Inspiring Conversations with Christina Brontoli of Flutter Farms

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Brontoli.

Hi Christina, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My name is Christina Brontoli, and I live in Belton, MO. I have a wonderful husband, Mario, and three beautiful boys that are usually completely out of control and wild creatures. In February of 2022, my husband and I decided we were ready to move on from growing our family, and I was searching for something that would get us outside and in touch with nature. Three weeks later, the idea of Flutter Farms was born, and I had thousands of seeds to turn the dream into a reality. Flowers had always held a special place in my heart, so when I realized flower farming was “a thing,” I was all in! As a little girl, flower arranging was how I’d spend time with my grandma, and she always had a beautiful garden where I loved to walk and watch the petals “flutter” in the wind. We started with a 1500 sq. ft no-till garden, and I was hooked by the end of the first season. The therapeutic benefits of being outside and in the dirt are exactly what we needed, and it turns out there is no better place for a Tonka truck than in a freshly dumped pile of compost. What took us by surprise though, was the outreach from the community and we saw just how powerful flowers could be. We decided to give back to that community and donated some of our proceeds to Heart-N-Hand’s Christmas toy drive.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been smooth?
Surprisingly, most things grew well! We learned many lessons on managing the beds, including the importance of barriers to keep grass from taking over (RIP Craspedia). By August, the beds were completely overgrown with flowers, and you could barely walk through them, so better spacing and flower netting are in the plans for this year. The biggest obstacle is having more flowers than I know what to do with!  Flowers are a niche market, and finding our customers and where/how to sell the flowers will be something we continue to explore in the coming years. Figuring out how to make this fit in with our life is a close second. My husband and I have full-time jobs, plus our three boys, three dogs, twelve chickens (and counting), and a cat. Our initial plan was to sell at the local farmers’ market. We quickly realized we weren’t able to balance the market and our daily lives so we turned an old trailer into a roadside flower cart. We found being flexible is the key to finding your way when starting something new.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
At Flutter Farms, we specialize in seasonal, organically grown, fresh-cut flowers. We are driven to create and share beauty with the community and believe that flowers are more than just petals and stems. Flowers can significantly impact your emotional state and have been proven to lower anxiety and reduce stress. Our mission is to spread joy with locally grown blooms. Approximately 80% of flowers you’ll find at florists, or the grocery store, were imported from other countries. That means they were cut several days before they were available to the customer. At Flutter Farms, we harvest the night before the bouquets are made available, which means you get to enjoy them their entire vase life! This season we are expanding beyond the flower cart and adding bouquet subscriptions to surrounding areas, buckets of blooms for the DIYers, and experimenting with dried flowers. We are also building a 270′ Sunflower wall which will be the perfect backdrop to our field; think of the photo ops!

We love surprises, fun facts, and incredible stories. Can you share something that might surprise us?
We aren’t farmers; we didn’t grow up on farms, and we can’t even keep a straight face when we call our business a farm. We love being outdoors and getting our hands dirty. We added some chickens, beehives, and a “farm cat,” and now feel like we’re getting a tiny bit closer to a farm. Ok, maybe a micro-farm, is that a thing? It all started as an escape from our day jobs and turned into an outright passion. Being surrounded by flowers and seeing them immediately change someone’s day is the cherry on top. Flutter Farms is a dream that what we’re building is no longer an escape but a way of life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.flutterfarms.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flutterfarms
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flutterfarms