Confessions of a flower farmer. The end of the season is always so bittersweet. You are so ready for the long season to be over, but the flowers will be so missed as well as the flower people that make all of this experience possible. I so love my flowers, and it is so hard to let them go at the end of the season, but to be perfectly honest, I am so ready to see them go. A few weeks break between here and there, and off we go again, growing beauty and making smiles.
Today was spent taking down the garden. I went from this this morning
to this this afternoon.
For the rows that didn’t get cut down before we left on a well needed holiday, I had destructed five rows today. I goes like this, put on a podcast on flower farming, chop, chop chop the plants to the first layer of Hortnova (the netting that makes the stems stand straight, if I do it correctly), then pull off the first layer of Hortnova. Chop, chop some more to the bottom layer, pulling that netting off and stuff it in zip lock bags ASAP. Take out support pots and put them in a pile. Lift the weed mat, putting the pegs in a neat pile, then once removing the said weed mat, folding it neatly for storage. Then wind up the drip tape. This year I got smart and did all the tapes for each row together. After lunch I got even smarter and labeled the rows the tape came from because almost every row is a different length. One that bed is done, move to the next one. Breathe deeply.
My goal today was to get everything done. Nope. Still have one bed left of the annuals, lift the dahlias and the peacock orchids and get them into storage. Then I have 3500 tulips to plant….I am still having 2:00 am thoughts on that.
On a positive note, the bulb cooler in the “garage” is getting built. Yay! We may not be able to park our cars in the garage this winter because of our lovely (not) building inspector, but I will have a bulb cooler for the bulbs that hopefully be rocking in to be planted in December. I also will also be prepping the ranunculus and anemones in the bulb cooler as well. Then the Icelandic poppies and on and on.
I am going to leave you with the images of the dahlias this morning before they got the chop. Literally got the chop. By the end of the week they will be lifted, compost will be spread and we will all wait for spring 2022. Ye gads!
Until next week. Allie
PS. to my egg customers, just drop me an email when you need eggs and it will happen.