Located 15 minutes southwest of Eckville on the Wall Street Road, Little Farm on Wall Street is the home and business of Brittany and Ryan Krook.
Established in 2020, their farm provides local flowers and hand-poured mason jar soy candles.
“I’ve always been passionate about flowers, design and decor and wanted to own a business at some point. I didn’t really have the intention of becoming a flower farmer, but then realized that there are actually quite a few people that grow flowers commercially despite the fact that we live in the sub arctic,” said Brittany with a laugh.
Being in a Zone 3 growing zone, they are able to get a good blooming window of different crops with their greenhouse and starting things early, along with succession growing.
Their primary crop is sunflowers, growing around 10 varieties of sunflowers, but they also grow anything they can in the zone, so lots of smaller flowers, focal flowers and fillers.
“I do wedding floristry and events, as well as supplying our Gasoline Alley Farmers’ Market location with blooms every week, said Brittany.
Brittany has lots planned going forward for Little Farm on Wall Street, including trying to get as many perennials going as they can, so they can start early summer as opposed to waiting for their annual crop.
“That’s with the flowers for people to come and u-pick. We also cater to the photography industry, so we’re open for photography bookings for family sessions, weddings, mini sessions and all of that.”
They hope to offer a number of different seasons eventually, being available for photographers to book in with them in the spring, summer, fall and winter, but are still under construction for that.
On top of the flowers, the Krooks also run an artisan candle shop, with Brittany making mason jar soy candles, which are available at their farm, on their website store, through the Gasoline Alley Farmers’ Market booth, along with stores around Alberta.
Brittany said she hopes to expand their candle sales across Canada.
So, it’s safe to say the Krooks are one busy family, with Ryan working as a paramedic in Eckville, while Brittany also working as a teacher with a local home school board, homeschooling her three elementary-aged kids while she works.
“We’re really wanting to instill that family business in with our kids with age-appropriate things they can do and grow into.”
The Krooks took part in Open Farm Days this past summer, and had over 530 people come in and shop at their farmers market and u-pick. They plan on doing more of those kinds of events going forward.
“It’s been busy but it’s really good. It’s growing and it’s really cool to see the interest in local producers and the desire for the customer base wanting to know where their flowers come from.”
Going forward, Brittany plans on offering different workshops.
“I’m planning to teach candle and floral workshops, and I’d also like to get in other host instructors for other artisan skills,” she said, adding that they are in the planning phase of how that’s going to work for costs, class sizes, frequency, etc.
For more information on their farm and upcoming events, people can visit littlefarmonwallstreet.com or visit their social media page ‘Little Farm on Wall Street.’
This article is part of Black Press Media’s award-winning special supplement publication, “Fall’s Bounty 202: A salute to central Alberta farmers and harvest.” The pullout section was published in print editions at the end of September. Find more Fall’s Bounty 2023 stories here.