Month: April 2022

So here we go, round two is coming up. What does that mean? Well, we are all done with the forced tulips, I, or we have taken a week’s deep breath, and now we are beginning the next round, the in ground tulips. Just to let you know, they are just as stressful as the forced ones but in a different way. Now I am truly contending with Mother Nature, and she can be fickle.

The good news is, it looks as though I will have tulips available for Friday, but please pay attention to the newsletter on Thursday night. I WILL have some beautiful narcissus available so you don’t have to raid your garden for a beautiful bouquet. There are anemones, yes still with short stems but they look beautiful in a little bud vase, the frittilarria are now standing up straight and, if they are listening to my whisperings, they should be close to harvest.

There is something about little flowers. You have to stop and look at their beauty, or to be more eloquent, to pause to enjoy their beauty. They are not a stand up and look at me, and I will have plenty of those, but a small vase of these on your desk, by your bed, or maybe a favorite place, in the loo, where a lot of pause happens.

So what have I done on the “week off”? Well, I supplied flowers for a bridal shower, and also for the fundraiser of Music on Norway Pond. That was a lot of flowers, and I was harvesting and conditioning them about every hour trying to hurry them up. Let me just say that breathing warm air over them in impatience DOESN’T work. In the end it all worked out.

Meanwhile back at the flower farm, the sweet peas that I wasn’t going to grow are now planted in the garden. Steve, bless him, helped me, or let me help him, put up the sweet pea fence and planted commenced on Friday. I also go the second round of cool crops planted next to them.

So It goes like this, first sow the seeds. Upon germination, move the seed tray to under the lights until big enough to transplant into larger soil blocks. Leave the seed tray dirty room until big enough, or warm enough to be hardened off in the greenhouse. Then when that space gets to full, they get more hardened off outside the greenhouse waiting for planting in the garden beds and the greenhouse space is filled again. It should be set to music, the seedling shuffle.

I leave you with this, the next HUGE seeding starts this week, the perennials need to be planted out, the donkeys are having their teeth floated, which I think means they get ground down, and flowers will probably be harvested two or three times a day because it is that time of year. None of this is a complaint, by the way, just the way it is.

Until next week. Allie

Welcome to the flower shed.

Here we are, a beautiful spring day, if you like cold wind from the west and snow showers all day, but it is spring, and the flowers and I can’t be stopped. Slowed maybe, but not stopped.

Hurrah! The last of the forced tulips are done and sold. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for supporting Flowers at Lottarock for our tulip forcing endeavor. Yes, it was a huge learning curve, yes, the variety was limited, but next spring will be bigger and better I promise. I I will work on the stem topple. Even though the stems give away, for some reason, the flowers still looked amazing for a week either cut shorter, or just left as is in the bouquet it is very frustrating to have happen.

Now I am waiting for the field grown tulips to catch up. I have to supply flowers for two events this next weekend….so unless we got some really warm and really sunny days….I may not be open on Friday, but one never knows with Mother Nature. So wait for Thursday’s newsletter and I will let you know.

This is where we are at the moment….

If a flower farm has lots of flowers blooming in their field, they don’t have enough sales. Most flowers need to be harvested before they open. Once they are open, they are normally visited by pollinators, and the flowers can start to make seed and ten they start to die off. So the flowers need to be harvested when they are normally just showing color, that way they will last much longer for you, my flower lovers.

Seeding is progressing, the space shuffle is commencing, but I will be honest, it is awfully nice to be able to walk into the dirty room and not have to worry about where you are going, or the dogs tearing about and the tulips getting wrecked. They are out of there for the year. Phew and Yay!

So I leave you with this…the tulips are coming, as are the narcissus, the anemones are being harvested and the ranunculus are starting to throw visible buds, and I am a happy flower farmer.

Until next week. Allie

Welcome to the Flower shed!

It is amazing how some weeks it seems as though I have tons to report, and other weeks not quite as much. So much of it is weather dependent but…I do have things to report.

This week will be the last of the forced tulips! For me that is exciting because I will, hopefully, in the following week be able to offer something different. The in ground tulips are growing right along, especially with that good dose of rain we had the last few days. Now with some heat I am hoping to be able to start seeing flower buds and the wonderful variety starts. Variety is the spice of the flower grower’s life.
This flower grower anyway.

The narcissus are budding up quite nicely, and before we know it there will be beautiful mixed arrangements for offer. That’s right. Mixed flowers. The ranunculus are s-l-o-w-l-y budding, but the anemone are starting to get decent length stems, the narcissus are looking really good, I have some lovely flowering branches, so there is much to look forward to here at the flower shed in the next few weeks.

The high tunnel is full to the brim, the sweet peas that I wasn’t going to grow are out in the greenhouse getting ready for their first pinch, and the perennials have been moved outdoors because I needed room in the greenhouse. From this time of year until everything is planted out in June, it is a constant shuffle of plants from one space to another, but by some miracle it all seems to work.

For the time being, the shed hours will stay at Friday, from 9-2. As always, stayed tuned to the newsletter to find if there are any changes.

Remember this,
April showers, bring April flowers. Until next time. Allie

Welcome to the flower shed.

So here we are in April, finally. I can now pace the gardens and see things happening for real, rather than in my impatient imagination. So much is happening, where do I begin?

The high tunnel is almost completely planted with a wide array of cool flower seedlings. This is just a trial, but if I can grow cool flowers, (these are cool, but what cool flowers really mean is that they are flowers that actually do much better in the cooler temperatures, than the summer flowers). The plan is, get the rest of the ranunculus planted (these are the ones that I saved from last year) as well as the stock seedlings while I am waiting for the vet to come and do the donkeys’ teeth. By the end of Tuesday the high tunnel will be filled to the brim.

The sweet peas that I wan’t going to grow are geminating quite nicely and will hopefully be planted out by the middle of the month.

The in-ground tulips are really emerging from their winter nap, which is good because I am nearly our of the forced tulips. Yes, I will have some for the flower shed on Friday for sure, but there just might be a lull for a week or two, so stay tuned.

The anemones are starting to produce flowers, but only enough for my enjoyment at this point. However in a few weeks, fingers crossed, there will be enough for all to enjoy. The ranunculus are taking their sweet time but all things flower when they are ready, NOT when I am ready for them.

So while we wait….I hope you aren’t bored of tulips yet because I have 35 varieties of absolutely stunning tulips that are coming along. Doubles, parrots, magnificently colored singles. I for one can hardly wait. Speaking of tulips, I have already put the order in for next year. I know. I know. So to keep you filled in, the forced tulips that you have all been enjoying were pre-cooled bulbs, that were planted on December 23rd. They had already had their cold treatment onboard the ship on the way over. The problem is/was I could only order in lots of 500, which is why there were only four varieties to choose from when you came to get tulips. I have learned much this last year and will continue to learn this forcing tulip thing. I can’t say thank you enough for your patience and understanding, especially while I try to navigate Stem Topple. The bane of forced tulip growers, especially this one, but what I have learned is to really look at each bulb before planting for disease which seems to be part of the problem. This next order that I have just placed is going to be different. No pre-cooled, so I can have a much wider variety to offer. They will come in early October (fingers crossed), they will be crated up, and placed in the cooler for their cooling season. So, Week 14 I will have 4 varieties of 500. Week 15, the same but different’ varieties. Week 16 eight varieties of tulips so on and so forth. This way, none of us will be bored with the selection. So I have 3000 to force, and another 3500 in the ground. It will be beautiful, that is for sure. Timing and patience is everything. For now, it is exciting to see the bulb room empty of crates, but not of tulips.

There you have it. My flower filled life. I just love it, and love even more bringing beauty to as many as I can. Until next week, I will be dreaming tulips. Allie