Picking fresh
blooms at Robin
Hollow Farm.
Blooming Lovely:
Robin Hollow Farm
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 60
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even all that common across the North-
east.”
After fourteen years at Casey Farm, the
couple wanted to start their own farm, but
the idea of directly competing with the
state’s other certified organic vegetable
growers — their friends and fellow farmers
— wasn’t appealing. So, they contemplated
alternatives.
At the time, says Polly, “nobody else was
doing flowers — literally nobody else — to
the point where one of my dear friends, who
is a vegetable grower, told me, ‘You can’t
make money doing that.’ ”
The difference, she explains, is the crop,
which demands more post-harvest care
than vegetables and is extremely fragile.
“It requires a real commitment, but we were
already pretty good growers.”
Initially, Mike stayed on at Casey Farm
and Polly got Robin Hollow going on her
own. “I just kept thinking, ‘I have to work
as hard as I can because people are going to
be starting farms right behind me. I’m not
going to have this advantage for very long,’
so I just cranked,” she says. About five or six
years after she started, other flower farms
did begin popping up. “I was pretty amazed
that we had the whole market that long.”
Robin Hollow sells at three farmers mar-
kets in the summer, they sell to a limited
number of florists and they do design work
— a lot of design work. During peak season
the farm employs as many as ten people.
Last year, Robin Hollow Farm did ninety
weddings and events, ten fewer than the
year before. “As they get bigger, we do fewer
of them,” Polly explains.
The Hutchinsons have been at their cur-
rent location on Gilbert Stuart Road since
2007. They farm about four acres total, a
combination of land they own and land they
lease from the Narrow River Land Trust.
They grow more than seventy different
66 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l
APRIL 2020
varietals and up to twenty colors of a crop.
There’s eucalyptus, lisianthus, salvia, moun-
tain mint, tulips, daffodils, peonies, hydran-
geas, viburnums, hellebores, hyacinths and
so much more. “We don’t grow carnations
and we don’t grow roses, but we grow pretty
much everything else,” she says. “It’s great
and it’s exciting. We’re never bored, and
that’s why Mike and I love it.”
your local economy, your local farm and
everything is going to be completely unique.”
At this point, Kocon can’t imagine doing
anything differently and she has plans to
expand: She and her husband, Bradley,
recently bought land in Tiverton. In two years
when her lease in Portsmouth ends she will
move the majority of her farming operation
there. Recently, she’s also become involved
in the Farm and Flora Collective, an all-wom-
en organization in Middletown that grows
flowers year-round in heated greenhouses.
“You get bit,” she says. “Once you get bit
by the farming bug, you can’t really look
back. It’s a life like no other. In my opinion,
it’s the best life.”
Blooming Lovely:
Petals Farm RI
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 64
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Blooming Lovely:
Little State Flower Co.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 62
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If I don’t start my own company now, I’ll
get hurt working for someone else, because
farming is super dangerous, or I’ll get too
old or I’ll get pregnant. One of those things
will happen and I won’t be able to do this.”
In 2014, Little State Flower Company was
born. At that time, no one else local was
catering to the wedding and event industry,
she says, so that’s where she started. “I told
them ‘I’m growing for you to buy locally,
specifically. I’ll grow whatever you want
and I can grow a lot.’ ”
That first year she had twelve clients. She
was working alone on a half-acre field
owned by a friend in Portsmouth. By the
end of the year, she had about forty-five
clients. Now she has more than 160 and
three employees: two field hands and an
events manager.
In addition to florists, Little State sells at
the Aquidneck Growers’ Market, they offer
DIY buckets and their events business is
burgeoning.
“Our style is super seasonal and very New
England,” says Kocon. “We stay true to what
we’re good at and I think people can see
when you’re good at something.”
“We are different from traditional florists
in that we never guarantee a specific flower,”
says Little State events manager Jill Rizzo.
“We do a general color range but because of
weather, crop failure and lots of different
reasons, we don’t guarantee specific flowers.
But that’s part of the draw. You’re supporting
which, while small in comparison to the
other two farms, makes sense considering
hers is pretty much a solo operation. She sells
to florists, designers and Compass Hardware
in Charlestown. She does a handful of wed-
dings every year (she’s fully booked for spring
2020) and a weekly farmers market in Nar-
ragansett. This year she is also selling whole-
sale to Carbone, a large floral distributor in
Cranston. For now, it’s just the right amount
of business, considering she also works full
time as a conservationist for the National
Resources Conservation Service, a branch
of the U.S.D.A.
What’s her secret to successful farming?
First, she’s found niche crops, lisianthus
being one, that she knows will sell and she
focuses on those. Second, she’s learned not
to fight Mother Nature.
“I used to get pretty frustrated when I
lost a crop and I’d be out there during the
storm,” Luu says. “But you gotta get to the
point where you accept it. If you don’t accept
it, don’t do it.
“Now, I let the storm do her thing, and
when she calms down, then I go out there
and clean up. I don’t have to clean up while
she’s mad. That is one of the challenges, but
once you accept that it is what it is, it’s no
longer a challenge.”
Lastly, she believes a little bit of her energy
goes into each living thing she grows, which
is why she doesn’t plant or seed when she’s
mad. “I firmly believe that those who buy
my flowers, those who see them and smell
them, that my energy is transferred to them.
And that’s why I do it. It’s spiritual.”