Petal power

Emma Harris was ringed by color on a recent muggy morning at her flower farm. Cosmos, Asiatic lillies, echinacea and nigella cast a rainbow around her as she arranged dozens of bouquets in the shade of a carport. In the coming weeks, dalias—their blooms delayed by the North State’s unusually long spring—will join summertime varieties, such as zinnias and sunflowers.

Harris and her husband, Craig Piluso, are owners of Pine Creek Flowers, a west Chico farm specializing in “slow flowers”—that is, plants that are grown and sold locally.

“Most flowers you find in a grocery store have traveled from Guatemala, Ecuador, New Zealand,” Harris explained. “That’s too much of a carbon footprint for what’s sustainable. And most of those flowers can be grown right here.”

Indeed, with organic practices—Harris and Piluso eschew traditional farming techniques, such as pesticides and herbicides—the couple raise dozens of hearty and beautiful varieties throughout the seasons. Both work on the farm full time, and while many of their jobs overlap, they also tend to their own tasks.

Piluso, for example—whom Harris affectionately refers to as her “field beast”—runs myriad machinery, including the tractor. He also makes the organic compost tea that fertilizes the crops. Harris orders the farm’s seeds, does the seed-starting, and is the point-person for customers. Of course, both spend long days in the field—weeding and harvesting.

Piluso’s pull to agriculture was natural. He was born into a farming family here in Chico, and he holds a degree in ag business. Harris’ journey was more circuitous. A Connecticut native, she studied philosophy and religion in college in upstate New York. There, she started going to farmers’ markets and discovered the slow food movement.

“It’s a really good thing for the environment, for the local economy,” she said, “and once I discovered there’s a slow flowers movement, I thought, Well, that’s a dream.”

Harris never imagined she’d find her dream job, let alone her future husband, in Chico. She came here “on a whim” for a nine-month internship at an organic produce farm. When it ended, she began working for California Organic Flowers. Five years later, after its owners announced they planned to retire in the spring of 2016, Harris and Piluso—who got married last year—decided to fill the niche. They started at a family-owned parcel adjacent to Pine Creek—hence the name—and began selling at the Saturday Chico Certified Farmers’ Market right on cue.

“That was nothing short of a miracle, because literally they had their last market and our first sunflowers bloomed,” Harris said.

Pine Creek Flowers quickly outgrew that space and moved to a larger parcel to gradually expand the operation. Nowadays, Harris and Piluso also operate a booth at the Thursday Night Market, sell to local florists and three local grocers—Chico Natural Foods, New Earth Market and S&S Organic Produce and Natural Foods—and take occasional special orders for weddings.

Though the farm is hitting its stride this year, Harris says a lot of trial and error has brought the business to this point. “There’s definitely some failure in the process, but that’s how you learn and make things better,” she said.