Alabama NewsCenter — Ranburne, Alabama, family turns dairy farm into plant nursery, café and community space

By Tara Massouleh McCay
SoulGrown

In east Alabama, just miles from the Georgia border, is the tiny town of Ranburne. The community of fewer than 500 isn’t known by many outside of Cleburne County, but in March 2020 local couple Taylor and Cole Gibbs gave Alabamians a reason to take notice. They opened The Barn of Blooms. a plant nursery and community gathering space selling everything from seeds to shade trees – all grown by local farmers.

Though they’ve been open for just over two years, Taylor says The Barn of Blooms has been years in the making – she and her husband just “didn’t see God’s bigger vision for it initially.”

It all started with a dairy farm. In 2011, Taylor and Cole bought a farm with the intention of working as first-generation dairy farmers. There, they worked for the next five years, milking cows at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m., 365 days a year. They built their family home on the farm and raised their two children there. But after years of industrywide hardship, they were forced to shut down.

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