WHS Junior Plants Up a Great Summer

For Williamsburg Junior Eleanor Brubaker, the summer of 2023 was coming up flowers. Brubaker, along with her friend Aaralyn Briscoe, took their flower business on Blue Barn Farm to another level. Brubaker had been working on the farm located just out of Williamsburg since she was 12 years old and has worked there every summer since then.

"A couple of years ago, my aunt, Karen Wilson, who owns Blue Barn, asked me if I wanted to start growing something on the farm for profit," Brubaker said. "It would be my responsibility to take care of it and grow it, so I thought it would be cool to start a cut flower business."

At age 14, Brubaker planted her first long bed of flowers and it wasn't very successful.

"I let the weeds get the best of my flowers," Brubaker said. "I couldn't do it all by myself."

In 2022, Brubaker admitted that she didn't plant flowers that year. Enter Briscoe.

"We just clicked right away," Brubaker said. "I asked her if she wanted to do the cut flower business with me this year. She was so happy about the ideas and said yes."

In January, the pair got together and picked all of the seeds they wanted out of the catalog for summer. Once the seeds arrived, the pair planned when to plant in the greenhouse and out in the field. Every week in March and April, something new had to be planted in the greenhouse in the cell packs.

"Once May arrived, after the last frost, we began transplanting the plants out to our flower beds," Brubaker said. "We did succession planting for the sunflowers, which means that we direct-seeded them every few weeks in the flower bed so that we would have a continuous harvest of sunflowers."

Out of the pair's experience, the best seeds for the Pennsylvania weather were "zinnias, strawflower, sunflowers, asters and celosia."

"Flowers are perfect gifts to anyone, and they can brighten up just about any room," Brubaker said.

Now, at the end of summer and back to school for Brubaker, she says that she believes that this year – the first year for the pair – was successful.

"We learned many lessons for next year, which we hope to make next year's flower planting even better," Brubaker said. "This was the year where we learned what we should and shouldn't do when it comes to the flowers and business. We hope now that next year, we have a better understanding of how we should handle everything."

The pair had PYO (Pick Your Own) flowers at the farm, were successful at the "Flower Bar" at the Altoona's Farmer's Market and made some beautiful flower bouquets to sell.

"It was a new experience for us, and we definitely hope to do a lot more next year," Brubaker said.