MOORESVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – What started as a family project has turned into a nationally recognized brand. 10 years after its debut, owner Natasha McCrary reflects on everything that has made 1818 Farms so successful.

“This is an important step for us,” she said. “When you look back it was just going to be a family experience and we were going to do a little agritourism destination and over time now we are reaching so many people around the world with our products.”

The idea came from McCrary and her husband, Laurence, who wanted to teach their three children and friends about the importance of sustainability and business.

The farm is home to sheep, chickens and a goat, to name a few animals. McCrary also organizes tours, workshops and produces handmade gifts. many, using some of the thousands of flowers grown on the farm.

She said it was a great time to work with flowers, as the consumer mindset has shifted in recent years, towards ‘grown, not stolen’.

“It provides a great avenue for someone like me, who can – maybe I don’t want to drive a combine and have a field of cotton, but I can grow 15,000 flowers here and still bring this beauty to customers in the Tennessee Valley,” said McCrary.

Its business ventures also include home, bath and beauty products.

“Each product was born out of a need for myself. Whether my cuticles are bad because I don’t like to wear gardening gloves or my skin is dry from the elements. So we started doing that the first season after that, when the products were finished, because I mainly had to find a way to feed the animals and pay for the electricity,” she said.

Now 1818 products can be found in approximately 500 stores across the country. Her ingenuity, having even landed her “Amazon’s Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year.” She said she couldn’t do it without her team’s help.

“We worked so hard for years, and it was really as much for them as it was for me,” she said.

She did, while navigating the pandemic. They were forced to stop their events like garden club, sheep shearing day, and field trips, but it allowed McCrary to blaze a new trail to teach. She started an educational Youtube channel, which now garners thousands of views.

“It was a way for us to reach people while doing this education mission and so the Youtube channel was a great way to do that.”

Now it has grown.

“I started with an expert on Bloom TV so I really want to try to spread my knowledge to people around the world, and continue with the Youtube channel to educate people about the beauty of flowers and good products for the skin. ”

It doesn’t stop there. She is also creating new products as part of the farm’s zero waste mission.

“This year, in 2022, we are launching the new part of our business called botanical eco-printing. We use a lot of flowers grown here that were dying for beautiful silk scarves. We have also started pressing our flowers. For the past few years we have sold dried flowers and used them in botanical wax sachets, but now we are taking it a step further by preserving the flowers by pressing them. Then they are put in acrylic. It can be plates, it can be a pendant, it can be a coaster or a work of art.

At its most basic, education is one of the most important parts of 1818 Farms’ mission statement. Although McCrary said it was done in a completely different way than she originally planned, she wouldn’t change anything in the last decade.

“Whatever plan you have, it can take a different path and you can end up in a whole different direction. Because I just wanted to do something with our family and now I’m just thinking about how – it went affected our family but also people across the United States,” she said.

To learn more about Fermes 1818, click here.