About Us

Meet the Putz family - Scott, Kelly, Cameron and Shelby and our farm is located in Waterloo, Alabama.

They come from a long line of farmers on both sides of our families, from crop farming in Mississippi to cattle farming in Tennessee and dairy farming in Wisconsin. Kelly's mom, Edith Hood Stegall, loved gardening and grew beautiful roses in her yard in Tupelo and impressed that love of flowers on her. Scott spent his summers in Arcadia, Wisconsin with his Gramma & Grandpa Putz, and raised his first calf as a youth with his Poppy Bean in McBurg, Tennessee. This shared love of the land and agriculture had Scott and Kelly looking at large plots of land for sale online together, from their very first date in 2002.

Both worked in Washington, DC on Capitol Hill as legislative staffers, Kelly for the Senate and Scott for the House, and they spent many years pining for the day they could leave that crazy world of politics, traffic and urbanity for more open spaces, fresher air and, well......dirt. They wanted dirt, or to be more precise, soil. When first married, they lived in a 3rd floor condo and the only dirt they owned was in pots on the balcony. They longed to have dirt to GROW things! With their first house they finally had dirt, but it was only 3/4 acre. But it had beautifully dark soil that was so rich they used to kid around that they could simply put a stick in the ground and grow a tree. They had a huge vegetable garden and a beautiful yard full of flowers, but it was in Maryland, land is incredibly expensive up there and they were 13 hours from their childhood homes where most of their family is still located.

In 2018, they decided it was time - time to pull the trigger on one of the many properties they had been watching for years and make the move. That's when they found the "perfect" property in Waterloo. It's 160 acres! It wasn't perfect, and they still wish it had more level ground, but it had everything they were looking for: a house, a barn, a garage, a year-round creek, plenty of land and the bonus - a tractor and implements! They closed on their Waterloo farm on Christmas Eve.

In July 2019, the Putz family made the final move from Maryland to Waterloo just before school started in Alabama. Scott joined Kelly and the girls 9 months later when he retired from the House on April 1, 2020, 2 weeks after the Pandemic closed everything down, and they began the journey of cultivating and growing. In fall 2020, after finding a mentor and doing months of research, they planted more than 6,000 strawberry plugs, tending them by hand for 6 months through the winter of 2021, in the hopes of becoming a great strawberry farm. Mother nature, and their inexperience with strawberries, taught them a lesson when a late frost came in April, killing 90% of the blooms and berries that had begun to grow. They should have reaped, at minimum, 200 gallons of strawberries, but saw only 20. 

Because strawberries have to be planted freshly every year to get the best crops, Scott vowed to never plant strawberries again.

That fall of '21, Scott pivoted and planted blackberries, blueberries, muscadines and fig trees, all perennials, that will fruit more and more the older they get. 

2025 was the first season they really saw them bear enough fruit to do more than have a snack from, and began using the berries to make jam and fruit breads. 

By summer of 2026, they hope to open the berry field for You-Pick season.

In 2023, Kelly "accidentally" became a flower farmer! 

That spring they purchased the property in front of their farm which they shared a driveway, offered road frontage for the farm, and included nearly another 3 acres of grass to mow. Kelly asked Scott to till up a large patch and throw down some sunflower seeds from the co-op so there would at least be something pretty to look at, and less grass to mow. As the plants grew, Kelly began posting about them on the farm Facebook page, and the girls school bus driver, Michelle McFall, starting posting SUNFLOWER UPDATES! People started asking if there were going to be any flowers for sale and also if they could come and take photos. In the two weeks those sunflowers bloomed, the farm saw AMAZING traffic. That's how Kelly began cut flower farming, and it has become a passion! 

She began buying books, studying, researching, going to workshops and watching TONS educational YouTube videos.  

Lisa Mason Zeigler's Gardeners Workshop in Virginia, and Pepper Harrow farm in Iowa, both commercial farms, are her absolute favorites! 

Now Kelly grows her flowers to sell at markets, to florists and individuals by the stem, bucket or bouquet 

and teaches workshops on what she has learned and practices in the garden. 

She also got to see an idea come to life in the fall of 2024. After two years of buying and collecting old wood framed, single-paned windows from antique stores, yard sales and, mostly, the Habitat ReStore in Florence, Alabama, they built The Glass House on the farm with their dear friend and contractor, Wesley Luther, who was a visionary artist of ALL things carpentry. He made so many things come to life  on the farm, just from ideas that he innovated, and there were many more planned. Sadly..... Wesley passed on 12/10/2025, and we lost him all too soon but he will never be forgotten.

The Glass House is where the farm holds events, workshops, bouquet bar parties, and photographers rent it for photo sessions. 

In 2026, the farm plans to begin hosting small weddings!

We will continue to add to this page as the years pass and the farm "grows", so check back every now and then to see what's changed.