Today we’d like to introduce you to Eileen Cavanaugh.
Eileen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a mother of three grown up kids aged 18, 22 and 25. I moved to Ojai in 2016 while going through a divorce. I met my partner Ty Jeffery an Ojai native who happens to be a contractor who helped me renovate an old ranch house(now Palomar Farm) that I bought. We fell in love and he and his daughter moved in. We began our flower adventure in The Ojai Valley in the winter of 2018 after the fires. I have always loved flowers and consider them to be essential to all forms of life, including humans. I’m fascinated by the process of growing from tiny seeds, corms, tubers, and bulbs and watching the process unfold into seedlings and ultimately blossoming into blooms. The garden is a metaphor for transformation, birth, life, death and rebirth, teaching us the life cycle. After my divorce, which felt like a death within my lifetime, I felt called to literally “dig” deeper into my soul to discover more about myself. I first planted a rose garden, then a lavender patch. These two gardens alone were the birthplace of Palomar Farm.
Eventually, I found “Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden” book which was my inspiration. Erin Benzakein has been my mentor to grow my flowers on a small scale in a relatively small acreage of land. We grow unusual varieties of flowers that you cant find at the supermarket, edible flowers, and old timey favorites like heirloom dahlias, bearded irises, hollyhocks, roses, cosmos, zinnias, anemones and ranunculus. Along with the gardens, I am a writer and I facilitate women’s writing circles here at the farm and on zoom. I believe my writing has been my most healing practice which has connected me to find my own voice. During these uncertain and rapidly changing times, we need to learn how to let go and trust in our deepest knowing. The garden and writing have both assisted me with feeling safe to change my course in my life.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road has been riddled with challenges. Growing flowers is not for sissies! There are so many variables and factors that are at play which you can’t control, i.e., Mother Nature! It is a constant battle between the gophers, ground squirrels, bunnies, birds and insects. I can grow from seed perfect seedlings over the winter and plant them out only to be eaten by bunnies overnight! The raccoons come and play with the water systems, while gophers and ground squirrels build underground tunnels munching their way through the garden. A scorchingly hot summer day can burn every promising blossom.
On a seedling note, my cat peed on half of my snapdragons this year so very few made it to production.
Now it’s COVID time which has been a challenge, as there are literally no more events being planned, so our business has been diminished quite a bit.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Palomar Farm story. Tell us more about the business.
I am a farmer/florist here in the Ojai Valley. We grow from seed, corm, tubers and bulbs, unusual varieties of flowers that you cant find at the supermarket, edible flowers, and old timey favorites like heirloom dahlias, bearded irises, hollyhocks, roses, cosmos, zinnias, anemones, daffodils and ranunculus. We have a weekly CSA that runs the whole season from Spring through Fall. Every Friday there is a bucket pick up of freshly cut flowers straight out of the garden ready for you to take home and arrange them how you like.
I also do custom arrangements to order, as well as small events. One of my favorite jobs is to go into a home and create arrangements for each room inspired by the decor. My arrangements feel like you just went out and picked them from your own garden, they aren’t too fussy.
What is different than most florists is that I plan my garden a year in advance by choosing which varieties I want to grow, from textures to colors, I envision the garden before it’s even planted. It’s like creating a painting, I put the palette together first. It’s custom and unique. There is a much different vibration that comes from fresh cut flowers straight out of the garden as opposed to using flowers that have been flown from Holland or grown in a hoop house thousands of miles away.
I love this idea from farm to table with flowers as well as with food. This is truly living local and seasonally.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I see a harkening of slower, simpler times. People are craving comfort, ease and peaceful living. With the expansion and oversaturation of the information age, there is a hunger for quiet and rest. Ojai is a place that many Los Angelenos escape to in search of a more spiritual, peaceful respite. I feel like our little flower farm is a place to visit to get a taste of this nectar. I see us growing into a learning farm. Where we can inspire and teach people how to cultivate their own gardens bringing them closer to nature and the earth. Gardens teach us about life and naturally ground us, which eases anxiety.
On a global outlook, I have participated in an online flower growing workshop which included hundreds of people from all over the world who are learning to grow their own flowers. It’s so exciting to see that so many are feeling the call to grow beauty in their own back yards. “Home grown not flown” is a new ethos. More people than ever before are spending time in their homes and it’s no wonder why all of the nurseries and seed sellers are bustling with business.
Contact Info:
- Address: 509 Palomar Rd Ojai, CA 93023
- Website: www.palomarfarm.com
- Phone: 805-448-9344
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: palomarfarm
- Facebook: palomarfarm
Image Credit:
image of Eileen taken by Kim Zucker, all the rest are taken by Eileen Cavanaugh
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