CAREER

Take Time to Flourish

get to know what a local Indiana business offers

Julie Frame had her Aha! moment for The Barn at Helm eight years ago while on a trip to visiting her son in Nashville, Tennessee. Upon visiting a local farmers market with her daughter-in-law and waiting in line for an hour to pick a bouquet, she saw customers choosing their flowers from multiple buckets and having their selected flowers created into a bouquet. She told her husband it was the coolest thing she’d ever seen.

“I have always loved flowers. I made my wedding bouquet back in the ‘80s out of silk flowers. I’ve always loved them but I never really thought about that as a business,” said Julie.

Back home in Williamsburg, Indiana, Julie and her husband own 250 acres of land where they farm corn and soybeans.

“I thought how cool would it be for us to grow our own flowers to make bouquets and sell them,” she said. She became invested in learning as much as she could. “I got home and was super excited, started going to conferences and workshops. The following summer, we went to our local farmers market with our own home-grown flowers.”

Seven years later, The Barn at Helm has built an online following through its Facebook and Instagram pages. “I post so that people see the behind the scenes of day-to-day work, what is involved in growing the flowers, and then see the beauty of the finished products,” said Julie.

“We’re in Indiana so we don’t have tropical weather, but we can grow 80 different varieties of flowers and have beautiful selections available to purchase from MarchDecember,” added Julie.

The Barn at Helm provides an array of services specialized in locally grown flowers for customers from florist, floral design and agrotourism. Julie says agrotourism is big during the summer months. This will be the third year that The Barn at Helm will invite people to visit the farm, enjoy the sunflower fields, and take in the music nights - known as Flower Farm Friday.

Julie also offers a “bouquet of the month” program that invites customers to pay upfront and then receive a monthly bouquet for 6 months.

“They kind of invest in my farm, so to speak, and that gives me money to buy seeds and plants and bulbs. In return, the customer receives a beautiful bouquet every single month”, she says.

During challenging weather conditions, people in the community volunteer to help Julie with her business. She says she loves having people help and want to see her succeed.

“It’s just me and my husband, and we both work full-time on the farm. Three acres of flowers is a lot. My husband will tell you that we have 250 acres of corn and soybeans, but he works harder on the 3 acres of flowers,” she said.

Julie hopes that visitors of The Barn at Helm will take with them a better understanding of the business, a new appreciation of flowers, and a beautiful bouquet of their choosing. Z

Photo by: Carleigh Alvey, Ember and Ash Photography

Bianca Mestiza is a journalist/writer with an interest in all things arts and culture. She is Hope’s public relations assistant.