In addition to selling flowers through Indigo Rain, Martin-McTavish will also be collaborating with local florist, Kailey Stewart of Kettering, who opened her studio in downtown Huntsville in the summer of 2020. Updates on both of these will be provided through social media and a newsletter. The farm will be selling flowers through a bouquet subscription based on the CSA (community supported agriculture) model, and at their on-farm flower stand open throughout the growing season. We think that growing specialty cut flowers, focusing on flowers that thrive here and don’t transport well, will offer our community an alternative to imported products.” “Our growing season overlaps with an influx of cottagers and visitors who seek connections and experiences in addition to our vibrant year-round community who seek out and support local businesses that offer value and are consistent with their ethics and interests. “My hope for the business is to offer our community a choice when they are purchasing flowers,” she said. Other than starting the seeds inside in her dye studio, all the growing will be done outside. This is in addition to beds around their house that were constructed last fall. We have worked all last summer to make the beds.”Ĭurrently, she has 10 beds that are 75-feet in length by four-feet wide with paths between for annual specialty cut flowers and in the spring another section of beds the same size will be constructed for perennials and shrubs. “My parents gifted us our property to build our home on and it was part of one of their farm fields, so the flower farm straddles both properties. “The flowers will grow in beds that are on our property and the farm of my parents as our land and theirs are side by side,” she said. This past fall, Martin-McTavish took the YWCA Muskoka Women In Business course and said that the course was instrumental in helping her develop her business plan and really focus in on what she wanted to achieve. I had a deep knowing that this was my path forward.” “When I realized that I could grow flowers and that there was a movement of sustainable flower farming called Slow Flowers, I was hooked. Flowers on the other hand had me out in the garden, cup of coffee in hand, at dawn,” she said. “To be honest, vegetables were never that exciting when I would grow them. She began growing flowers to make bouquets to decorate her studio for the Muskoka Autumn Tour and then, after reading Vegetables Love Flowers by Lisa Mason Ziegler and taking Ziegler’s courses on flower farming, had the confirmation she needed to launch her own farm. I had a restless feeling all fall and couldn’t read enough gardening books and magazines to quench this thirst for more.” I never thought that it would take me beyond my studio into another world. “This collection represented the completion of a cycle of enquiry and I went into the autumn of 2019 knowing that a new beginning was at hand, but I thought at the time that it would be new subject matter to explore or a new concept to weave. “In 2019 I had a solo exhibition at the Chapel Gallery in Bracebridge, ‘Repository of Memory’, featuring several bodies of work,” she said. When she and her husband Ian bought their home 20 years ago, the first thing they did was put in gardens her passion only got stronger. Martin-McTavish also developed a passion for gardening more than 30 years ago after being introduced to growing herbs by her father when she was in high school. She is now known for her tapestry weaving, as well as her distinct collection of hand-dyed and woven scarves and woven wall panels. After obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University, Martin-McTavish was introduced to the world of fibre art.
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