Moving to rural Ontario was a long-time dream for Emily Veldman and her family, that finally came true 3 years ago. With roots in Alliston, Ontario, the family wanted to make a life change and head for the open spaces of Grey County. Meaford was the perfect town to do that. A winning pitch at last year’s virtual 12th Annual Meaford Dragons event, gave her the added boost to accelerate plans for a startup lavender and cut flower farm. Skip ahead to today and Emily is well on her way to opening day at her new business – The Purple Hollow. The lavender will be too young this year to showcase, so for now she has planted their front field with sunflowers which should be in bloom in August.
The goal this year is to have the farm store open in August, (or when lockdown restrictions are lifted and allow her to open), and to be able to offer ticketed events for the sunflowers. Once the farm store is open people will be able to buy flowers, bouquets and other products made on site by Emily. She currently has an online store offering artisan products such as natural soaps, body scrubs and lavender eye pillows.
We can’t wait to see what’s in store for this new tourism business in Meaford!
