Page 22 - Spring 2021

Jason spends weekends helping his wife with their backyard garden, which has turned into a successful business called Sleepy Bee Blossoms.
created by the pandemic, the limited options and the beautiful mild spring weather were the perfect blend that led to a surge in home gardening.
It was a double-edge sword for retail garden centers, who sold everything they had and then had trouble restocking some items.
“There is a long lead time for some plant material, like trees and shrubs,” said Stuart Cofer of Cofer’s Home and Garden Showplace. “It is six months to a couple of years.”
Cofer said that it became practically impossible to get more shovels.
“That was not a Georgia issue,” he said. “It was a worldwide issue. Every major country in the world needs shovels.”
Katie Castleberry has gotten well acquainted with shovels since she started her flower garden. She did not grow up a gardener. A native of Colorado, Katie said that her mother did some gardening. Her grandfather had a 10-acre hobby farm. “I had no real background in this,” she said.
The Castleberrys started small in a corner of their back yard.
“All we were going to do was a few vegetables,” she said. “Then we got impatient and bored, and tilled up more, and did a row of flowers and more vegetables.”
The soil was red clay, which had to be amended. The Stone
Store in Watkinsville made a few deliveries of dirt to their driveway. They tried be good neighbors and move the soil as quickly as possible, which they did by hand.
Katie had just enough success to come to a realization.
“I could totally do this,” she said to herself.
In advance to this year’s growing season, they built five more
30-foot raised beds and some no-till beds.
“The Internet is your best friend,” she said. “It is amazing how
many flower farmers there are all over the world.”
She was always one to get into a project, and gardening was
no different.
“I am all about getting on my hands and knees in the dirt,” she
said. “I don’t love hauling the dirt back here. That is my least favorite part.”
Katie laughed to ponder where she had been investing her intellectual capacity before she took up gardening.
“That is a great question,” she said. “The fact my children were older was one of the things that has driven me into this.”
Sleepybeeblossoms.com is a website where she hopes to market her flowers from spring to fall. She has applied for the requisite permits, but she does not plan on setting up a cart at the street. Nor does she expect to sell at farmer’s markets. She will be open by appointment only to those who want to purchase flowers.
PAGE 20 | OCONEE THE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2021
Courtesy Katie Castleberry