The Simple Life

Couple Finds Happy Retirement Life With Geneva County Flower Farm

When Tim and Mercedes Borges retired to Southeast Alabama, they sought a simpler life.

They wanted to build their own home on a small farm with fruit trees, raise vegetables, and maybe even sell some handmade crafts. In the end, they also decided to plant and sell flowers for fresh-cut bouquets.

Since establishing Borges Farm near Fadette, they’ve learned just how much hard work goes into their simple retirement life. Although they love every minute of it.

“We look at it this way, it keeps us healthy,” Tim says.

High school sweethearts, Tim and Mercedes met in San Luis Obispo, California. Mercedes’ family moved around a lot with her father’s Navy career. Tim had lived his whole life in California. Next March, the couple will celebrate 48 years together.

A road trip to see the country brought them to Southeast Alabama to visit Mercedes’ brother and sister-in-law. Their visit to the Wiregrass ended up being their longest stay in any one place during the 3 months they traveled the U.S. They loved the area so much they bought land and decided to make it their home, moving to Geneva County in 2022.

“We always wanted to build our own house,” Tim says. “It was like one of our bucket list things.”

Tim’s background in construction and maintenance came in handy as the couple did as much of the work as they possibly could do themselves to build their own home.

They subcontracted the foundation, framing, and getting the house dried in with roofing, exterior walls, doors, and windows. Tim and Mercedes, who are Wiregrass Electric Cooperative members, did all the electrical wiring. Mercedes spray-painted the interior of the house. The couple installed their own kitchen cabinets, did the trim work, and flooring.

“It took us 8 months, but we did it,” Mercedes says. “Obviously, we still have things we want to do, but you know, it’s ours. It’s our touch. It’s what we envisioned for ourselves in our senior years to be comfortable.”

They share the home with their shih tzu named Cash, in honor of Johnny Cash.

Mercedes did all the research on growing flowers, and before they planted, they spent time getting an irrigation system in place. This is the first season for Borges Farm to have flowers.

In addition to flowers, Mercedes also makes fairy gardens and creates decor from repurposed items, scrap lumber, or dishes she finds at estate sales. She’s made hummingbird feeders from wine bottles, wooden patriotic firecrackers for porches and table decor, and flower yard stakes from vintage dishes.

The couple has been saving glass bottles to build a bottle wall for the entrance to their fenced garden.

During the warm Southeast Alabama summer, gaillardia and black-eyed Susans blanket a strip against the fence that surrounds the main flower garden, where zinnias in white, orange, red, and multiple shades of pink fill the first few rows.

Borges Farm currently grows 10 varieties of sunflowers, such as teddy bear, chocolate, and white.

Peggy Martin climbing roses run along sections of the fence. A perennial bed is filled with bee balm, milkweed, and anise hyssop. Garden beds Tim built with wood and metal hold a variety of plantings, such as lilies, as well as herbs like lemon balm, sage, and thyme.

“Herbs are great to put in a bouquet,” Mercedes says.

The Borgeses hope to grow more fillers — the greenery or other plants that help fill in a bouquet — such as curly willow branches, eucalyptus, and dried loofahs.

A lot of the flowers and plants at Borges Farm are edible in some part, like the roselle hibiscus with its red calyxes, brewed for tea or used to make jams. But Borges Farm is also growing a variety of fruits, including blackberries, figs, pears, blueberries, and pomegranates.

In a barn on the property, the couple starts seedlings in a potting mix with coconut coir, perlite, and a gardening inoculant and places them under grow lights. Eventually, they will move the seedlings to a greenhouse still in the works.

Days start early at Borges Farm with Tim and Mercedes cutting flowers and pulling weeds before lunch.

The couple travels when they want, spends time with friends, and works their own hours. They joined a church in Bonifay. They are members of the Elks Lodge in Dothan and regulars at events hosted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Taylor.

They’ve always worked. Tim had careers as a grocer and doing maintenance work, and he spent 26 years with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The family even had a DJ business, providing music for weddings and events. Neither Tim nor Mercedes can imagine not working at something. Their 3 daughters, who still live in California, ask them why they can’t just really retire.

“This is a retirement,” Mercedes says. “We can’t just sit and watch TV. We’re happy to be twiddling around the house and the garden and just staying home and working in the earth.”

Find out more about Borges Farm on the farm’s Facebook page.