The best Anniversary dinner ever.... :)

Last week, (March 6th to be exact) I got to celebrate 

28 years with this guy:)

Now usually he plans a lovely date for the two of us,

but this time I knew exactly where I wanted to go:)

I saw an advertisement for this Field to Vase dinner happening here in Carp and 

it just so happened to be the day before our Anniversary!
Score!!

I mean, I love food and I LOVE flowers so

this just sounded like heaven!

And oh my... it was! This dinner took place at Westland Orchids.

The table for 100 was set right down the middle of a greenhouse full

of hundreds of orchids.

AMAZING.... !!

So what I thought was going to be dinner of locally grown food 

amongst gorgeous flowers, ended up being such an eye opener for me.

The true meaning in all this is how important it is for all of

us to understand just where our flowers come from!!

Did you know....

California produces nearly 80% of all USA grown flowers?

Over 40 varieties in over 30 nurseries are grown here in Santa Barbara county alone!

The roots of some of these California flower farmers run 

generations deep!!

The family that owns and operates the Westland Orchids here in Carp have

been growing beauty for over 4 generations, the first starting out in Holland:)

When we walked into the Gerbera daisy greenhouse it took my breath away.

This picture just doesn't do it justice I tell ya!!

What I found astounding while on this tour is that while California

grows so many of America's flowers,

85% of Americans have no idea where the flowers they buy come from,

resulting in 80% of all flowers sold in the U.S. are imported!!
But... when given the knowledge and information, nearly everyone
chose to buy locally grown flowers!!

Who knew???

It was heartbreaking to hear these statistics coming from a flower farmer who clearly

had a passion for what he does!!

For the first time in my life it put a real human behind the bunches of

flowers I buy on nearly a weekly basis.

I try to be so mindful of eating local food, knowing where it 

comes from and all, but never once thought

about flowers in that way!

As we went to sit down, we were told it was open seating and to 

just find a seat.

Well it just so happened that I ended up with the best seat

in the house!!!

I sat next to Lane. I had to ask him his name like 30 minutes after talking

to him because he had me at Tulip Farmer.

I heard nothing else.

I later found out he was the past chair for the California

Cut Flower Commission and he grows all kinds of

loveliness on all his farms across California.

I told him besides having an ice cream shop,

I'm pretty sure he has the best job ever.

You know those tulips you buy at Trader Joe's?

Yeah, those are his:)

Well Lane taught me how important it is for us to look

for the California Grown label on the flowers we buy.

Because while they are grown in California,

the are AMERICA'S flowers!!

Another farmer at our table told us to look for the

lady bug sticker, those are from Carpinteria!!

This dinner just made such an impact on me! These hard working

farmers do their part in growing such beauty, we should in

turn do ours.

Look for the label above on all your flowers from local shops

to grocery stores. 

And if that dinner was fabulous enough, we got to take home

a vase of those beautiful locally grown flowers:)

Does this dinner sound like something you'd love??

Well if you just so happen to be anywhere near Carlsbad, CA on April 15, 2015

the next Field to Vase is going to be in a ranunculus field....

Like they are literally carving out a space in the middle of the flowers

for the dinner table!!

I'm going to try my darndest to get to that one!!

I mean come on! can you even imagine the beauty????

If you can't make that one because you're frantically doing

your taxes or something, well you're in luck! there are others:)

More info here:)