Stress, Setbacks, and Innovation

Last year, we made the decision early on not to invest time in building our website. That was something we would prioritize the next year. This year, we made it a goal to offer pre-ordering in a more user-friendly, accessible, and familiar way, by creating an online store-front through our new website. Andy, the visual and technology expert, has a strong vision for our website and has spent countless hours learning about web design and virtual payment to make our website as intuitive and easy-to-use as possible. We are SO excited to be releasing it into the world in a few short weeks.

One section we are both very excited about wasn’t even in our radar when we first started making our store front. After countless hours of organizing our seeds, we were faced with the daunting task of putting all 250+ seedling options online. Anxiously, I crunched the numbers, and at first it looked like we had 30+ hours ahead of us just uploading each seed packet individually. And so the process of streamlining began, as we brainstormed how to best organize and present (and upload!) such a wide variety of options in an easy way.

During this process, I went to see a friend in South Minneapolis who had some seed packets for me. While sitting in a sunny window, sipping tea, I talked about our current dilemma and time management concerns. She offered up an idea, one that would simplify the shopping process for customers and allow some flexibility in starting seedlings for us: garden kits. The anxiety of the daunting task was suddenly replaced by newfound excitement for this idea! Kits could be tailored to certain needs, offering to take the burden of seedling-choice off of the gardener!

And thus my favorite thing from this year was born! I have put together a list of over 20 different kinds of kits, ranging from the “Salsa Gardener”, to “The Minnesotan”, all the way to “The Small-Space Gardener”, which would help direct people based on space available. This new idea has sparked a new appreciation and excitement for what we are doing during a time that was originally very stressful for me. The kits offer gardeners a quick and easy option to get a variety of seedlings based on their particular fancy, and gives us some creativity and flexibility when deciding which varieties of those plants to start! It’s truly amazing what a little shock of stress, a good friend, and perspective can give you. We are truly very excited to be launching our new “garden kits” options along with our 250+ individual seedling options for those who are brave enough to take on the library!