Month: November 2020

You might be wondering why there wasn’t a blog last week. Honestly? Just plum forgot. I didn’t think that you would mind much though. I mean, what was I going to write about? The gardens are all tucked in and I have taken a breath. That said, here I am, back with Flowers at Lottarock news.

We have been getting good rain. We are still in drought according to the state drought map, but water is flowing in the creeks again, our pond in the donkey paddock is filling, water is flowing over the dam in Peterborough, and the ground is starting to feel soft when we take the dogs for their morning walk. All good signs in this flower farmer’s eyes.

I have finally gotten all the tender bulbs safely tucked in for the winter. The dahlias are labeled and in their pine shavings, the peacock orchids are now in their storage container and now I will just have to check on them every few weeks to make sure they are not rotting or too dry. Speaking of dahlias, a flower grower in Maine is selling their excess stock starting on December 1 so I am hoping to score some interesting varieties for this coming year. Yikes! Not that far away.

The seed catalogs are starting to rock in, finally. I am madly going through this year’s notes, seeing what I can grow more of, what not to bother with and what new varieties wow me.

I am going to try to place my seed orders as quickly as possible. Last year there was such a shortage because of the pandemic, everyone was wanting seeds. Flower, vegetable and herb so in order to get the best selection I am just going to play it safe. I will top up if I have to for those last minute ahah’s but hopefully that will be kept to a minimum.

I still have to go through all the ranunculas and anemone tubers and get them sorted out. I dug them out finally a few weeks ago and there they sit in the dirty room, looking at me like why have I forgotten about them? It is to rain again tomorrow so that will be a good time to make a mess.

I leave you with a photo from my brother’s taken the other day, overlooking the valley with the Christmas trees heavy with the previous day’s rain.

So until next time. Allie

My it has been a busy week. The dahlias have finally been divided and are in storage for the winter. I always find this project worrisome. Will the tubers make it through the winter? Last year’s dahlias didn’t even make it to dividing. They were a total loss before I even got them into storage. I think, and this is only a think, that I hadn’t let them cure after digging them, then I washed them and then let them sit in the sun in the dirty room and that was a complete disaster. This year, they cured for about a week. Thankfully we had all that beautiful mild weather so they were able to hang out in the garden shed until I got to them early this past week. So here they are, all varieties individually bagged, labeled more than once by variety just in case I forget what they are, and now safe in the basement. My biggest fear is rot, but let’s keep our fingers crossed please.

All the neatly composted beds, and I must say they are a beautiful sight, especially when they are covered by a hoar frost.

They are now all covered with a layer of chopped leaves so now the beds are safely tucked into be for the winter.

The leaves will break down into a fine tilth. That is the plan anyway, the earthworms will make lots of earthworm poo and they will be pretty ready for planting in the spring. Oh that time seems fo far away right now, but really only five long dark months. not far at all. I will just keep telling myself that.

And when one thinks of it, soon I will poring over seed catalogs, putting in orders and starting seeding. Not long at all. So even if the gardens are all safely tucked in, I will still have lots to do and to get you all excited about.

Until next week. Allie

Well it has been a busy week, but even with a few curve balls, I have managed to get the dahlia tubers dug and labeled. They are still in the garden shed awaiting to be divided, but the lovely, no, stunning weather is to hold a bit longer so I figure I have a few more days to get that task done. If not? Into the basement they go untll spring.

All the flower beds have now had compost spread on them, the stone walls have had the leaves blown out, mown and mulched and blown back into the borders beds. I still have leaf mulch that has to get spread onto the new narcissus beds, but I feel pretty good about going into winter as far as the beds are. I have taken my soil test and will get that of into the mail this week.

All I have to do now is wait impatiently for the seed catalogs to start rocking in, do a bunch of online classes and catch up on my reading and podcasts.

But that just really applies to the flowers-at-lottarock. Otherwise I will be running around trying to get the normal slew of things done on the farm. Not too many idle moments here.

So until next week, enjoy the beautiful weather. Allie

Well I was caught a bit off guard with the snowfall in the middle of the week. Talk about throwing a spanner in the works. The snow has mostly gone today, it has only taken three days. Oh well. I haven’t been idle, rest assured. I have been catching up on this year’s garden notes. I know, I am supposed to do them weekly, but that just didn’t happen, so now I am relying on my ahhm, memory to get things written down. Tonight it is raining, that is to end in snow again, but hopefully that forecast will be wrong. Fingers crossed. The end of the week is supposed to be stunning. Hopefully,

As of today, all the beds have been cleaned up with the netting and irrigation put away for the winter. Hopefully safe from little gnawing, winter bored rodents. All I have left are the dahlia beds, and I am waiting for that beautiful weather at the end of the week to get that done. But progress is being made. Speaking of progress, Steve pulled up a drone image he took back in April, before all the stumps and rocks have been removed. Whoah. Compare that to what the recent image shows and what a huge difference. I could say that I had been busy.

I have piles of cut down flower stems that are in various piles before I get them onto the compost pile, but I decided to let the goats have fun, and they certainly did enjoy the flowering cabbage plants.

Between rounds in clean up, I managed to create two still life arrangements for the doors. I was having a blast. Even though the flower beds are all done for the season I am still gleaning enough material around the property to be able to be creative.

Like I said, I was having fun. And really, isn’t that what it should be about? Having fun, creating beauty on the first day of November.

Until next week. Allie