About
Welcome to my farm. I am Elizabeth Walters, a flower farmer and artisan, living in the high mountain desert of Dillon, Montana. Whether you’re looking for flowers for your home or business, or a gift of beauty for a loved one, I happily extend this joyful invitation to you to discover flowers grown here on my small farm in Dillon.
As a child, I loved picking flowers in my parent's garden and in my grandparent's gardens in upstate New York. I was enamored with the trillium and lady's slippers that could be found in the woods by our house, and loved the beauty that bloomed throughout the seasons in our yard.
I have cultivated a garden of one kind or another throughout my adult life while running a glass blowing business and while my husband and I raised our family of 4 children. The garden included vegetables, fruit trees, berry bushes, flowers, chickens, and for a few year, a family cow. Because we had an overflow of produce, enough for us and enough to share...I called it Overflow Farm. After moving to Montana in fall of 2020, my desire to grow greater quantities and varieties of flowers led me to invest in the Floret Online Workshop with my husband's encouragement. The summer of 2021 I experienced the wonder of harvesting a bucketful of one flower variety for the first time, and I was hooked. Overflow Farm became a small flower farm.
The vision for the flower farm is evolving while I learn more about growing flowers in this climate, figure out what works for me as a grower/artisan, and discover what best serves this local community. For now, Overflow Farm flowers can be found during the growing season at the Dillon Montana Farmer's Market each Saturday the Sheridan Farmer's Market on Thursday evenings, and in the Dillon Town and Country floral cooler in the produce section. Flowers are also available via a weekly subscription. |
When I was about 5......I remember wanting to pick my mom's daffodils. She said no, but told me I could pick the dandelions. So pleased with my dandelion bouquet, I asked her to take my picture. It is the only time I remember having asked to have my picture taken as a child.
My husband and partnerMichael is a writer and artisanal woodworker/furniture maker who also works full time outside of the yard. In addition to encouraging me to dive in and take the Floret Online Workshop, comes to the Farmer's Markets when he is able and is the one I turn to when I need a display made or help with a problem. He builds infrastructure projects, like my garden shed, and in general, can fix almost anything.
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about overflow farm
Our flowers and vegetables are currently grown on ¼ acre of intensively cultivated ground in Dillon, Montana. Our growing practices are rooted in stewardship and sustainability, improving the overall health of the soil naturally while steering clear of chemical pesticides/herbicides and synthetic fertilizers.
"Overflow Farm" began in upstate NY where we lived in a small town (no traffic lights or stores) for 20 years while raising our family / homeschooling our kids. The backyard garden expanded every year as we added more and more crops. At various times, our "Farm" included laying hens, meat chickens, and a family cow. We seldom bought produce from the grocery stores because we were able to grow most of what we ate. Flowers were always in our yard and garden, but vegetable, fruit, and berry crops always took precedence. There were many times when crops would be so plentiful, we had a serious overflow, hence the name "Overflow Farm". Each season we grew enough for us and to share, to the point where we had a small scale CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for a couple years.
When we relocated to Dillon, Montana, in 2020, we left behind 20 years of soil improvements to start over on new ground, in a new climate with very different weather and soil conditions ( Dillon is a high, dry desert with less than 12 inches of annual rainfall a year), and a new goal- to start a flower farm! While starting with a blank slate was initially daunting, we have been working to fill in the 'pixels' of our 1.5 acres with birch, pear, apple, crabapple, and plum trees, raspberries, lilac, ninebark, forsythia, mock orange, dwarf red leaf sandhill cherries, dogwood, snowberry, spirea, and serviceberry bushes along with an assortment of perennials. 1/4 acre of the yard is the designated production patch where most of the annual crops are planted along with the fruit trees and raspberries. The plant selection has been primarily based on whether we can eat it / use it in cut flower arrangements and of course, the overall hardiness of the plants.
"Overflow Farm" began in upstate NY where we lived in a small town (no traffic lights or stores) for 20 years while raising our family / homeschooling our kids. The backyard garden expanded every year as we added more and more crops. At various times, our "Farm" included laying hens, meat chickens, and a family cow. We seldom bought produce from the grocery stores because we were able to grow most of what we ate. Flowers were always in our yard and garden, but vegetable, fruit, and berry crops always took precedence. There were many times when crops would be so plentiful, we had a serious overflow, hence the name "Overflow Farm". Each season we grew enough for us and to share, to the point where we had a small scale CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for a couple years.
When we relocated to Dillon, Montana, in 2020, we left behind 20 years of soil improvements to start over on new ground, in a new climate with very different weather and soil conditions ( Dillon is a high, dry desert with less than 12 inches of annual rainfall a year), and a new goal- to start a flower farm! While starting with a blank slate was initially daunting, we have been working to fill in the 'pixels' of our 1.5 acres with birch, pear, apple, crabapple, and plum trees, raspberries, lilac, ninebark, forsythia, mock orange, dwarf red leaf sandhill cherries, dogwood, snowberry, spirea, and serviceberry bushes along with an assortment of perennials. 1/4 acre of the yard is the designated production patch where most of the annual crops are planted along with the fruit trees and raspberries. The plant selection has been primarily based on whether we can eat it / use it in cut flower arrangements and of course, the overall hardiness of the plants.