Bear
Creek Farms, Inc.
Vicki
Stamback
Bear
Creek Farms, Inc.
924
W. Liberty
Stillwater,
OK 74075
AT
A GLANCE
Years
in commercial operation: 10
Total
acrage: 40
Acres
in greenhouse production: 5
Acres
in field production: 8
Temperature
zone: 6b
Crops:
Cut flowers ( over 100 varieties); poinsettias, topiaries
and asparagus ferns.
Equipment
: John Deere 650 4WD; John Deere 3520 4WD with loader;
brush hog, 58” tiller, bed shaper, single bottom plow, 4' blade;
manure spreader; John Deere 25 hp riding mower, 3- Echo gas weed
eaters; 2- 1996 Dodge pickups for on farm use; 2000 Ford Econo Cargo
Van, 2004 Ford Econo Cargo Van both for deliveries; 1966 Chevy wheat
truck with hydraulic dump bed; drip tape holder and will be adding
a plastic mulch layer this year.
On
Farm facilities: One 40x60 steel building
for equipment storage, flower processing, headhouse, etc.; building
has 4 sinks, one 10x20 walk-in cooler, heater and bathroom. One
30x60 propagation greenhouse with concrete floor, cool cells, heaters
double inflated plastic top; Four 30x96 heated greenhouses with
permanent ground beds, heaters, roll-up sides, three are Agratech
and one is Stuppy's.
Labor:
Vicki Stamback, President/owner, 2 full time during winter,
In summer will have 4-5 full time and 4 part-time.
Weeks/
year in production: year-round.
Markets:
Currently sell to 40 florists in Tulsa, Oklahoma City
and Stillwater.
THE
BEAR CREEK FARMS STORY
Vicki
graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1988 with a degree in
Landscape Architecture. From 1990-1994 she worked for the
OSU horticulture department as a research technician and it was
while working for Dr. John Dole that she was exposed to the cut
flower industry. She decided she liked cut flowers enough
to start a business. She wrote a business plan and began
the search for land and someone to loan her the money for the startup
of Bear Creek Farms, Inc.
The
greenhouses are each filled with 6 permanent growing beds that are
3' wide and 75' long. Drip tape is used on all beds and they
are filled with winter crops and summer crops and since they are
individual greenhouses, each can have its own temperature for the
particular crops it contains. The field consists of raised
beds which are very close together and intensively grown.
This year we are looking into plastic mulch for weed control and
raising production with fewer inputs. Our goal this year
is to become more productive on less area so we can better manage
every crop. The field is entirely irrigated using drip tape
and all 8 acres can be watered at once. We cover crop every fall
with Austrian Winter Peas and our only difficult pest is the grasshopper.
We are not organic but consider ourselves sustainable.
We use biological controls every chance we get but if we have to
use something else to save a crop, we will.
We
are constantly looking at the production of all the crops and determine
what is making money and what isn't. We keep a lot of records
about each crop and are always adding and removing crops from our
selection. We are also adding crops that are difficult to
produce because they have higher earning potential and not everyone
can grow them.
All
employees (except Vicki) work only 8 hours a day and never on the
weekends unless we have an emergency. 98% of our gross is
from cut flower sales with the 2% coming from poinsettias and the
other crops mentioned. Our cut flowers include annuals, perennials,
woody plants, bulbs and greenhouse crops. Our major field
crops are sunflowers, celosia and zinnias and our major greenhouse
crops are ranunculus, freesia, anemones and sweet peas but those
are just a handful of the 100+ different varieties we grow.
January
2006 |
