone. Mm-hmm. Within your state, even better, because we have challenges that other people don't.
Uh, we, we have to work really, really hard to grow a lot of the flowers that we do just because of the weather and the wind. The wind is, you know. Really, really challenging here. and coincidentally since I started, we have been in a drought ever since. so I would say that is weather is the number one thing.
Support Networks & The Insurance Gap for Specialty Crops
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Tanner: One of our previous guests, um, Gragg Peterson was talking about big Aggie, um, you know, farming. Mm-hmm. And, and in Kansas, um, he was talking about the support [00:24:00] network that we have for that. you know, I think both of us were surprised at the amount of maybe flower farmers that we have in Kansas. Mm-hmm.
Um, what's a support network like within the flower farming community? And then is there support for flower farming in the ag community as a whole? Um, maybe like insurance or, you know, things like that. Like, um, what's that kinda like in flower farming?
Ashley Vail: Yeah, so I think a lot of, we have a lot in common with farmers, you know, traditional farmers.
it seems like we don't always run in the same circles, but we have the same challenges, like with weather and that sort of thing. I know you mentioned insurance and it is not. A specialty crop grower can't get insurance like a traditional farmer might. so for example, one year, um, it was May of 23, we had significant hail and it thankfully.
Our pe andies had already, you know, they'd been done blooming, but it completely decimated those [00:25:00] almost a thousand plants. So all of the foliage was on the ground. I mean, it really looked like a tornado had gone through there. Um, we got damage on our high tunnels. We, unfortunately, when stuff like that happens, there is not a lot we can do.
There are some. companies that may insure you up to a certain point, but our resources are a little bit limited or not necessarily cost effective.
Sydney Collins: Mm.
Ashley Vail: So we are going to look into that some more with, the peonies, especially now that we have almost 2000. Um Oh wow. And if we were to lose those in a season, that would be really detrimental.
When we have had stuff like that happen, though, the community has been so supportive. So when we had that hill storm, I know of another, uh, flower farmer, Rebecca, uh, her Instagram is called Farmhouse on 15th. But we really worked together and I didn't have any peonies of my own, but I went and got [00:26:00] peonies from her and we had our biggest sales ever, that next two weeks at the farmer's market.
Sydney Collins: Wow.
Ashley Vail: So. It was, it was really great. The commun, the flower farming community, not just in Kansas, but just, you know, everywhere is very supportive of each other. I was really surprised to see that coming in, you know, knowing nothing. Um, they've just been awesome.
Next 5 Years: Peony Expansion + Spring Crop Strategy
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Ashley Vail: What's your hope for the next five years?
What do you look, what are you hoping for? Well, I can't divulge all my secrets, but, I see a lot of peonies in our future. and who knows, we may not even be on the property that we're on now. I secretly joke all the time about. world domination via peonies, but, we might need a little bit more room and maybe even a bigger tractor.
but we're really focusing on that and we're really focusing on our, our spring crops because, like I said, summer is really difficult to grow. because when we get a hundred, you know, above a hundred degree days, [00:27:00] and the temperature doesn't go below 90 at night. You can't cut flowers, they will immediately wilt.
so we're backing off of our spring or our summer flowers a little bit, focusing more on spring. So, we have two crops coming up, which is ranunculus. That's our main spring flower. It's the first flower that we have that blooms. so we'll be expecting those in about 60 days. And Then peonies after that.
And then in the summer we'll have Enthu, which is a really, really popular flower that we've grown. So we're really focusing our energy there. I really, really like peonies and so does the community. So I see a lot of our focus going there.
Building the Farm Brand on Social Media (and Keeping It Real)
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Tanner: talk about, excuse me, you talk about energy. Um, talk about, Your energy that you spend on social media. Um, you have a great social media following and you spend a lot of time on that. Um, how has that been, going from not being super active on social media before to being super active on social media?
Ashley Vail: that's been a ride, [00:28:00] that has been a journey I got really serious about posting, trying to get the word out about our business.
The first year, um, and then I kind of figured out what people liked to see and people really love to see our story. and I, you know, I was sharing everything, so all of the really terrible, awful stuff, and there's been so much, over the years and all of the wins, all of the great stuff, and. I think people gravitate towards that.
You know, they, that's, that's what people, like to see is the, the real nitty gritty. And so what I, what you see on social media is what you get. you know, I am who I am. You might hear a few cuss words on there. but just being real and sharing that, it, it's, it's been awesome. that's how we grew our business.
To what it is today? Honestly, I, I don't know where we would be without it. it has its challenges too. Like I mentioned, my kids were younger when I first [00:29:00] started. They're teenagers now. They don't wanna be on mom's farm page, you know, so I try to leave them out of it. But, they are always there in the background.
Tanner: Sometimes holding the phone probably.
Ashley Vail: So, yes, I, man, they've recorded so many things for me. Uh, so has Matt, a reluctant farmer husband. Yeah. He, I think he gets recognized in public more than I do, honestly. Yeah. That's so funny. He is. Yeah. He's a rascal on there. So I, I'm glad, glad we have it for sure.
Scaling Advice: Home Garden Tips vs Farming Thousands of Plants
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Sydney Collins: Do you have people, come up and kind of ask you for like, advice of like what they should do with their like garden beds and things like that and you're like, I only grow in bulk. I can't,
Ashley Vail: right. Yeah. So they're, I dunno. I do get a lot of, um, questions or, things from just home gardeners who are like, oh, well this is how I do that I totally understand that that's how you do that for one PE Andy plant that is not scalable to, you know, 2000 plants. [00:30:00] Um, so there, there is like a bit of a disconnect I'll say, um, in how things work. But I do, you know, try to help people with gardening advice. I can tell you a lot about how to grow things.
It just makes a difference if you're growing a few or if you're growing thousands. And so, I do a lot of education on social media as well, and I have a lot of, flower farmers too that, uh, come to me to learn. And, I, I, I do enjoy doing that. It's always interesting though to have like a master gardener come out to the farm and they're like, wow, I've never seen anything like that, or, I didn't know you could do that.
Uh, so we definitely learn from each other.
Sydney Collins: Mm-hmm.
Where to Find Vail Family Farm + Wrap-Up of the Interview
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Sydney Collins: thank you for being on today. Appreciate
Ashley Vail: it. Yeah, thank you.
Sydney Collins: Thanks for having us. Um, where can people find you at?
Ashley Vail: You can find us on Instagram at Vail Family Farm. You can find us on Facebook.
as Vail Family Farm, that's what we are on. All social media [00:31:00] handles, haven't gone down the TikTok rabbit hole, so. It's deep. It's a steep
Sydney Collins: one. I know, it's, I know it's alright. Well thank you so much.
Ashley Vail: Thank you. Thank you.
Post-Interview Chat: Farm Visits, Book Clubs & Photo Sessions
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Tanner: Thank you for joining us for that conversation with Ashley about, uh, Kansas Flower Farming.
Sydney Collins: Yes. I need to go out there and she said, book club now. I wanna take my book club out in the spring.
Tanner: Yeah.
Sydney Collins: So we, we do like themed things and so now I think we need to do a flower themed.
Tanner: I think that's the maybe one of the most underrated parts of her businesses.
Mm-hmm. When groups of mostly women go [00:32:00] out there and, you know, on her social media, she'll post photos of them. Just, she's got a nice little table there and, um, just looks like fun. I've gone out there and done some photography too. Mm-hmm. she allows some photographers to come out there and, um, has made that a little part of her business, I think, um, to, to use the fields and everything.
So, yeah. Um, just. A really cool kind of, you know, that was kind of a side, side project. Yeah. Business that has just grown into a full-time for her and, um, really cool to see
Theme Segment: Victory Gardens—History, Kansas Stats & Why It Matters
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Sydney Collins: Well, with that, it looks like you have a theme segment today.
Tanner: I do. We do have a theme segment. So have you ever heard of Victory Gardens?
Sydney Collins: I have not.
Tanner: All right. So Victory Gardens, um, sow the Seeds of Victory. So, um, Ashley doesn't grow a, a garden. Um, but uh, kind of in the theme of. Of, uh, growing and, and of service, uh, to the country with, with Matt and everything. So I did a little segment on Victory Gardens here. So, um, what is a victory garden?
Um, during World War ii, Americans use victory gardens to grow their own fruits and vegetables, to support the war effort by reducing food [00:33:00] shortages, supplementing ration goods, freeing up commercial food for troops, boosting morale, and expressing patriotism on the home front.
victory Gardens, were a very big thing during World War ii. and, if you Google, I got these images off of Google, but if you Google Victory Gardens, the amount of material that they had that they were using to promote victory gardens, was crazy. Um, so a lot of it was, females in the deals, but obviously Uncle Sam's in there.
Sydney Collins: Oh, yeah.
Tanner: Because all the dudes
Sydney Collins: were
Tanner: at war. Yeah. At war. So a lot of the, a lot of the females stepped up and, and they had their own gardens. Um, go ahead and go to the next one. Um, it was really a community effort. These gardens were planted in backyards, vacant lots, parks, schools, and produced a significant portion of the nation's fresh, pro fresh produce, and were a vital part of life.
So I think, you know, back in that time, um, grocery stores were a thing. People were going and getting grocery stores, whereas maybe during World War I, [00:34:00] um, there wasn't that kind of need for people to go to a grocery store. They were already producing their own food. So we really saw this kind of. Kind of ramp up.
And this was a photo?
Sydney Collins: Oh yeah. Child labor.
Tanner: Yeah. This is a photo I got from, um, farm pr, farm progress.com. I couldn't see that this was. An actual photo from Kansas. Mm-hmm. But the article is a great article. We'll link it in the show notes. Um, and it was a great article talking about the school's portion of having these, um, deals.
And, and even in World War ii, they had one on, on the lawn of the White House. Uh, it was a, it was a big thing. So, um, really kinda Cool. Go ahead and go to the next one. Um, this was just the top half of a, of a brochure mm-hmm. That schools, um, could request. Um, uh, from the, the charter for war effort in Kansas schools.
So there was a whole, uh, um, part of the government that was producing material just to teach schools how to grow their own gardens.
Sydney Collins: where did all the, where'd all the seeds come from? [00:35:00]
Tanner: I, I'm not sure. That's a good, good question. Yeah. Um, I know seed libraries, um, were a, a bigger thing. Mm-hmm. Um, I just saw that our.
Our library here. One in Salina. Yeah. Um, Salina started a seed library. So I mean, things were, you know, there's a lot more community effort around gardening than there is today. Mm-hmm. So, um, and this, this was from the, uh, the, the last photo and then this, um, stat or from the state Library of Kansas. Uh, um, someone had wrote an article for them, so, and, and this blew me away.
And in 1943, Kansans planted a total of nearly, 270,000 gardens canned over 17 million quarts of food. about 7.7 million pounds of food went into the frozen food lockers and 224,000 pounds of fruit were dehydrated. Uh, and that, that, 17 million quarts of food, majority of that was from. Homes.
they did have a community effort where they'd, they'd have it at a community center, the schools and stuff, but, [00:36:00] your home was growing most of your food back then. Um,
Sydney Collins: I'm curious what the botulism rate was back then.
Tanner: I mean, I, you know, I, I think the difference between people back then and now, gardening was still a thing.
Sydney Collins: Yeah,
Tanner: that's
Sydney Collins: true. People were a lot more knowledgeable, not just winging it, but yeah.
Planting Calendar & Container Gardening: Potatoes to Peppers
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Tanner: So, um, and then, you know, I just kind of added in as, as we're moving, uh, out of February here. That's right. Added in a little bit. Uh, you have a garden. Yep. Um, and, and I'm, I'm a, I'm a gardener as well. Um, I, I just kind of fun to have.
So these are just some key dates as we move out of February and into March. So potatoes on St. Patrick's Day,
Sydney Collins: I feel like that's like potatoes on St. Patrick's.
Tanner: This is when you plant stuff.
Sydney Collins: I know, but pie.
Tanner: Yep.
Sydney Collins: Irish potatoes.
Tanner: Yep. But it's, it's a good, it's a good way to kind of remember it. Potatoes on St.
Patrick's Day, tomatoes on Mother's Day, and then Peppers on Memorial Day Peppers on
Sydney Collins: Memorial
Tanner: by Memorial Day. This is kind of by memorial. Kind of just a
Sydney Collins: Okay.
Tanner: A general time of when is a good time to plant your [00:37:00] garden. Um, if you are, um,
Sydney Collins: now are these from seeds?
Tanner: Nope. So that's what I was gonna say. If you're starting seeds, um, you're, you're too late, um, by February, right.
Um, uh, you should have already had your tomatoes and mm-hmm. And I just started mine. When we're recording this. Yeah. I just started in mind this week. So, um, when it releases, you're probably too late for these. Um, yeah, if you're starting from seeds. So these would be transplants. You're, you know, you've already grown a plant or you're going to a place, um, to, to buy a transplant.
Yeah. So just kind of a, a way to maybe, uh, get people encouraged to plant, to plant your own gardens. I mean, uh, you do container garden, correct?
Sydney Collins: Yes, I do. I have a bucket garden. So, My birthday last year, I asked my mom and my stepdad to build me the frame for it, and you just do five gallon buckets.
And so I have cherry tomatoes, peppers. My jalapenos did not do good last year. And then, um, strawberries and my strawberries are actually still alive. Yeah. Which I, well, I That's good. I, I thought they would die out because they're not technically in the [00:38:00] ground and they're not insulated. But the, where they're at on the side of my house, I think has kept them alive.
'cause my leaves are still green and I have some rogue, uh, green onions that are still alive.
Tanner: Hmm. Did you, you grew onions last year and they went to seed.
Sydney Collins: Green onions, Yee. No, I dug 'em out A co I just left a couple of 'em in there out of pure curiosity.
Tanner: Oh, there you go. Yeah.
Sydney Collins: You got
Tanner: green onions already.
Sydney Collins: And then the ones that I did pull out are still alive in a mason jar in my house.
Tanner: Hmm. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think just the, the act of gardening and, and playing in the dirt again. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's always, it's always something I look forward to in January and February to start seeds.
Mm-hmm. And kind of get that itch to be back out in the garden and in the sun. I think we're, we're gonna be blessed with some warmer temperatures this week, so I'm kind of trying to hold off on going out and doing too much.
Sydney Collins: My tulips are already out. I think they're tulips.
Tanner: Yeah. You sent a photo of
Sydney Collins: that.
Yeah. Yeah. So there, like, there's one that's already an inch above the, [00:39:00] above the, soil. Hmm.
Tanner: Like.
Sydney Collins: Solidly out, and there's at least probably three or four more in that row that have popped up. It seems pretty early. It seems real early, but,
Tanner: but
Sydney Collins: we'll see.
Tanner: Kansas Weather's bipolar going from freezing cold
Sydney Collins: to seventies.
Well, those came out of Wyoming, so those were my grand. So my grandmother a couple years ago, dug some bulbs outta her bed, brought them all the way to Kansas. We planted them and then they, yeah,
Tanner: they're not used to this.
Sydney Collins: They're not used to this. Frozen up, Wyoming.
Tanner: Yeah.
Final Thoughts: Gardening Trends + Subscribe, Newsletter & Merch
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Tanner: So that was just a little bit about Victory Gardens.
Mm-hmm. Thought it fit well with, uh, with Ashley and Matt's kinda story and yeah.
Sydney Collins: Cool. And where, and kind of the trend now is like more homestead. We're in the sourdough kick, we're in the, all that fun stuff. So yeah,
Tanner: you do see a trend, kind of going back to maybe some of those ways. Obviously we're not having to support the nation by growing our own food,
Sydney Collins: but Yeah.
Well, the way grocery bills are going anyway, I think people are like, I'll just grow that at home, Thanks for joining us, uh, for this episode. [00:40:00] Uh, please make sure to like and subscribe. Um, leave a review wherever you're listing from.
Tanner: And, uh, check out the Curious Kansan, uh, newsletter. went some pretty cool places, uh, recently. So check that out, subscribe to that. And then our new merch line.
Sydney Collins: Yes, we have a new merch line. So go to ask a kansan.com. There's three things out there right now. We got a water bottle, um, and a couple of t-shirts.
If there's something we're missing, um, that you wanna see, like hats or key chains or luggage tags that have some cool kind of Kansas themes to 'em, please let us know. Um, and our website is getting a refresh, so make sure to keep going it out and check it out.