The Evolution of Renegade.

By: Erin Cech
Owner & Farmer at Renegade Flower Farm

I always find the evolution of a BIG IDEA fascinating. How it comes together very slowly & organically, many times. BIG IDEAS are not for the impatient, rather, those who are willing to patiently trust the process that involves bits & pieces of one’s life contributing towards IT. And you have to be paying attention. Catching & noting those little, subtle signs that are the universe nudging you in the direction you are meant to be going.

As a child I really struggled to find my “place.” My sisters were super jocks & excelled in athletics. I pushed myself hard to fit into that category, but I just couldn’t keep up. I was most definitely the last kid picked in gym class. As an escape, I spent many summers immersed in books. I sometimes blew through several a day. On afternoon, deep in a read (most likely my Nancy Drew series), my Dad nudged me to get outside, handing me clippers to trim the ivy growing up onto the house. Total eyeroll, for sure. I remember huffing & puffing as I trudged outside. But as I breathed in the fresh air, cleaned up the overgrown mess & stood back to admire how nice & clean it looked, I couldn’t stop. The next day I went outside without my Dad asking me to. The following summer I asked him if we could start a vegetable garden. I was 12. And the summer following that I dug up an old fish pond that had been filled in along the house & re-landscaped the entire area surrounding it. I remember my mom driving me to the local nursery to pick out bushes & plants for the area that would do well in the shade. I felt alive. I was hooked. It was around this time that neighbors started taking notice & I was hired as the gardener/garden caretaker for several elderly neighbors. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of working in their yards while they sat & chatted up a storm with me - grateful for the companionship & help.

Even through college & all of my rental homes leading up to homeownership, I had a small plot I would plant in. There was something so satisfying about taking something overgrown or blah & turning it into something spectacular for all to enjoy. A feast for every sense.

I think my lonely teenage years really created this huge need for connection in me. Renegade all began with this idea that I carried around in my heart for years: to connect with others & bring them joy. Even when my husband Keegan & I moved to Garnet Valley, we felt so isolated in our farmhouse tucked way back off the road. I was a young mom of a 1 year old & didn’t know a soul. It was a strange time in our lives, but years that I spent formulating the seed for Renegade, unbeknownst to me at the time.

With a background in arts marketing/events planning for the theatre, symphony & museum world & hobbies that included gardening & crafting, I always was trying to figure out how I could create something original that married all of these loves together.

The earliest version of Renegade started with the desire to create a Makery studio space that featured crafting & growing workshops built around social activities such as fire pits, outdoor games & live music. For years upon years, I researched & visited studios & interviewed studio owners. I was so thrilled to get started. But still, I hesitated. I always had an excuse of why I wasn’t pursuing it. Then someone else beat me to the idea & I was crushed. And so I quit.

The only place I could find solace from my failed dream was in the garden, doubling, tripling then quadrupling the size of our plot & delving deeper into flowers. My 3 sisters encouraged me to share what I knew with others by creating an Instagram page, so the account @gray.stone.farm was born. I was very uncomfortable sharing so much of myself with the world & it was mostly just my family who commented or liked my posts (lololol), but it surely primed me for what was to come.

Then Covid hit & I started cleaning & organizing my entire house while hunkering down at home. And that’s when I found, buried under a stack of paperwork, the business card of a local flower farmer that I had grabbed back in 2016 when I was working for a local florist. I had kept it for years. At the time I was absolutely blown away that this was a job. I hadn’t honestly ever thought that you could grow flowers as a living until she walked into the floral studio that day. That day was my ah-ha moment. Where my original idea which still burned deep inside of me came full circle to build a flower farm & incorporate my Makery dream into the farm through a series of flower-inspired workshops & special events. A more focused dream that really truly brought all of these small shifts in my life together. And I thank my lucky stars I was paying attention.

When my neighbor’s farm came up for sale I waited 2 weeks to contact the realtor. Those original thoughts of “I can’t do this” & “I will fail” came creeping back into my head. I decided big ideas weren’t for me. But one evening, I stepped outside & walked the property. The wild pulled me in. I could see the field of flowers even though it was an overgrown mess. I could see a gathering space where people could connect. I could see the space coming back to life after years of neglect.

And here we are. I still can’t believe the farm is real. That flowers are growing. The amount of work that went into clearing the field, getting the soil healthy, getting landscape material burned, starting, caring for & planting 15,000+ flowers, weeding, dealing with pests & broken down equipment………is unreal. It’s kind of like the internal work that I’ve had to do, that many of us do daily, to get our heads in a good place for growth.

My story is long…but there is a point in it all. That sometimes your dream is just the seed. One idea can lead to another than another. Every single thing you attempt in your life is part of the map that you are creating for yourself. There is no such thing as failure because every moment is meant to exist so you can have something to build upon. I am thrilled beyond thrilled to have this beautiful community along for this wild ride of a lifetime!

Thank you for joining us on our journey! XOXO