Month: July 2022

Welcome.

How on earth did this happen? We are in the thick of summer and you can tell by the flowers on offer. The true summer flowers are here, the zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, rudbeckia, lisianthis, yup, all the summer flowers and the summer bugs that go along with them. Every morning is started with watering, harvesting and squashing bugs. It’s a great way to start the day I tell you.

As I have said, when one flower exits, another variety of flower steps up to the plate to add beauty. The sweet peas are sadly gone until next year. Last week’s heat wave did them in as I had feared it would. So the sweet peas are gone, but the dahlias have started. Slowly for sure, but this next week’s heat should push them right along.

So other than watering, harvesting and squishing bugs, there is’t much to report. I should be starting perennials like soon, like last month, but here we are. August tomorrow. I better get cracking. I have weeded the perennial area of the cutting garden and have gotten most of it mulched, which is quite the task, I have added more netting and tied up more rows to try to keep the stems straighter and not quite so arty farty. I like them that way but not everyone does. Tuesday morning is still fertilizer day, and farm day and I have been harvesting flowers to dry. Have no idea what I am going to do with them yet….time will tell. If you have any ideas, let me know.

I will leave you to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Stay cool and hydrated, the flowers and I will also do so. Until next week. Allie

Phew, it’s hot, and dry. I feel as though I am back in Australia these days with these temps and dry. But here I am, sitting under the ceiling fans that are going full bore planning my week on how to stay cool.

It is best to water the gardens and to harvest first up in the day so I try to be out with my harvest buckets by 6:00, while the gardens are still in the shade of the trees and the tool shed. The plants go into a wilt like the flower farmer by 11 in the morning. They have water, it is just with this intense sun because there aren’t any clouds and it is just that they are respiring faster than they can take the water up. As soon as they are back in the shade they look better. Kinda like me.

I think I have harvested the last of the sweet peas for the season. I have two buckets of them in the cooler, but they don’t like this heat and all and I think it is the end of this year’s crop. I would suggest that if you want some, better get them soon. The ones in the cooler are really looking good and I am finding they are lasting about 4 days in the vase which is good for sweet peas.

Flowers are rocking in like crazy and in any color combination you could want. Just look at last week’s floral display.

The dahlias are budding up and I figure soon they will also be added to the floral bench. As I say, the flowers are always in transition, one flower exits for the season, and another quickly fills in the ranks. That is what keeps it interesting about being a local flower grower, flowers truly have a season.

With this heat, the flowers are having a hard go of it. Take them home in the go cups of water, recut the stems and put them in cool water with the little packets of flower food. Keep the flowers out of the sun, and repeat this process every few days to keep your flowers looking their best longer. As I said, now is the season of the so called dirty flowers. These are the flowers that make your water scummy in just a matter of days. Zinnias, rudbeckia, celsoia, sunflowers and others are all guilty of this. If you run out of little magic flower powder, just add a couple of drops of bleach to your flower water and that will help tremendously.

So, I am going to go for a swim, but I thought you would like this drone shot that Steve took last week of the flower garden. I must say, I am pretty proud of it.

Until next week, your wilted flower farmer, Allie

Wow, is it dry. What a difference from last year when we were getting good rain to make up for the previous year. Now? I would love some rain. A week of a nice soaking rain would be oh so lovely. Thankfully all the flower beds are on drip irrigation and everything is well mulched, but still, it is dry. I am also grateful that I have rain tanks scattered around the property because that water is going to be needed. I have now decided to let the high tunnel go. Most of the crops have been harvested from there and they did a marvelous job bridging the seasons for me, but now, maybe a week or two earlier than I would have liked, I am stopping their water. This only affects the Icelandic poppies as a crop but I need the water elsewhere. Instead I will be harvesting seed to save, harvesting the last of the ranunculus and anemones to save for next year and redesigning the entire high tunnel to make more growing space for early spring flowers. Yippee!

The peony season has also just ended. I made myself a lovely bouquet with the last of the blooms. I made the bouquet last Tuesday and it is still looking beautiful on the coffee table and that makes me happy.

As we know, one flower exits, and another quickly takes its place. The sweet peas are going gang busters. I just love burying my nose in a bunch and inhaling. It is such a seductive perfume and when I walk by the rows in the evening the perfume just wafts around me.

Also coming in strong are the rudbeckias and the snapdragons.

There are plenty of flowers to chose from that is for sure. I love growing the unusual, not lots of them because they are so unusual, but they add such interest and sometimes drama to a bouquet, but I also grow many of the usual flowers as well to round out the selection.

Now that the typical hot weather is here, here are some tips to keeping your flowers lasting longer. Take your flowers home in the go cups and don’t let them sit in the hot car. When you get home, recut the stems, add the flower food if I remembered to give it to you, and yes, It does make a difference. Put the flowers in cool water and keep them out of the sun. Change your vases water every few days, and if you have run out of flower food just add a small splash of chlorox to the water to prevent scummy stems. The best flowers of the summer are known as the dirty flowers and they will turn scummy quickly if given the chance so the flower food helps as does the chlorox.

I am almost done here. I just want to remind you that the flower shed hours are now Tuesdays from 2-6 and Fridays from 9-2. If you haven’t been here yet, we are at 76 Stoddard Rd, Hancock and there is a sign at the end of the driveway when we are open. Bring a friend as well, the more the merrier.

So. I’m done now. Until next week. Flowers Rock on at Lottarock! Allie

It is funny, I was doing an instagram post last Friday for the flowers I was taking to the Hancock Market and I looked at the bunches of flowers ready to go and said, “these are not your typical flower bouquets.” The flowers I grow are not typical for the most part, but they are the flowers that I like to grow and use. The Eremurus (Foxtail lily), Kniphofia (red hot poker), the sweet peas (that I wasn’t going to grow), and other really cool plants will be available in the flower shed this year. I like the challenge of growing the odd flowers, I like the challenge of making a bouquet using some of these flowers and I hope you enjoy them as well. And I want to thank you for allowing me to follow my passion.

Besides the unusuals, the usuals are starting to rock in. The snapdragons, rudbeckia, and zinnias are rocking in, the filler is looking good and there are plenty of flowers. I have been harvesting buckets of sweet peas, I still have peonies, well, you can tell from this what is being harvested at the moment.

I have sown cover crop onto the two new beds that I will hopefully be putting into production this fall with more peonies, which apparently I can’t have enough of, and bearded iris. The bed inside the garden fence has germinated, but I keep finding weird places whee the buckwheat is germinating. Thank you chipmunks. The bed outside the fence is being enjoyed by the free ranging guinea birds. They have both germinated but I am no longer watering them because I must save my water for the flowers, so those beds will be what they will be. Any cover crop is good I tell myself.

The dahlias have had their first course of coralling. I am trying a new method this year. Not happy with it right now, so I will redo it on Tuesday so it will work better for me.

I have been told on numerous occasions over the last few seasons of the open flower shed that “I am not good at arranging or picking out the correct flowers that go together” and as I said on Friday, It is what makes you happy. It is not a contest, and you are not being judged. It is what ever makes you happy, and you being happy with local, flowers, that fills me with great joy. Thank you.

Until next week. Allie

Here we are, the night before the 4th of July, summer is more than half over and I feel as though we are just getting started. The spring flowers are done, until October then the tulips come to be planted. The later spring flowers are done, so so long ranucnulus and anemones. Yes, I still have peonies but soon they will be gone and then, the summer flowers will be here. Yes, the summer flowers. That means cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, asters, dahlias and so much more. So much more that I can’t even remember what I have planted. Oh, and sunflowers. Lots of sunflowers.

The last of this summer’s flowers seeds have been sown and in the next week they will be planted out into the garden. If I were to want more biannuals and perennials those seeds will have to be planted in the next few weeks so they can go into the garden by September. It is so interesting because some days I can barely get out of my own way, but yet to keep up with flower production I need to think at least, and that is truly at least six months ahead, really I should be thinking a year in advance. I do my best.

All of the anemones and ranunculus that were grown in crates have been taken out and are now drying off before storing them for the next season. The ones that were planted out into the high tunnel and now getting dried off and sometime this month they will be dug up, cleaned and stored until planting in February. Soon the high tunnel will be empty like the greenhouse. All those beds in the high tunnel are going to be rebuilt, so I have more space to grow those cool flowers that were an important segue from spring to summer. I am learning on how to bridge the gap so there will always be flowers from mid February until mid October when the last killing frost ends it all. I take a breath, plant the tulips and it all starts all over again. Aren’t I lucky to be able to grow all these flowers for my/our enjoyment. I am having a blast and I hope you are as well. In case you don’t know….I love flowers.

I will now let you enjoy the fireworks of the 4th, but I do have to leave you with two photos of last week’s harvest, or part of last week’s harvest anyway. I can not thank you enough for for being part of this floral adventure with me.

So until next week, I leave you with visions for floral bouquets! Allie