Twig & Vine Farm

To be inspired is to be guided, to be compelled to take action, it is to be propelled forward.

Eleven years ago, when I first started growing cut flowers, if you’d have asked me what inspired me to begin, I thought the answer was simple: we needed extra income and it seemed like a great way to make ends meet and still be at home with our very young children.

That’s what I would have told you.  But it wasn’t the truth.

Since then, I’ve learned it takes a tremendous amount of courage and vulnerability to allow ourselves to see what is propelling us forward.  It’s scary to peel back all of the layers of our heart so we can truly see what’s touching it and shaping it.

The truth was it felt safer to say it was about finances, rather than my heart.  I had just resigned my teaching position to be able to stay at home with our two little boys, who were at that time 3 years old and 4 months.  I was struggling with postpartum depression along with trying, for the first time in my adult life, to figure out who I was without a job title defining me and a schedule determining how I spent my hours and days.. 

What I wanted most was connection: to myself, to my faith, to my family, to my community, to the act of creating. Now, if you asked me why I started a flower business, I would tell you the truth: what actually was propelling me forward was simple: beauty and connection.

I found it in the flowers.  It started at first, as I weeded through naptime with a baby monitor on my hip, it was a simple, pure connection. I was pulled into the present moment and invited to observe the changing seasons.  The tiny intricicies of each petal, plant, or bee tethered and anchored me to what was and is greater in my life.  It was in the garden, in those quiet hours, that I was introduced to who I really wanted to be: the me who now knew how to chase away the gray by putting her face to the sun.  The me who understood that in order to be the mother my children needed and I wanted to be, I first had to take care of my own heart and my own health.  The me who felt a deep sense of commmunity and knew how to give back. The me who wasn’t drowning but was planted and thriving. It was in those hours with my hands the dirt that my mind quieted and I learned to pray like I never had before.  

And then the flowers started blooming.

Each time I placed them in someone’s hands, I marveled. When I shared those first handfuls, I realized I wasn’t just giving flowers: I was giving a small sample of all that I’d already been gleaning: the beauty, the quiet contemplation, the miracle of it all.  

Our two little boys grew and grew, and were soon joined by a third brother. Eventually, we traded one acre with a big, beautiful house a little, wornout mobile home and ten acres where all our farm dreams to grow.

My flower business followed a twisting path, and I’ve been inspired by many things, but the one thing that still rings truest for me is connection.  

That isn’t to say that there haven’t been seasons and years when I went off my course, caught in the pull of influence rather than momentum of true inspiration.  In hindsight, it’s easy to spot the times the shift happened: it began the minute I started to look around, rather than ahead, finding myself swept into the sea of comparison.  And if ever there was a path that leads away from vulnerability, honesty, and connection, it’s comparison.  I found myself looking at what others were doing and listening to expectations of what I could or should do.  I tried on lots of business models that worked for others: wedding design, market gardening, subscriptions.  Instead of being pulled forward by what truly inspired me, I spent a lot of hours on social media, giving in to that wave of comparison that pushed me along a path that wasn’t really mine.  

It took a while to learn (and if I’m honest-keep learning) that comparison is really an enticing wrapper that encloses an even less attractive motive: a hustle for acceptance and approval.  The pathway of acceptance and approval is well worn and safe-and always leads me straight into duplication and replication, but never authenticity, connection and creativity. 

It was when I decided to stop looking around and rather look within and ahead that I really began to grab ahold and let connection lead. Instead of weddings and hustling more flowers, I started hosting classes and workshops where I could gather groups together, finding joy and connection in time spent together and with flowers.  

Since I’d started growing flowers, I’d always gifted flowers in our community, but I began to intentionally and regularly seek ways to use what I had to create meaningful moments of connection. Slowly, true inspiration took root. Connection had been there all along waiting, I just needed to be brave enough to take hold and let it lead. The more flowers we freely gave, the more opportunities we created for moments of connection.  Every interaction-every bunch of flowers gifted to a long term care resident, every bouquet left on the counter of a doctor’s office or library, every bundle placed in the hands of needy community members, left me inspired to do more.  

The flowers hadn’t changed: they were the same ones I’d grown for weddings. The same blooms I’d bunched for market. The same bundles I wrapped for subscriptions. But this was altogether different because I was inspired by what mattered most to me. I saw the way that a handful of free flowers opened doors, softened hearts and lifted up the most discouraged.  But I could only grow so many flowers and reach so many people in our community: I began to wonder what would happen if I could empower and equip others to do the same?  

As the flowers faded, gifting flowers in our community turned into gifting hundreds of dahlias tubers to our community members.  We invited anyone who was willing to grow and give flowers in kindness to pick out free tubers to help them grow their own flower garden: the only expectation was that they shared flowers freely in kindness. That was the beginning of what is now today, The Growing Kindness Project™.  

Here’s the most inspiring thing about inspiration: when we find true inspiration,  it encourages others to do the same.  The Growing Kindness Project™  a nonprofit organization that has grown include a worldwide team of big-hearted gardeners and flower farmers who are each seeking to foster connection and kindness in communities by gifting flowers to those who need of some extra care and encouragement.  

Looking back, it's easy how true inspiration will lead us to exactly the place we were supposed to be all along, if we’re just brave enough to let ourselves grab hold and follow it.  

**To learn more about the Growing Kindness Project™, or to become a member of the team, please visit www.growingkindnessproject.org.

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Deanna Kitchen is a flower farmer, floral designer and educator. Together with her family, she operates Twig and Vine Farm, a microscale cut flower farm specializing in dahlias. Deanna’s heart for gathering, teaching and community service, led her to founding The Growing Kindness Project. Deanna quickly learned the joy and power of giving flowers freely in her community and she set out to find ways to support, encourage and assist others to do the same. The Growing Kindness Project now leads a team of gardeners and farmers across the world who are on a mission to change the world, one stem at a time. You can follow along with her family farm adventures on Instagram (@twigandvine) and learn more about the project on instagram (@growingkindnessproject) or on the project’s website (www.growingkindnessproject.org).