HISTORY OF OUR FARM

A temperature-controlled greenhouse on the Colby Road has become   the hub of the Three Toads Farm operation. Charlie Hendricks and  Bob Early (left), along with a third partner, Val Schirmer, started the flower-growing business with a few bulbs about ten years ago.

Lilies grow like weeds.

Three local residents had that in mind when they planted a small batch of lilies here in 1998. But what the trio didn't realize was that as they watched the flowers sprout, they'd also see a business blossom.

After frequently visiting the Lexington Farmers' Market, Val Schirmer, Combs Ferry Road, returned home one day not with flowers, but instead with a vision. "She came back (from the Farmers' Market) and told my wife the flowers I grew in my garden were nicer than the ones they were selling over there," said Charlie Hendricks, a retired Lexington Fire Department firefighter. "She said, 'I'll sell them if you'll grow them.'" "And I asked her, 'grow what,'" Hendricks said. Schirmer's reply: "Lilies, because they grow like weeds."

Schirmer said she noticed in her visits to the Farmers' Market and in garden tours she took with her sister every year that not many people seemed to be growing lilies, and she thought growing them here would offer a different type of flower for people to buy.

"I decided that I wanted to grow something others either just couldn't grow or try something many people just didn't know that much about," she said. That was all it took for Hendricks to partner with Schirmer in what would become a small lily growing business. Bob Early, Hendricks' long-time friend, would later join the effort.
 

"We, Charlie and I, started out doing veggies together. Next thing you know we're doing lilies," Early said, laughing. "But we're still doing the veggies too."

Utilizing space at Schirmer's farm on Combs Ferry, a greenhouse was built and the partners' business - Three Toads Farm - officially was born.