At Prickly Pair Farm in Lampasas, Texas, pink and yellow zinnias and bright orange marigolds sway in a steady breeze. A four-wheeler buzzes by brimming with buckets of freshly cut hibiscus acetosella, a deep burgundy foliage, that will be used in the hundreds of bouquets Prickly Pair creates each week.
Situated on 30 acres, the farm is owned and run by longtime friends Mike Milligan and Matt Beauchamp. After careers in corporate America, the two decided it was time to try something totally new. So they moved to Texas, purchased a tract of land to build a house (where Beauchamp now resides) and started a farm.
Originally, Prickly Pair Farm grew vegetables. In fact, Farmhouse Delivery was their very first wholesale customer. In time, Milligan and Beauchamp realized there were already a lot of farmers growing vegetables and doing it really well. But there weren’t many folks in the area growing flowers. Fast forward seven years and Prickly Pair farm is now exclusively a flower farm.
Milligan and Beauchamp will be the first to admit they had no idea what they were getting into when they decided to be farmers. But there’s no doubt their learning curve has been steep and continuous, not only in terms of growing gorgeous blooms but also regarding sustainable practices. They have installed several rain catchment tanks to help water their fields, and operate entirely on solar power. Prickly Pair produces over 140 kwh of solar power daily, which runs the farm and is also sold back to their electric grid. All told, over the last 7 years, their solar power has saved nearly 100 tons of Co2 emissions.
