Hi! I’m Elaine Vandiver
I grow specialty cut flowers on my historic homestead in Walla Walla, Washington.
I am a seasonal grower - cultivating rare, unique and heirloom varieties that are picked at their peak just for you.
This also means that I do not have flowers year round — only when they’re blooming here in the valley. When the garden is at rest for the winter, so am I.
My signature bouquets are available via my weekly subscription delivery service.
You can also find me slingin’ deluxe mixed bouquets at the Downtown Walla Walla farmer’s market most Saturdays from May through October.
Just look for me inside my adorable flower cart.
The back story (abridged)
The back story (unabridged)
My name is Elaine, and together with my husband, Mike, we purchased our 10-acre property in late 2013 as a way to start anew after learning a traditional family wasn’t in the cards for us.
For me in particular, in order to move forward I needed to move away from the subdivision filled with growing families - reminding me of the dreams that were not meant for us.
Ten acres seemed sufficient. It had a big old red barn that reminded me of the ones I saw growing up in Indiana. Plus it had a handful of outbuildings. And of course the farmhouse. A two-story folk victorian number, with a wrap around porch.
The whole place had charm, potential and good bones. If you could look past the peeling paint & tatters of time.
In other words, it was a lot like us.
The seller told us that it was “an old homestead” and that “those two llama come with the place”.
As city kids, we were unfamiliar with both homesteads and llamas. But we were in a place in life where we weren’t going to question things. And after 7 years infertility treatments, I also wasn’t in a place where I was going to force anything anymore.
So a homestead with llamas it was.
In the late evenings, we would often look over those old homestead documents. They outlined how a man from Iowa named Nathaniel S. Gholson spent five years from 1870 - 1875 settling & improving the land in order to own it.
It was impressive to read, and fitting to learn of the heritage while we worked tirelessly renovating the farmhouse.
The parts of the home we were rejuvenating were the newer parts added mid-century when the house got indoor plumbing and heating.
All the old bits, like the wood walls (no lathe & plaster) have saw marks from its originally milling (likely done onsite) and average 2 inches thick in most places. The original pine floors, once refinished, confirmed they were built for this specific house as each plank ran the entire span of each room.
The first spring arrived, where the once sad looking pastures sprang to life. And those two raggedy llama (LeRoi & Loretta) could not keep up with them. They grew into a glorious sea of green.
But with all our resources tied into farmhouse renovations, we couldn’t exactly get a tractor.
So naturally, we got the next best thing: alpaca. You know . . . the cute, smaller, softer version of llamas.
They were supposed to be nothing more than cute little lawnmowers. And they were. But it sorta took a whole gaggle of them to keep up with the grass. And then they needed to be shorn. And that pile of raw fleece had to go somewhere.
Ultimately, I started having it professionally spun into yarn . . . and then launched our farm business, Old Homestead Alpacas, which now has a line of knitwear made exclusively of their fiber & manufactured entirely in the USA.
But with a herd of white, brown and black alpaca, I craved more vibrant colors.
The vast majority of dyes available were acid-based and had somewhat scary handling & disposal requirements. I didn’t like the idea of putting acid on the ultra soft, extra fine fiber. And I certainly didn’t like the idea of disposing of it in our septic system which ultimately returns to the land.
That’s how I learned about natural dyeing - using plant based dyes. I descended quickly into the beautiful rabbit hole of heirloom plants & flowers that produce light & color-fast dyes.
I had an old paddock alongside the farmhouse that wasn’t being used. So I bought seed for marigold, coreopsis, dyer’s chamomile, sulfur cosmos and madder root and called it a garden. I was growing the fiber and the dye stuff. And I was selling yarn and machine knit garments - all using our herd’s fiber. It was fantastic.
But I was a 5 o’clock farmer. Both Mike and I had day jobs to pay the mortgage and bankroll the renovations.
By the 4th year having the farm and the little business, it was getting harder & harder to go to a cubicle every day. Leaving the herd and this little slice of heaven everyday was not easy.
If only I could do this full time . . .
But the reality of fiber farming is that it is inherently a long-lead process. Our herd takes a full year to grow the fiber. After it is shorn each year, it takes about another 8 months to get it spun at an artisan fiber mill. Then I need a few months to hand dye the yarn and garments.
On average, that means it takes 2 years to bring one fiber harvest to market.
That’s a long time to leverage, considering there are costs all along the way. It seemed nearly impossible to ever leave the day job with a plan like that.
So one spring while starting seeds in my greenhouse, I had an idea.
What if I just start selling some flowers?
After all, I was already growing dye flowers - why not try a few varieties for cutting? An annual crop with a comparatively lower price point seemed like a good fit.
So in the summer of 2017, I grew 100 row feet of zinnia, cosmos, sunflowers and celosia.
I mostly watched them grow & brought them in the house for my own enjoyment. As the summer went on, the more I cut, the more they produced. So I started to take some into the office.
I put a vase on my desk. Then I added another one by the printer so everyone could enjoy. I dabbled in ‘arranging’ by making posey bouquets for the ladies room - and those were always a big hit.
Growing cut flowers alongside the alpacas was simply beautiful and it taught me so much. It slowed me down, but also put more purpose in each step.
At the beginning of 2018, I got the nerve up and asked my boss if I could switch from full time to part time.
Surprisingly, she said yes, and the schedule change allowed me to tend to the garden, cut flowers during the weekday mornings so I could ultimately attend the Saturday farmer’s market.
That first year at market was my bravest year (currently) on record. Using a truck-bed trailer that Mike and I fashioned to become a flower cart - I toted it to market and set up next to real farmers. I named the operation Gholson Gardens, paying homage to the original homestead family.
I sold more bouquets in 2018 than I ever thought I could even grow! Towards the end of market season, I was hesitant to introduce some of my alpaca goods alongside the flowers fearing it would be ‘too weird’ from a branding perspective and/or people just ‘wouldn’t get it’.
Turns out it wasn’t weird and people definitely got it! In fact, I sold more yarn & knitwear in the last month of the market than I had over the last 3 years combined!
And from an operational perspective, it extends a synergy more beautiful that I could have ever imagined . . .
Once the first fall frost hits, I put the cutting garden to bed and shift focus to the fiber as the year’s harvest is usually back from the mill. I then begin dyeing it using the flowers I dried, froze & stashed all summer.
Since the pastures stop producing, that also means I’m tending to the herd & feeding hay 2-3 times a day. I also begin stock piling their manure, which becomes the primary amendment in the garden the following spring.
The winter is my time to recharge. Apart from feeding the herd and keeping their water from freezing, I spend time reconnecting, knitting, planning & storing energy for the coming year.
In early spring, the herd is shorn and their fiber is sent to the mill for processing. While they take to enjoying the freshly sprouting pasture all day, my focus then shifts to seed starting and garden prep. During the summer, the herd hangs in the shade while I cut flowers, process deliveries & prepare for the Saturday market.
It’s a beautiful rhythm. It has made me not only appreciate seasonality, but embrace it wholeheartedly. Everyday I’m filled with gratitude for a life that has sprung from such heartache. I endeavor to approach all my days with the same honest receptivity that lead me here in the first place. And since leaving the day job entirely in the spring of 2019, I am grateful at the opportunity to be dedicating all of my days to building our own version of a family & legacy right here on the homestead.