 Prior to 1981, Gordy Kopke spent most of his life as a construction worker. Then one day he says, "I got tired of paving the Earth and decided I would do something beneficial."
He decided to return to his roots and start a farm. He knew he didn't want to spend his life "working with cows," so he planted greenhouse tomatoes. Soon Kopke's Fruit of the Bloom farm was growing a variety of vegetables and selling them each summer at the Dane County Farmers' Market.
It was in 1984 that Kopke says his mother, an avid gardener, suggested he grow some flowers in his greenhouses. He says, "it took on a whole life of itself." The flowers became a part of production, and by 1991 he had eliminated vegetables all together.
"Wisconsin's number one hobby is flower gardening," Kopke says, "it really took off."
Kopke tries to coerce as many family members as he can to help out around the farm and he also has a handful of partners.
He says these day a farmer is "a businessman more than anything else. In the old days anybody could get by farming. Banks started teaching kids about debt load so they would borrow more and move farther into debt."
His favorite flower is the Fuchsia, a hanging plant that is featured in the farm's logo. He says he sells 13,000 baskets a year and as of this interview on June 11, 2005 he was pretty much sold out.
2005 has been one of the best years on record for Kopke's farm, but even as the hanging baskets sell out, the perennials are getting ready to move in.
Originally printed at dane101.com by Jesse Russell
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