New u-pick flower farm in Hardeeville started out of Sun City garden plot
Growth continues to press in on all sides of Jasper County, but at the end of a mile-long dirt road in Hardeeville, Helena Hills Farm feels suspended in time. For Chrissy Mozeleski, the woman behind the new “u-pick” flower farm, the debut is both a business launch and the beginning of a story generations in the making.
It all started in a humble 10 by 20-ft. garden plot in Sun City.
The farmhouse, big and white and enveloped by a wrap-around porch, sits on a five-acre lot off Bellinger Hill Road.
There is a steady hum that hangs in the thick air from a bug symphony, broken only by the occasional coo from Rupert, the sole rooster on the property. A handful of smaller hens, one named Mothball and the other named Grey Girl, bob around him. Their coos are much quieter.
On the far side of the property is a pond where ducks flock and local beekeepers have assembled hives. Off of the house’s right side is a fenced-in garden with rows of flowers — zinnia, celocia, dahlia and even a row of tall sunflowers fill the quarter acre.
Mozeleski, wearing waterproof boots and a denim button down shirt, explains how the flowers are grown in different ways. Some grow straight from the ground. Some grow in soft bags. Others, like edible flowers and herbs, grow in vertical planters to preserve ground space.
She’s learning that there is always more to learn. Daffodils and tulip must be pre-chilled to bloom. Vegetables can really be hit or miss in the Lowcountry. You have to be persistent to control weeds.
Mozeleski has visions for how the property, and her business, will evolve. Over there, she points, she wants to expand the now quarter acre garden to a full acre. Over there, she wants more mulberry and elderberry plants. Over there, she wants a small herd of highland cows. And maybe one day, she could turn that old woodshed into a workshop.
Mozeleski thinks of the project in phases. For now, she’s achieved phase one: getting it ready for visitors. In the upcoming months, visitors can create pressed-flower frames, wreaths or mason jars, assemble bouquets, decorate pumpkins and bookmarks or buy homemade peach jam, local honey, charcuterie boards or baked goods made by Mozeleski’s mother.
Women-owned farms explode in past decade
Mozeleski is one of many women now running farms in Beaufort and Jasper counties. Women are reshaping the farming landscape across the Lowcountry, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest agricultural census released in 2024 with data from 2022.
In Beaufort County, women now operate 52 farms, accounting for more than half of all farms in the county. Just ten years ago, that figure was only 38%. The shift is even more striking in Jasper County, where 60% of farms are now women-owned, compared to just 26% a decade ago.
It’s not lost on Mozeleski that, as Jasper County continues to grow and develop at a rapid pace, that her role as a farmer is not just to work the land, but to preserve it.
An unlikely origin story
Mozeleski comes from a long line of growers. And the growing wasn’t always easy.
She grew up in Westchester, New York, an area just a 30-minute drive north of New York City, to two native New Yorkers. Her father was from Brooklyn, her mother, the Bronx. Her mother’s grandmother, Nonna, despite living among the city’s concrete, could still make gladiolus flowers bloom.
“She did a beautiful job of it,” Mozeleski said.
Her father’s mother and the farm’s namesake, Helen, lived in a Pennsylvania home with an enormous vegetable garden. They called her “babci,” which is Polish for grandmother. Mozeleski’s father spent his summers at Helen’s, fleeing the big city for farmland.
Mozeleski’s own journey with farming started in a humble garden plot in Sun City where eggplants, tomatoes and cabbage thrived. Her mother was not fond of pulling the weeds,
During the pandemic, Mozeleski and her mother packed their things and moved to the retirement community. It was there she learned much about growing from her village of “aunties and uncles.” At the age of 30, she was much younger than most living in the 50-plus community, and she was worried about finding friends. But it was this community that welcomed her with open arms, and a trick or two about how to manage the garden.
She even became part the “children of Sun City,” a group with members ranging from 19 to 60 years old.
Mozeleski bought the farm in 2024 from a couple who were also stewards of the land. The wife, Mozeleski said, always had a dream of opening up her own flower farm. It became Mozeleski’s dream, too.
A labor of love and work in progress
Mozeleski admits there are still times that she does not know what she is doing or where she is going, but she knows “something good will come from it.”
She owes that mindset to those who came before her, and those who have stood beside her along the way. She thinks of her mom, who spent every weekend in June helping her make peach jam from more than 500 peaches that fell from their tree. She thinks of the Sun City community, who came out to bless the farm. She even thinks of Nonna and Babci, who always found a way to make even the unexpected happen.
Mozeleski wipes a drip of sweat from her forehead, looking back towards her land.
It’s a labor of love, and a work in progress, she said. She’s built this project from the ground up all while maintaining a full time job with the Girl Scouts. She often rises before the sun, sometimes as early as 4 a.m. with the rooster’s crow, and stays up long after it has set to tend to the land, she says.
“Sometimes I just do it to prove to myself that I can,” she said.
