A sea of color

GREENWOOD, Wis. — Driving by the Nigon family’s Clark County farmstead, a sea of color greets your eyes at the u-pick flower patch at Nigon-View Farms, operated by Luke and Amy Nigon. Here visitors are invited to stop in and gather a bouquet of blooms.

The dairy on Nigon-View Farms, which is located near Greenwood, is operated by Luke’s parents, Marty and Kathy. The Nigons milk 70 cows. Luke, who works full-time off the farm, helps out on the farm with cropping and assists Amy with managing and operating the pumpkins and flowers.

“I’d worked in a building for a long time, in several positions, and the last position I held came with a lot of stress,” Amy said. “After the pandemic my priorities shifted. I got more serious about taking care of myself and our family.”

That shift led Amy to begin to look for a way to incorporate herself into the family farm. Raised in Michigan, with no farming background, she began thinking about the family’s long-standing pumpkin business and ways to take that to the next level.

“For years, we’d placed the same order for pumpkin seeds every year,” Amy said. “Even before I left my job, I decided to add color and try new varieties. Now we’ve become known for that variety.”

The Nigons now grow over 200 varieties of pumpkins, gourds and squash on 4.5 acres.

While the Nigon family has become well-known in the area for the pumpkins they grow each year, over the past three years, their u-pick flower patch has become known as well.

“It is a great experience for people — they can come pick flowers, enjoy nature, see the animals on the farm,” Amy said. “We’re very thankful Luke’s parents are on board with the idea having people come to the farm.”

The Nigons now plant about a quarter-acre of flowers. The patch features 125 different varieties including customer favorites like zinnias and sunflowers.

“I have done research on what varieties are good for cutting and we have tweaked things based on what people like and what I like,” Amy said. “I think we’ve hit a pretty good point right now, with enough variety.”

The Nigons have customers who drive a couple of hours to come pick flowers and get pumpkins. In addition to cut flowers, the Nigons offer a variety of mums as well.

“People would come get pumpkins and ask where they could get mums,” Luke said. “It was a natural extension, and (our customers appreciate that) we’re open seven days a week.”

The idea of growing flowers was a fluid one at the beginning, and the Nigons let their customers set the course.

“I think when she first started, Amy didn’t know exactly what direction she wanted to go,” Luke said. “She started by growing the flowers and putting together bouquets, selling those. Then the u-pick idea came up, so we tried it and have been surprised by the response for that.”

Growing flowers en masse and opening the farm has been a learning experience.

“We’re still learning every year,” Luke said. “There’s a lot to learn — with pest control, identifying diseases and figuring out how to deal with that. It takes a lot of infrastructure and extra work to keep it looking good and accessible to everyone.”

Plant health is a priority for Amy.

“Between the wet year and the insect pressure, this year has been a bit of a struggle,” Amy said.

Keeping the flower patch healthy helps elongate the season.

“We are usually ready to open near the end of July and keeping everything healthy, we can go to the first killing frost,” Luke said.

The flowers bring the added benefit of attracting pollinators, which are helpful to the pumpkin patch.

The first year, the Nigons planted two different patches but decided to condense to one.

“At first I wanted an entire patch of zinnias,” Amy said. “It was visually stunning, but not practical.”

Now the flowers are planted inone patch in 44, 60-foot rows with 30-inch-wide hills. Planting is aided by a hilling machine purchased for the pumpkin patches.

“The machine makes the hills, lays plastic and allows us to run drip tape under the rows so we are able to water and fertilize,” Luke said. “We haven’t had to irrigate much this year, but we do use the drip tape to run fertilizer through. Last year the irrigation was really helpful.”

All the flowers are started indoors, except the zinnias and sunflowers, which are direct-sown. Mums are grown from plugs, which are potted around Memorial Day.

“We start plants in our house, (using) half of our kids’ playroom,” Amy said. “It (has) lots of shelves, lights, fans and timers. We’re borderline needing to do something different, but right now we’re just doing what it takes to get it done.”

Planning seed orders typically begins in November, with orders placed by New Year’s. Seeds are started beginning in February. The Nigons usually begin preparing the fields in May, with hopes of having all their planting completed by early June.

“We’ve always tried to sell everything here,” Luke said. “We try to only grow what we can market. I think we’re at a pretty good point right now.”

The couples’ primary goal is growing the very best product they can market to their customers.

“I’m a bit of a perfectionist — we always try to do a really good job with whatever we do,” Luke said. “I’ve found if we want to grow a quality product, we have to put more into it.”