How to Grow Tulips Without a Cooler
My tailgate slowly opened to reveal the goods inside. I felt like I was hustling gold chains in NYC. Except it wasn’t gold chains—it was tulips that resembled limp spaghetti noodles with a bulb dangling on the bottom. The florist, her staff, and the bank tellers from across the parking lot were rummaging through my stash and building piles to buy.
I really wish I would have taken a picture of this memorable moment.
It was madness.
My first season selling tulips was one that will live on as a how NOT to handle tulip season. Let’s be honest, it was a straight up shit show!
We had a few unseasonably warm days in a row (typical Michigan weather usually followed by snow squalls) and every tulip blew open at once. I harvested the blown open stems and stored them in piles in my basement because it was 67 degrees versus a toasty 69 upstairs—and to me, those 2 degrees mattered! But then what?
I didn’t have buyers. I didn’t have a plan. And clearly, I didn’t have a clue.
That season, I grew 5,000+ tulips without a cooler. And I did it again in 2019 and 2020.
Going into my second tulip season, I would do things different. I would block off the first week of May simply to stay on top of harvesting. I would have buyers lined up and ready to go. I would have the beer fridge cold and cleaned out, except for the beverages obviously. I was going to be ready.
So let’s get to what this article is really about.
How to Grow Tulips Without a Cooler
Flower Subscriptions
Use flower subscriptions to guarantee homes for your tulips as they bloom. This way, you can immediately move them, bypassing storage.
I would let our subscribers know in the spring that they didn’t have a set delivery day. When the tulips bloomed, I would deliver them that day or the following.
Years later, flower subscriptions remain the primary vehicle I use to move tulips. They allow you to presell your product, so your flowers have a place to go.
Presell Flowers
I would list a bouquet of tulips for sale on our website and market the product for several weeks prior to the tulips blooming. As the tulips would bloom, I would get in touch with the customer to let them know their bouquet was ready for pick-up.
As I write this article, I’m preselling buckets of peonies. Some of the varieties have yet to break through the surface and they won’t bloom for another month. Yet I am looking to secure buyers so that during peony season, I can focus on the harvest instead of where my next buyer is going to come from.
Provide an Incentive to Purchase
In those early years, I offered various incentives to motivate my community to buy. Consider:
Offering delivery
Bringing bouquets to baseball, soccer, and hockey practice as needed! (or PTO meetings, school pick-up, the office, etc.)
Utilizing flash sales and discounts
Think of different ways you could incentivize your community to show up.
Create a Waitlist
Those first few seasons, my business was conducted 100% over social media. (GASP I know! Now I know the power of email marketing and rarely use social to sell!) I would put a post out to my followers and have them leave a comment if they were interested in a bouquet of tulips. As tulips bloomed, I would go down the list of comments and get in touch regarding payment and pickup.
Waitlists on social media are also a powerful form of social proof. The more people that drop a comment, FOMO (fear of missing out) comes into play and if Susie, Betty, and Nancy all love this farm’s flowers, I know I will too. The above post resulted in 78 comments or around 50 people who wanted tulip bouquets.
Flower Stands and Markets
Utilize your regular sales channels to sell your tulips. Before I had a flower stand, I had a very small Radio Flyer flower stand on my front porch. This little gem could hold around 10 bouquets, but she was a machine.
You may be wondering about the brown paper around the jars in the picture below. Because I didn’t have a cooler, my stems were droopy and would flop to the sides. The paper provided support and kept them from falling.
And I need to say…I don’t normally take pictures of cash. I really don’t. But I wanted to show my brother that this flower thing was going to work. After a busy day of tulip sales at the flower stand, I emptied the cash box, took a picture and sent the proof on over!!
Store the Rest
And finally, I used an old fridge from Craigslist whose sole purpose was to house beverages and the occasional holiday leftovers. Each spring I would crank the temp as low as it would go—above freezing—and make room! I moved the beer to the doors and tossed the food in the garbage. It was flower time!
Here’s my warning about using refrigerators. They are temperamental. Watch out for freezing. Be careful with petals touching the walls. And know it’s REALLY hard to get long stemmed varieties to fit! But they work!
You Don’t Need a Cooler to Grow a Large Number of Tulips!
But you do need to be strategic. Have buyers lined up and ready to go. When tulips come on, it can be grueling. You’ll spend your days harvesting, processing stems, popping ibuprofen, and trying to realign your back. The last thing you want to add to your plate is marketing and selling.
Take action prior to tulip season to presell your tulips so storage isn’t necessary. By utilizing subscriptions, a waitlist, presales, incentives, and putting an extra fridge to work, you can move a whole lot of tulips without a cooler.
