Meet Sarah Head

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Head. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is core to success, but I don’t think we talk about it enough. Maybe it’s because it also requires us to talk about our “failures” head on, and see them as places of growth. Resilience, for me, is synonymous with learning. Learning the capacity of your spirit and strength, and then pushing it farther than you’ve gone before because you trust it will be okay – you trust yourself or your community or the cosmos or whatever – you know you will be okay if you get back up and keep going.

Like many people, my training in resilience began as a child in a home full of love but also of high expectations. Failure or falling down was never an excuse to give up. I also have always had a really strong desire to push farther, learn more, be my best, and that attitude really requires one to embrace the falls and keep on going or you don’t get very far at all.

Prior to becoming a farmer, I was an educator for 15 years. I worked at a really special school for 10 of those years that was explicitly teaching the value of resilience and grit to young people. And I was also having to strengthen my personal resilience – mistakes and missteps happen a lot as a young teacher! We had to face them head-on, both to heal and repair any wrong that was done and to be a model to our students. That school and those kids taught me what resiliency really looked and felt like. Which was good, because it is an essential requirement of farming.

Before I started selling my flowers wholesale, I worked part time teaching, started farming flowers and had two little girls at home. Days were long and pretty rough at times. I quickly learned resiliency is really at the heart of survival and success on a farm. We need it for ourselves, pushing through the days that are bitterly cold or oppressively hot; we need it for our plants, to face brutal weather, onslaughts of pests and disease; and we need it for our land, for it to regenerate each year and thrive. And, maybe most importantly, we need it for our spirits. Plants die all the time, as do animals, failure is threatening at every turn, and sometimes it is up to us to remedy it and sometimes there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. In those moments, when ice kills your spring crops or aphids invade that perfect chrysanthemum greenhouse, the only things you can do is just keep pushing and try to do better next time. Or quit. But that’s not very fun nor satisfying.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Eda Creek Farm is a small cut flower farm in Oregon City, OR. I grow on .5 acres and also rent some year-round greenhouses with a growing partner. My primary sales is wholesale, through our local floral wholesale market, but I also do a flower CSA, restaurant accounts and weddings. We grow as organically as we can, and place great value on soil health and the farm’s biodiversity. Because it is such a small farm, the soil is the prized possession, the critical infrastructure that makes this life possible. We also use predatory insects as our primary pest control and it really shapes our growing practice – we are creating a space for beneficial insects to thrive so they can do the hard work of getting rid of the bad guys. And the farm may be small, but it is also mighty! We produce thousands of stems each year and are able to produce and sell at a rate that is profitable and, dare I say, sustainable. I love to grow specialty crops, such as lisianthus, that can be real hard to grow but absolutely incredible when you succeed. Quality is very important to our farm and we strive for perfection in our product (a possibly foolhardy but commendable goal).

We are part of the Oregon Flower Growers Association in Portland, OR, a phenomenal group of farmers that are bringing outstanding product to the florist trade. I am constantly in awe of the talent and general badass-ness of this group of growers. Farming can be incredibly isolating, and being part of this community is a real gift.

I am also part of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG), an organization that educate, supports, and unites commercial cut flower growers around the world. Recently, I was elected to the position of Regional Director for the West and Northwest, and I am super excited to connect with more farmers and continue to push the growth of our industry. The domestic flower market was really gutted in the the 1990’s, but sales of locally grown flowers grow every year and there are so many farmers out there growing top quality flowers. There is so much to learn from others in this industry and I’m inspired daily from the skill and passion they bring to it.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

First off, hold your integrity close. There are so many forces pushing and pulling from all directions in the small business world, and it can be easy to lose yourself and sight of your direction. I strive to show up authentically as who I am, no matter the format or context. My product and business represents my values, and I am on alert for those funny little gut feelings that let me know if my integrity is being pushed.

Another huge one for me is to strive for expertise. I am by no means an expert, but I love learning and am driven by the process as much as the product. Learn everything you can. And engage actual experts with the respect they deserve – stepping back and listening is often the best tool we have.

Lastly, always care for your relationships. Community, mutual aid, networking – it’s at the core of what we do, even if we are alone 80% of the day. And remember relationships should be reciprocal, there is always something that we offer and something we can receive, even if it isn’t always clear at first. It is equally important to check in with your relationships and if reciprocity and mutual respect aren’t there, it may be time to reevalute it.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

My mom, for sure. She immigrated to New York City when she was a little girl, was the first college graduate in her family, and then moved across the country to the deep woods of Washington State, where she met my father and they built their life. They both worked incredibly hard on our land and in their jobs. Her garden was always beautiful, filled with vegetables and flowers, and I learned early on that work is not always about financial reward, that there is intrinsic value in having hands in dirt and living with the seasons. I used to bring home all sorts of weird little bits from the woods – bones, moss, perfect sticks – and both my parents gave me encouragement to find wonder and beauty in the world. When I realized that the floristry put value on these little treasures my mind was blown – people will pay money for these treasures I’ve been collecting all my life?! The woods, our land and my mom’s garden were really the training ground for this career.

She taught me how to grow things, and also how to make beauty out of the things we grew. I remember being little and selling garlic braids with dried flowers on the side of the highway as cars sped past, and being so proud of the beauty our hands and our land had created. We probably didn’t sell much, if any, of that garlic, but that isn’t part of my memory. What stuck with me was to create beauty, adjust and adapt, and another season will come and we will get to try again. She taught me tangible and intangible lessons of farming and life, and I have so much gratitude for her and my dad and the life their hard work afforded us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.edacreekfarm.com
• Instagram: @edacreekfarm

Image Credits

Meghann Gilligan