Field of dreams

Sandra Gowan is hard at work turning a new vision into a reality. Gowan is converting her Rosser-area hops operation, Prairie Gem Hops, into a U-pick flower farm.

Gowan has been growing commercial brewing hops since 2009. She started out with just three varieties of hops but by 2016 she was growing 19 different hops varieties, shipping both dried, vacuum-sealed hops and rhizomes to micro-brewers and home-brewers across Canada. “I trialed as many as 21 varieties,” she says. “I wanted to see which types could grow in our climate successfully.”

With mounting costs of production driven by a combination of rising input prices and labour needs, along with all the physical stresses of heavy lifting and packaging, Gowan decided it was time for a new direction. In 2024, she sold her last harvest of dried hops strobiles — the aromatic cone-shaped female flowers of the hops vine which are used in brewing to impart bitterness and flavour.

“My husband and I harvested the strobiles and then they were run through a hammer mill and pelletized,” says Gowan. “Breweries buy the pelleted form because it’s easier for them to work with rather than the whole cone. Most of my inventory went to Trans Canada Brewing Company which is based in Winnipeg.”

Last summer was spent removing the more than six-metre-tall trellises that supported the hops vines, along with all the posts and cables. “I don’t want to see the land sit idle,” Gowan says.

“My vegetable garden sits next to the space where I grew hops. Together the whole space is less than an acre but a good-sized piece where I can grow whatever I want.”

Gowan is a graduate of the Prairie Horticulture certificate program where she completed two streams of study — greenhouse crop production and landscaping. Her training and years of experience cultivating and harvesting a crop, together with her success in building a strong network of connections, means that she is well-prepared for her next growing venture. And she is jumping in with both feet.

Gowan’s new business is called Seeds to Blooms, and by July 1, she plans to have the cut-flower U-pick operation up and running. She has drawn up a seed-starting calendar with precise dates for when to sow seeds indoors for all the annuals she plans to grow.

Gowan has always maintained a large vegetable garden on her property, as well as an extensive flower garden. “This year my calendar is three pages long,” she says. “Some of the flower varieties I am growing include yarrow, amaranthus, aster, bachelor button, celosia, cosmos, eucalyptus, straw flowers and baby’s breath.”

And that’s not all.

“I’m also starting seed for ornamental grass varieties such as purple fountain grass, millet, Panicum Sprinkles and Pennisetum Cherry Sparkler, a fountain grass with variegated green, white and hot-pink stripes,” says Gowan. “The arching leaves of ornamental grasses give such great texture to flower bouquets.”

Last fall, Gowan planted several Allium Purple Sensation bulbs. Hardy to Zone 4A, these will produce striking violet-purple round flower heads that are eight centimetres across on tall 60-cm stems. She also grows a swath of delphiniums and numerous other perennials which come back year after year. Indeed, it was a huge bouquet of flowers from her garden that she gave to her sister-in-law which proved to be the spark for the U-pick business idea.

“My sister-in-law remarked on how nice and big the bouquet was and said, ‘You should start a U-Pick,’” says Gowan. “My sister was there as well and agreed. So, that was the spark that got me going.”

Local florists have already expressed interest in Gowan’s supply of delphiniums and are also keen on her lisianthus crop.

In mid-December, Gowan sowed a thousand lisianthus seeds indoors and is growing them under LED lights.

“It’s such a popular flower,” she says. “But lisianthus can be challenging to grow. It needs to be started indoors in December because of its slow growth rate, but another challenge is that lisianthus can be susceptible to fungal diseases such as root rot pathogens. Extreme care must be taken.”

The price of seeds is hefty as well. A hundred lisianthus seeds cost about $16. Demand for this cut-flower variety is so huge, though, that Gowan has already ordered lisianthus seeds for the 2027 growing season.

Additional cut-flower varieties that will be available this summer at Gowan’s new U-pick operation include several different varieties of Veronica speedwell, verbena, snapdragons, and sweet peas.

“I’ve kept a couple of rows of trellising from my hops operation so I’m going to run a fence along the trellising as a climbing structure for the sweet peas,” says Gowan.

Other traditional cut-flower favourites Gowan plans to grow include Nigella love-in-a-mist, tall cutting varieties such as marigolds and calendula, along with daisies, statice, stocks, zinnias and rudbeckia. Some of these varieties will naturally self-seed.

“As I design my planting area, I’m trying to start with perennials in one section and then a section with annuals that will reseed followed by annual varieties that don’t reseed,” says Gowan.

She says one of her biggest challenges is determining the plant layout. “Spacing for flowers in a U-pick is not the same as how you would space plants in your home garden,” says Gowan.

“Flowers for cutting are planted closer together. As well, varieties such as lisianthus need to be grown through a mesh so the stems don’t flop over. You will get nicer, straighter stems that way. Tall varieties such as cosmos need to be supported with string or twine to prevent them from falling over in the wind.”

Gowan has created an information sheet for each type of flower she is growing, including sun requirements and spacing, and has drawn up a planting grid layout as a guideline.

Gowan is excited, too, about growing edible flowers. “I’ll have more to say about that later, but I have grown edible flowers over the years. I’m thinking about approaching some bakeries that use edible flowers on their baked goods.”

Several years ago in early spring, Gowan was approached by the organizers of a large event in Winnipeg who were looking for a supply of edible flowers. Gowan was able to supply pansies. All parts of the pansy — petals, sepals and stems — are edible. She plans to have a plentiful supply of pansies available this spring.

“I have several three-tier light tables where I grow all my indoor seedlings, so I have the ability to start things early as I need to,” she says.

Gowan has so much else planned. She has purchased a small greenhouse which will serve as her working space and a shop for unique items she plans to stock. “I bought an antique piece of furniture at an auction. It has shelves and I am hoping to display things I’ve made like pillows stuffed with hops,” she says.

Gowan has also made hops-infused beer soap and bath salts in four different fragrances.

“Everything I’m doing is because of my love of flowers,” says Gowan.

Seeds to Blooms will be ready to launch in July. For updates and more details, visit seedstoblooms.ca.

colleenizacharias@gmail.com