August. This summer has been crazy. This year was the first year selling flowers to the general public here in Chattanooga. Previously, we have just sold to florists for the last two years. This is also the first year the Blumenwagen has been on the road. The summer has absolutely flown by. It’s been hard learning to balance the work – being a mom – and life. So much love going out to all the working moms and dads! I suffer from mom-guilt or farm-guilt…
The Common General is OFFICIALLY OPENING on Saturday, July 13th. We have been invited to set up with the Blumenwagen along with many other AMAZING vendors listed below! This event will be family friendly and starts at 11:00AM and ends at 3:00PM. We would love to see you guys! We will be bringing flowers all lovingly grown from our farm on Signal Mountain. Right now we have dahlias (in limited supply!), lisianthus, celosia, zinnias, gomphrena, calendula, honeysuckle, eleagnus, snapdragons, mint, strawflower, lilies, hydrangeas and some…
A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of popping up for our first time at Nightfall’s Art Market! It is held at Miller Park right next to Miller Plaza on 850 Market Street in Chattanooga. Nightfall is a super fun event with FREE live music almost every Friday and many great vendors. It is one of my favorite downtown events! The Blumenwagen will be popped up selling flowers so come and say hi to us! Or to see Sake (: Here are some…
I wanted to take a second to talk about our “mini” farmers here at Joli Jardin. Each of them help in their own special way and we love encouraging our children to be outdoors and to appreciate nature. Currently we are homeschooling our kids, so a majority of our school days are actually spent outside! Meet Jette Monroe: Age 6, Favorite color: pink Favorite flower: celosia (brainflower!) Favorite place to travel: Mexico Meet Vesper Lily, Age: 18 months, Favorite show: Darkwing Duck Favorite word: daggle…
This year, Erin and I took part in SipTN Wine Festival held at the Tennessee Pavilion by the Chattanooga Public Markets. We spent most of our time making flower crowns and enjoying the company of the guests and fellow vendors. Thanks for having us!!!
This post is to run down the flowers we are able to offer at the beginning of the season. Because of our hoop-house, we are able to have blooms as early as February, and sometimes as early as January! Our first blooms to blossom are narcissus (daffodils), hellebores (lenton roses), tulips, anemones, and ranunculus. We have began our flower season by having delivery days to downtown Chattanooga and on Signal Mountain. Pictures below are what is offered.
Chattanooga’s first flower truck! Meet the Blumenwagen! Which literally translates to “Flower Wagen” in German. Our flower wagen is a 1978 Mercedes T2 608d van. It has a lumbering slow and unstoppable 3.8L naturally aspirated diesel 4-cylinder engine mated to a 5-speed manual transmission driving the rear wheels. It is roughly the same size and weight as a modern one-ton pickup truck but a much smaller turning radius. The van began life like many others at Mercedes, but went to another company called Rosenbauer just…
At the end of October 2017, life gave us a pretty good surprise. As a family we were getting used to life with a newborn again with Vesper and juggling all the duties a small farm requires. It was a happy time and even though my plans for the flower farm had been put on pause through this adjustment, it was totally worth it. Vesper was three months old and we had just gotten back from vacation. Honestly, I felt bloated and blamed it on…
Vesper Lily Coleman. On July 21, 2017, my neighbor and good friend, Savannah and myself were working with a fresh harvest of flowers and getting everything organized to go to the Chattanooga market. I was pretty excited as this would be the first time we were really selling my flowers to the general public and not just florists. While we were arranging flowers, I received one of the most important calls of my life: a mother had chosen us as parents to adopt her child.…
Life has been a whirlwind these past few years. Some parts have been crazy stressful and some parts have been crazy tears of joy. And before I can began to tell you of how this farm idea started, we kind of have to go back to talk about how we ended up in Chattanooga. So here is our story.* Andrew and I were living in Cookeville, Tennessee when we first began dating. After one month of dating, we were hit with our first big obstacle:…
