Month: April 2023

The last day of April is here and although most of the month has felt like March, we will see what May brings. I know what May brings, and it will be lots of flowers. The narcissus are rolling in gangbusters and the tulips, after siting for weeks, are ready to be pulled to hold until needed. Whoa, there are some stunners coming in.

I will soon be awash with color which is very exciting. And look at this stunner,

All I can say is I think it is going to knock our socks off. The fritillaria are starting to bloom as are the leucojum which are like giant snowdrops. The flowers might be dainty, but they add such a wow factor to any posey.

Being spring, it hasn’t been quiet on the farm. Seeding is going well, many of the heat loving crops are finally being seeded because believe it our not, in 30 days it will be Memorial Day and most of the heat loving annuals will need to be in the ground. Yikes! Will I have enough space? Time will tell. I still have ten? heirloom chrysanthemums to arrive and be planted, plus the five roses that are to arrive on Tuesday, and more hellebore plants. I might be intercropping this year and planting on top of the narcissus once they are harvested. Hopefully they won’t mind if I give them a good feed first. Then I also have to find space for the sprawling pumpkins and gourds. Hmmm, I may not be growing that handful of vegetables this year. The old vegetable garden might become flower garden number two.

The dahlia tubers have all been hauled out of the cool room and are now sitting in the dirty room waiting for me to divide them. They are looking really good and healthy, I would just like to se some eyes before I divide them but it will have to happen in the next few weeks because Memorial Day is looming.

I will leave you with Thursday’s Window frame photo. I find it fitting with the dark grey skies we have been having. It also matches the bruise I have on my hip from something I ran into.

Until next week. I hope you will dream flowers. Allie

Two weeks ago we had those amazing hot temperatures, remember, in the high seventies? Now we are back to typical April temperatures in the 40’s, raw, windy and the plants and most importantly the tulips are just sitting there. Can you hear me sigh deeply? Very deeply? So this is where we are at. I have 3000 tulips looking not much different from the photo I shared with you last week. Deep sigh. So. What I have done, I harvested three tulips, have brought them inside, and if they open in the next few days, I will harvest more so there will be tulips for Friday. Most important. Read the newsletter. I can control the forced tulips to the week. As we all know, Mother Nature does what she wants. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I have been busy in other areas of the flower farm. All the sweet peas have been planted. I will say, I didn’t read last year’s notes until they were all planted. The notes said, do half. Oops. Oh well. Everything that has been planted up to this date in the field is looking good. You can even see the seedling now without your magnifying glass. The plants in the high tunnel are also looking good, so good in fact the ranunculus have become a major food group. Insert deep sigh. When I fed the high tunnel (last month?) a mouse had gotten into the cover crop seed, peas and oats and safely hid it in the fertilizer bag. Well, along with feeding the plants with fertilizer, I was also sowing cover crop seed, yum, fresh pea shoots. Almost as yummy as ranunculus foliage. Maybe I am onto something.

The peonies are sprouting, the spring bulbs are rocketing up, the hellebores are being nibbled on, thankfully just the foliage that I can see…I am grateful for today’s soaking rain which is much better than I could ever give the plants. Everything I planted yesterday is now very well watered and the rain tanks are filling. All is good, really, despite a hiccup here and there. It is farming, and one just has to go with the flow. And sigh deeply.

I was asked to do the flowers for Music on Norway Pond‘s event last night. That is why there weren’t any tulips on Friday. They had a role to fill, and fill it they did. My most favorite though was the floral crown made out of tiny spring flowers.

So this is the end of my deep sighing blog post. I leave you with an image from my #windowframethursday post.

Until next week. Allie

Whoa. I am not sure what happened last week but those summer temperatures that happened sent me into a tail spin. They were amazing. I know that as a flower farmer I love to push the seasons, like having tulips from Mid February until June? But last week was a doozy. All I could do was keep the water up to everything and keep my fingers crossed. And my toes, and my arms and everything else.

Here is a look at one of the tulip beds. Looking good I think.

I will be harvesting tulips this week. Yay! I would guess I will have a couple hundred for you to select from. Lots of doubles, I can tell by the flower buds, and these in the front look like doubles. It has started. Flower craziness. 750 tulips is this bed alone. Whoa! I hope you all love tulips because I will have them coming on strong.

The tulips will be coming on so strong that Tuesdays will soon be added to the Open Flower Shed days. Stay tuned! Keep your eye on the newsletter that I try to send out the night before to let you know what is available. Bouquets!!!! Tulips!!!! Narcissus!!!! Holy Moley!!!!

The flowers in the tunnel are looking good. As usual, a bit of a rodent problem on the ranunculus. Damn. I replanted about 12 today. On the other hand, the ones in the greenhouse are looking good but I have no idea about bloom time, so stay tuned. I will say I have a lovely crop of oats and pea coming up that a kind rodent mixed with the fertilizer. Never dull here I would say.

Many things that enjoy the cool have been planted out now. All of the perennials, then the Sweet Peas, cornflowers, more agrostemma, clarkia, feverfew, and I don’t even remember at this point. When I look at the beds I see amazing, beautiful flowers. You, even with squinting might say I am looking at what?

It has been a very productive week though. Lots of planting out, irrigation set out, new beds made…then I have more that are ready to go in this next week that are waiting patiently. Not.

Anyway, I leave you with some floral inspiration.

These are in the wrong order, but it doesn’t take much to make something special. Broken pine branches, a sprig of daphne, the first narcissus, and two yellow tulips and a bit of forsythia. In the small jar, three broken tulips from harvesting, some laurel and alder branches. Not rocket science, just having fun, and you should as well.

I will leave you, and your floral imagination until next week. Allie

PS. Shelly has picked up her tulip experiment. I could feel the flower buds so now all the updates will be up to her. I am pretty excited about it though. Some tweaking on my part, but she will have to fill you in on how it goes.

I hope the Easter bunny was good to you all and your baskets are overflowing with chocolate eggs and peeps. We had a sunrise dog walk with all of our canine friends and their humans and enjoyed far too many peeps far too early in the morning. Our favorite peep was the Sparkly Berry, or something like that. All that sugar gave us lots of energy to do farm work today. Yay!

The snow has finally melted in the cutting garden and to be honest, it is a little discouraging to see the amount of rodent damage in the beds. Don’t worry, there are still plenty of spring bulbs, but they did dine well on many of the perennials. I know it is early yet and things are slow so I am not worried, nor should you. You know the adage. An empty space in the garden means PLANT SHOPPING, and new things to try to offer you all the best and most interesting cut flowers out there. Let the challenge begin!

So what is happening on the farm. Well if you didn’t know, Tulips. I will have tulips on Friday, it could be just a few, or…. with the forecasted warm weather, could be a bunch more. The in-ground tulips are looking good. I have been watering them but one just never knows and I have very little control over these tulips. The forced tulips are much easier. I more or less know each week what I will have for you, but the in-ground ones? Mother Nature rules on that one and we all know how that goes. So, as usual, pay attention to the newsletter that should come out the night before or the morning of the open flower shed to keep you up to date.

Speaking of tulips, I have just placed the order for next year’s tulips. Let’s just say that was a brain cramping job. How many for each week? Do the colors blend, are they interesting…then do that again for the in ground tulips, but add Mother Nature into the timing. Oh yes. My brain was cramping. Only 9 months before we know how well I did with my choices. I mean it’s tulips in the dead of winter, how bad can my choices be? Don’t answer that.

This week coming is a big week. The first batch of sweet peas are going to be planted, along with all the perennial seedlings and the second batch of cool flowers into the garden. First the beds have to be prepped. Irrigation hooked up, weed mat down, then plants in, watered by hand for a number of weeks, the hoops for sun and cold protection. That will about do me in I figure. But it is all good. Those flowers should be starting to flower by early June, fingers crossed. Sweet peas, snapdragons, cool crops, the perennials and a new lavender that I am trying. It’s an annual, was grown in a British flower grower’s garden so what the heck. Just a packet of seeds and my time really.

Instead of showing you photos of what’s to come, everything is too tiny, I will leave you with two pics of last week’s bouquets.

Until next week, may you dream tulips and the floral possibilities. Allie

You wouldn’t know it was April these first few days. April fool’s day was living up to its name. A morning of freezing rain and just drismal yuck, only in the afternoon to be fully sunny and the temperatures near sixty. Is this a sign of the things to come? Resiliency must be part of the plan.

The snow is melting and with the rain yesterday I am actually seeing action. The Narcissus are easier to spot, the crocus are blooming in the shrub border, the bluebirds are checking out the nesting boxes and the gardener, holy moly, a whole lots of balls are in the air.

Let’s start with tulips. You know that the tulips were planted mid October, then they sat in the cooler until mid January when I started to haul out four crates a week. Well, tada! The dirty room is now officially empty of crates, and believe me, this is a very weird feeling. Even the dogs are thinking something is wrong here. No tulips to tiptoe around. Didn’t Tiny Tim do a song about tiptoeing around the tulips or was that someone else? Well, no more tiptoeing in the dirty room around the tulips till next year.

Going, last four, going empty, gone last one out the door!

What this all means is this Friday will be the last of the forced tulips! There will be an unfortunate lull for a week or two, but then the farm will be gang busters with tulips again. Hopefully Shelly’s experiment/project will solve this gap problem next year, but I am waiting to see.

Meanwhile, the high tunnel is completely planted, the second crop of stock went in on Wednesday along with the Icelandic poppies. The ranunculus and anemones are looking good, as is everything else planted. As soon as the snow finishes melting in the garden, and the soil has a chance to breath, the first batch of sweet peas will be planted out along with all of the perennials and rest of the cool flowers that all have been patiently waiting in the greenhouse. They are saying “Plant me please!!!”

The first BIG sowing of the summer annuals starts this week. The now empty tulip space in the dirty room will soon be filled with all the dahlia tubers that have been keeping company with the tulips in the cooler and are now feeling lonely so they will get hauled up to start sprouting, then dividing, then planting out at the end of May. Is that a run-on sentence? I feel as though I am a run-on crazy flower grower.

I will let you catch your breath, and I will leave you with this photo of the tulips that went out to grace your homes last week.

It is going to be a cold one tonight they say, so I am off to “put the pajamas on the babies” In other words give them some added protection. So I am handing you off to Steve.

Until next week, Allie