You Can't Eat the Grass

09/04/2024

It's been a long winter, but I blinked and it's suddenly spring!

Last fall, along with 1000 peonies and 10k tulips, the narcissus bed got topped up so that there is a total of 6000 planted. I tried to select the latest blooming varieties to have them blooming alongside my early tulips - but the incredibly warm early spring had other plans. And now I have these beautiful bright blooms earlier then I even imagined.

Winters in the Okanagan can be hard - cold and dark. It's hard for me, someone who pretty much lives my life outside when the weather allows. So these flowers are like sun to my soul. And it's easy to forget about the cold wet days spent planting them, when I see their happy faces.

25/11/2023

Santa's workshop has been busy getting ready for Christmas! And by Santa's workshop, I mean me, enjoying some couch time after a long farming season, lol.

I have been dreaming of these for a year, growing all the colours, in all the best dried flower varieties, just for these ornaments. And I'm really happy with how they turned out!

The colours this year are rainbow, white, violet, purple, pink, apricot, yellow, orange, and a sweet mist. These were really popular as gifts last year, so we have invested into gift boxes, that can fit 4-9 ornaments.

Our stand is currently closed for the winter, but I have pick up available on the farm - just contact me at 250 868 3955. Today I'm at Landmark 7 till 8pm, and will have the complete collection on display Dec 1-3 at the arena downtown. I also have gift cards, if you are looking to gift fresh summer flowers - they are in $20 units, so they are easy to use at the self serve stand.

11/10/2023

We made it through another growing season! Technically we are still selling from our roadside stand, and also I currently have more work to do than at any other point in the season, but it's worth taking a moment to reflect. Thanksgiving was a success, we did all the things, we basically sold every flower we could put together, and managed some family time as well. We have a big peony planting still to finish, but it feels doable. We are also dedicating time to get through our backlog of videos that are filmed buy not edited. The work continues!

This past Saturday was our last market of the year, and although it felt good to permanently turn off my 4am Saturday alarm, I will miss the markets. It never feels like a job selling at the farmers markets.

Something I have realized about farming, is once a growing season starts, you are pretty locked into your choices. It's only in the off season that you have time to make improvements. This was our 5th year farming, but out business is evolving, and next year it will continue to change. I am excited to work hard this winter making the changes that will reap rewards next year!

24/08/2023

My heart goes out to everyone suffering from the Kelowna wildfires.  There is so much to feel sad about, with details of losses starting to come in.  But despite that, I'm also feeling incredibly grateful.

Thank you to the firefighters, who risk their lives to save so much - we would be lost without you.

Thank you to emergency services, for keeping us safe and organized during the chaos.

Thank you to all the volunteers who stepped up and provided so many community services.

And thank you to our community, for staying strong and being together.

There are still hard days ahead, with fires still burning, and support needed for those who can't return home.  But I know we can pull together as a community, and make things as easy as possible for each other.

- 💚 Red Roof Family Farm

20/08/2023

We are SAFE. Family, cats and farm are all currently comfortable and safe, with no increased risks expected in the immediate future. But, the farmstand is currently closed to discourage unneeded traffic in the area.

For everyone who is confused by this statement -
Kelowna is currently experiencing a catastrophic forest fire event. On Thursday a fire started in West Kelowna, and quickly engulfed a large area, burning homes and forest down to the lake line - at which point the unexpected happened, and the fire jumped our large lake due to wind, and started to burn 3 semi populated areas of Kelowna and Lake Country. Winds also shifted and started moving towards more populated areas in West Kelowna. All of this is worst case scenario for an area already prepared for dealing with the realities of wildfires on a regular basis. There have been massive amounts of evacuations (30,000+ people currently) but so far I haven't heard reports of any deaths. The fires are still burning out of control, but weather conditions have improved somewhat for now.

For us specifically, one of the fires is uncomfortably close to our farm and home. The fire picture posted is of flames cresting the ridge of the hill above our house. And we are currently under evacuation alert - which means that we need to be aware of fire activity and prepared to leave our home with minutes notice, if anything changes. Despite that, we are actually in a fairly safe location, surrounded by lush green orchards that would be difficult to burn through, and with an army of skilled fire fighters attacking from air and ground - if we were evacuated, it would be more likely to allow firefighters greater freedom of movement, then for our home to actually burn.

The whole situation is incredibly sad, especially combined with the fact that this fire situation wasn't the only one burning down local communities over the last few days. My heart goes out to all of those in my community suffering from evacuation, or worse, loss. And also 💚💚💚 out to so many who have suffered from fire this year, because I know what we are currently dealing with isn't an unique story.

12/08/2023

The market stand looks amazing this week, so much colour! It's peak lisianthus right now, we literally have every colour we could grow and every variety is blooming. It makes for some amazing bouquets. This week we also have our first big flush of zinnias, so they are massive and perfect. This might be the best week of summer flower bouquets for us yet.

17/07/2023

My favourite thing about Apricots is their little butt cracks, lol

01/07/2023

Summer is here and there's no better way to celebrate than watching our latest video!

After challenging spring weather, and recent slow sales, our intrepid farmer duo Serina and Ian find themselves struggling to make their flower business a su...

23/06/2023

It's feeling like early summer on the farm, and we have entered the 10% of the year where I mostly just eat cherries all the time. They aren't quite perfectly sweet yet, but they are ripe, and that's good enough for me, lol. The farm is also starting to produce some flowers after a lull caused by that crazy spring weather, it's fun how the bouquets change in appearance so much through the season. Serina and I have been working really hard this year to get everything all caught up, and even though we aren't quite there yet, we are getting close, and that feels like an accomplishment.
Ian Colbeck

14/06/2023

We have been working hard on the farm lately, and the hard work is paying off. Check out our latest VLOG, I'm really proud of it!

Use my link https://bit.ly/nativeycetg02 and code YCETG02 to get 20% off your first purchase at Native. This offer is available sitewide but only for a limi...

12/06/2023

Are you curious to see what is going on in our flower farm, well lucky for you we have our new farm tour video out now! Click the link to check it out, and tell us what your favorite thing we are growing is

The weather has been hard on the flower farm this year, with a late winter transitioning straight into summer, a lot of our crops haven't germinated or been ...

02/06/2023

Our biggest and best video of the year just released, click the link to check it out, it's our mother's day special. If you enjoy the content we make, please click the like button and leave a comment, it may seem like a small effort but it actually makes a huge difference with the algorithm and helps us get our content out to more people.

Go to http://www.squarespace.com/youcanteatthegrass to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domainIt's Mother's Day weekend and t...

12/05/2023

Celebrate mom with

The stand is stocked and ready to go - if you have any questions or need any help, just give me a call, I'm on farm working all weekend (250 868 3955).

Mother's day sales details ⬇️

Are you ready for Mother's Day? Because the moms in your life deserve to be spoiled with fresh local flowers, and we have some great options!

$50 mixed bouquets - a lush and large bouquet of tulips and other seasonal flowers (like my hellebores, that I hoard specifically for this) and greenery.

$35 arrangements - a mix of tulips, anemones, narcissus, ect. I don't do arrangements often, but mom deserves it! I have 18 available and these will only be at the roadside stand. Let me know if you would like to reserve one.

$20 tulip bunches - I'll have a lot of these. They have been popular in the past, with customers grabbing 5 at a time, to celebrate all the women in their life.

$20 gift cards - want to spoil mom with flowers through the summer too? I'll have gift cards available - get a stack, and she can easily use the self serve stand to have fresh local flowers on her table all year long. I won't be displaying these - if you want to pick them up, just call me and I'll run them to the stand (250 868 3955)

$+ - If you are looking for something $60+, just let me know, and I can put together a custom order for you.

Where will we be?

Saturday - 8-1

Or, stop by the roadside stand (10483 Okanagan Centre Rd East) anytime for self serve. If the door is closed, due to it being late at night or early morning, we are still open - feel free to come in and shop.

I'll be deep in bouquet making all Friday, but available at the farm, if you need help. Saturday and Sunday I will try to be available at the stand.

We have a lot of flowers available and I can't wait to help you spoil mom!

11/05/2023

It's Tulip season on the farm, and thanks to the early summer weather all 12000 of our Tulips have bloomed at the same time. Serina has been harvesting and arranging like crazy, and I'm doing 3 markets in 4 days to try and sell them all. It's actually our busiest time of year so after the flush of tulips things should relax a bit and we can have a breather, but not for long because there's lots of other stuff to get caught up on right now.

24/04/2023

Exciting news on the farm - we have tulips! Our early greenhouse tulips are blooming and we can't wait to get selling again.

The farmstand will be having its grand opening this Friday! We will have lots, and I will be on hand to keep it stocked all weekend. Warm weather and fresh flowers - it's going to be a good week!

We won't be at the Kelowna farmers market this Sat, but we plan to begin again the following week. We planted 12,000 tulips this year, so we have lots for everyone.

15/04/2023

The first official flower of the year - anemone. Beating out tulips and narcissus, against the odds. And making me very excited about having 1100 of them, while thinking I need even more for next year.

I then started hacking all the new buds down (💘 emotional damage). The first few blooms are only tall enough to enjoy in pictures, not bouquets. And it will still be 2 weeks till I have enough tulips to open the stand, so I would rather have them putting energy into maturing as plants.

13/04/2023

My greenhouse tulips are starting to show signs of blooming! This is a 2023 picture of flowers that I will have ready to sell by end of April. I'm beyond excited to have flowers again, and glad that I stuck 2000 of my bulbs into the tunnel to have earlier blooms. Stay tuned for my official opening date for the roadside stand!

28/02/2023

I haven't opened Instagram in over 3 months.

Friends, if you have sent me messages, I'm sorry about not getting back to you. I still love you, I didn't mean to ignore you, I was just too busy with life, and I'm working on getting back to you.

So... Hey! What's up!

It's been so long since I've opened instagram that there are so many updates and it feels weird, lol. They changed the fonts? Or at least they did on mine.

Things I did while I ignored Instagram

1) Caught up on my sleep

2) Watched some TV shows (though I still haven't watched Stranger Things yet!)

3) Went on vacation to Mexico

4) Spent lots of money on seeds

So obviously, it was a productive break.

Here's my plan for this upcoming year.

1) Grow flowers to sell at the roadside stand and the Kelowna Farmers Market

2) Make videos about growing and sell over on YouTube

3) Do more short form content that can live here and on other platforms

4) Try to spend a weekend at a hot spring, and hit the beach more this summer

I think that should keep me pretty busy, lol.

Photo by

21/09/2022

Our newest harvest vlog is out! Lots of great looking flowers in this one

Serina is sick, and making it to the farmers market will be a challenge since she does almost all the flower harvesting and bouquet arranging. This week is ...

25/08/2022

Our BEST Video Ever! Our latest video is one of our highest effort videos we have ever made. The storyline is real and engaging, and the flowers look amazing. It really is a lot of effort to make these videos, and do all the farming and selling, so we appreciate all the comments and thumbs up you can muster to get new eyes on our content!

Go to https://thld.co/shakerandspoon_nograss_0822 and use code nograss to get $20 off your first box! Thanks to Shaker & Spoon for sponsoring today's video.F...

13/08/2022

NEW FARMERS MARKET VIDEO! Hey everyone, we just released another market vlog, the flowers this week look amazing! But will they sell?

The temperatures are going up, and this weeks farmers market will be a scorcher. It always complicates the harvesting when you do it during the heat of the ...

06/08/2022

Amazing Video Alert! This week's VLOG is extra good, we put a lot of work into it and think you should check it out! Let us know what you think of it!

We are halfway through the farm season, and this year has both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, sales have been better than we hoped, an...

02/08/2022

Our newest video is a hot one
https://youtu.be/0J--_Zcb0XI

21/07/2022

Market Harvest Video is here, check it out!

Summer is here, and the flowers love the heat, but the season of vacations can bring complications for selling bouquets, as customers who are soon to travel ...

14/07/2022

Our new video has a lot of flowers as we try to do the impossible and get some time off. This is also a cat heavy episode lol

Summer on our flower farm, is a busy place. We don't work all the time, but between tending to the farm, harvesting and arranging bouquets, keeping up with ...

09/07/2022

This week's market vlog is one of my favorite videos we have ever made, I think it turned out really well. Check it out!

Use my link https://ritual.com/GRASS20 and code GRASS20 for 20% off your first month of Ritual. * These statements have not been evaluated by ...

29/06/2022

Farm Tour video just released, check it out!

29/06/2022

Come and tour the garden! It's been slow with the cool weather but there is still so much beauty!

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

25/06/2022

Farmers Market Sales Record on out new video, this one is really fun so definitely check it out

We have been working hard and selling lots of flower bouquets down at the farmers market so far this year, but this week we want to sell even more. This is ...

21/06/2022

NEW VIDEO click for our latest video, where we take a massive amount of flowers to our farmers market, but will they sell?

Ranunculus are still producing in large quantities, and we have used them to make the ulitimate bouquet recipe, a rainbow ranunculus bouquet. This got peopl...