Carolina Flowers is Asheville’s flagship flower company, providing flowers from our fields to customers all over the metropolitan area through our delivery business. We also offer floral design services for weddings and events and sell our blooms at farmers markets.

Our shop, Carolina Flowers Mercantile, serves as both our retail showcase and our production area. All blooms come here after they leave the farm for processing, storage and arranging. It’s an exciting and beautiful place to work!

Full-time and part-time opportunities available. We are seeking a farmer with at least one year (or two growing seasons) of paid farming experience.

Our farm is located about half an hour outside of Asheville in the Marshall area.

Job Description

The Farmer should encapsulate the spirit of Carolina Flowers with an upbeat, positive attitude and a genial, kind demeanor. The Farmer must be resilient and able to work outdoors in all weather conditions, including heat and rain and snow.

You must be a team player! At Carolina Flowers, we’ve spent years developing our growing practices, and we’re looking for people who can learn and execute our techniques. Good communication skills are required as you will be expected to ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand the processes. You must be open minded and able to receive feedback and direction.

Farming is a rewarding job, but it can be repetitive. You must be able to work on repetitive tasks for long periods of time regardless of the weather.

Duties

• Harvesting flowers while adhering to handling requirements
• Preparing soil for planting
• Running, installing and maintaining irrigation systems
• Weeding
• Fertility management
• Monitoring for pests and disease
• Mowing and grounds maintenance
• Clean up
• Keeping records on the computer and on paper
• Integrated pest management
• Staking and support netting
• Understanding proper harvest stage, necessary harvest conditions and post-harvest handling and processing, including drying
• Dead-heading and topping plants to ensure continued production and proper physical structure. 
• Removing previous season’s crops efficiently in order to make room for the next succession planting. 
• Cover-cropping fields between successions as much as possible. 
• Caring for all over-wintered crops throughout cold months, including venting high tunnels and constructing and venting low tunnels.
• Seasonally pruning flower bushes to encourage regrowth and proper physical structure.
• Maintaining the farm properties, including mowing, weed-whacking, ditch maintenance, and regularly removing trash.  
• Maintaining proper irrigation and temperature conditions inside high-tunnels.
• May sometimes be asked to assist with deliveries
• May sometimes be asked to assist with farmer markets
• Many duties not listed  here

Requirements

• Must be able to lift and carry 50 pounds on a regular basis
• At least one season of commercial farming experience
• You MUST be able to listen to feedback on your work and use this information to improve
• Manual dexterity
• An upbeat, positive attitude that comes across in everything you do
• Enthusiastic team player
• Organized and efficient
• Resilient and indefatigable
• Punctual and reliable