‘Buckets and buckets’ in bloom: Local woman learns art of gardening and runs side business selling flowers

Prior to a few years ago, Miranda Herfindahl of Albert Lea said she had never had much of a green thumb. In 2022, this all changed.

She now runs her home-based business Grounded Joy, where she sells bouquets of freshly grown flowers as well as simmer pot kits she makes herself.

In 2022 Herfindahl said she decided to plant some dahlias in her yard to try gardening as a hobby. She was happily surprised when it produced a bumper crop with more dahlias than she knew what to do with.

She began giving them away to family and friends and realized how much joy fresh flowers bring to people. It was from there her idea for a business took root.

As she had not done much gardening before, Herfindahl said she needed to learn more about the topic. She took an online class through Floret, a plant company in Washington. She also read some of the company’s books. Everything else, she said, she learned through her own research and a process of trial and error.

“I’ve been learning a lot, still, as I go,” she said.

All of Herfindahl’s flowers start from seed. This takes a fair amount of planning. Every plant is different, she explained. Each variety has different needs for spacing, growing time and other factors.

“Every year I draw out my garden, and I plan exactly how many seeds of which kind I want,” Herfindahl said. She usually has around eight types of flowers. Among these, she said, zinnias, lemon basil and her favorite, snapdragons, are always in the mix. She also does a soil test through the University of Minnesota to see what nutrients the soil needs.

Beginning in late March, she plants the seeds in a cell planting tray and lets it rest on a heated mat. After the seeds sprout, she said, she transfers them to a space where they can sit under lights until they can safely be planted outside.

Once the flowers are ready to be picked, Herfindahl advertises her bouquets on Facebook. She said she harvests flowers once or twice a week, with July being the most bountiful harvesting time.

The bouquets are set up in a flower stand Herfindahl made herself. It is self serve, and people can pay using cash or Venmo.

Occasionally, Herfindahl said, she gets specific requests for flowers.

“Sometimes, I do have people ask me for them. If I have enough out there to pick, I will… make a few bouquets for them,” she said. However, she said she does not typically like to take a lot of orders because she does not have a very large space to grow flowers and does not want to worry about having enough to fulfill an order.

“I just kind of keep it low-key,” she said. “That’s kind of also like the whole business that I’m doing, too. I don’t want it to be a huge, overwhelming thing for me. I want to be able to enjoy it.”

To keep things as stress free as possible, Herfindahl has also made an irrigation system in her garden that runs on a timer so she does not have to manually water the plants each day.

Herfindahl said she likes to repurpose items when she can and tries to keep costs down.

“Nothing I have is fancy,” she said. “I use odds and ends [and] stuff just to make things work.”

She said she made her flower stand with materials she had lying around, and the lights her plants grow under are inexpensive garage shop lights.

“They work perfect,” she said.

When the growing season ends, Herfindahl puts her gardening supplies away and stores them for the upcoming year. During autumn and winter, she said, she likes to relax and not worry about the plants very much.

However, this past year, Herfindahl said she became bored and began a new venture for Grounded Joy to take on during the cold months.

Herfindahl makes simmer pot kits with fruits, herbs and other natural materials. She said she usually buys fresh fruit and herbs from the grocery store and dehydrates them herself. She also gets some of the supplies online. The kits are usually stored either in mason jars or in food-grade pouches.

When someone is ready to use a simmer pot kit, they simply open the container, pour the contents into a pot of water and put it on the stove to simmer. The dried materials give off a pleasant aroma. Herfindahl said they also produce steam, which is helpful during winter when the air is especially dry.

Herfindahl said she does not usually set these up in her stand as it is put away for the winter. She relies on people reaching out to her personally or through Facebook in order to sell them. She also sells the kits at The Vintage Grove Co in Clarks Grove.

“It gives me a little extra to do,” she said.

In the future, Herfindahl said she would like to experiment with drying flowers.

For now, she said, she is looking forward to the weather warming up so she can plant the seeds and begin the cycle again.

“I love the process of watching these little tiny seeds go from nothing to this gorgeous something,” she said. “The flowers are in full bloom, and just the work of going out and cutting them all, buckets and buckets of them.”

It takes a lot of time, but it gives her joy and brings joy to other people, and that makes it worth it.

“I just love how happy it makes people. That’s the main reason I do it, is to give,” she said.

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