Month: June 2023

Here we are finally at summer, and it actually feels like it today. Hazy and hot. Just the way the summer flowers like it, and now that it looks like the summer temps will be here for awhile, the summer flowers might actually put on a little bit of growth. The segue between the tulips, the cool flowers and the summer flowers is always interesting. Sometimes there is a gap, sometimes they get confused because of the interesting weather patterns and sometimes it all works. I think that this might just be one of those years…fingers and toes crossed.

I think, and I say this with hesitation, that the last of the spring flowers for next year have been ordered. I am beefing up my range of anemones, dutch iris and alliums for the most part, along with a handful of some fun things to round out the spring flower offerings. Alliums are supposed to be deer and rodent proof, I don’t know who got to the bulbs, but out of the 100 alliums I planted last year, I had two, yup, two come up this spring and bloom. So like any good flower farmer, I am ordering more. We shall see what happens. I do love the alliums, but not as much as my dahlias, and the damage right now is bad enough I am letting our dog Jager in the garden when I am in there working. At this point, who can create the most damage?

The last of the sunflowers have been planted out, and the pumpkins will go in the ground on Tuesday. We shall see. The willows have been planted and I am creating a new bed for the last? of the shrubs that I want to plant for cutting. I am also starting more perennial beds amongst the taller shrubs because I want to make it easier on my body in my later flower growing years. I just don’t want to get bored because you all know what happens then. Maybe not. If I were to be bored, no, let’s not go there. Poor Steve.

I leave you with not a flower picture, but this.

I am not a grumpy flower farmer, I just don’t have Steve making funny faces at me to make me smile. I took this photo myself and was concentrating. Maybe a bit too hard?

Until next week. Summer is here! Allie

But for the most part you would never know it. What strange weather. Cold, damp, with just nuisance rain, enough to get your feet soaking wet, but not enough to water the plants which just is not kind. Then a few days scattered of wicked hot weather. Neither the plants or I know what to do, It’s a farmer’s lot. We just need to be prepared for anything.

The peonies are beautiful this year. Spring has been cool, see that is a good thing, so the flowers have come on slowly, and most of the varieties have been harvested and are in storage so I can have peonies for you for many weeks yet. The sweet peas are coming on quite nicely and I have harvested the first bunch. Joining the harvest now are the foxgloves, feverfew, geum, phlox, dianthus Icelandic poppies and just so much more. The flower shed is a riot of color and fragrances.

Most of the garden is planted now, I just have a few things to go in yet, then the woodies…but at the moment and for quite a while now, watering and harvesting will be taking up most of the flower time.

Until next month when I need to start sowing the perennial seeds and the dirty room will become dirty again.

There isn’t much else to report this week. Harvesting, watering, harvesting, watering, but that is all good because I am producing some stunning flowers, if I must say so.

So every Friday afternoon I make a bouquet for myself. I put it in a go cup and take it to the lake where it gives me such happiness, then Sunday afternoon it comes back to the farm where I can enjoy it for the rest of the week. since I spaced #windowframethursday this last week I am sharing this week’s bouquet.

Until next week. Allie

Welcome all. Well it has been another crazy week here at the farm. But really, what would you expect at this point right? Friday was a bittersweet day for me here. It was the last day of the tulips. I had been growing them since September, offering to you my amazing flower people and many more since Mid February and Friday it was their last day. They were an amazing crop, each week providing spectacular flowers and yes, I will miss them, but there is so much more beauty coming on that to be honest, I need the room and their time has come to move on. Thank you all for enjoying them as you did.

I don’t know what is worse in the gardens. The mole/vole tunneling and destruction, the chipmunk nibbling of the branches or the deer that are grazing through the garden on weekends when the dogs are away. I stomp on the tunnels, I don’t think it works, but i do get a bit of pleasure out of it, and we have fenced off the roses to keep the deer away from them and we have hung bars of Irish Spring soap on the branches of the shrubs they seem to be enjoying the most of. I would put Jager in the garden to do his job, but I think at this point he would be more destructive, but if the action picks up, I just might let him at it.

So now that the tulips are gone, there is room for the next batch of flowers which is, drumroll….Peonies. Yes, the peonies will be coming in strong with this week’s heat in the forecast. (So they say). Steve will be on flower harvest duty Monday and Wednesdays which he is not looking forward to but he will do fine. Some varieties there will be only three stems available, looking at you Coral Charm, but other varieties will have many many stems, like the stunning Red Charm. I figure harvest will last about two weeks, but I will have peonies to offer until July. Fingers crossed.

The ranunculus and anemone in the tunnel are still going strong, despite a little creature that is also harvesting stems but this one is just letting them fall. Argh. Also the cool flowers, which are the ones that got planted in the high tunnel back in early March, are just now starting to come into flower so by the end of the week there will be bunches of Icelandic poppies, stock, clarkia, bachelor buttons, and orlaya available. AND… another drumroll, the first sweet peas are showing color! That first harvest might just be mine though. You can say that we are now going to be a flower farm instead of a tulip farm. Variety reigns.

The chrysanthemums have been planted, and the first of the cuttings will be taken this week. The pumpkins have been sown, as well as the next batch of sunflowers that I wasn’t going to grow. The first crop of ranunculus will start to be dried off to be stored for next year, and the cycle continues.

So I leave you with flower photos, and words of wisdom. “Flowers create happiness for the receiver as will as the giver”. So make some flower bouquets and make the world, or your space a happier place.

Honestly, how can this not make you smile. It certainly makes me smile for the joy it brings.

Thank you for bringing joy. Allie

This weekend it’s not the weather, that is for sure. But the flower heat is on! The flowers are being harvested several times a day now they are coming on so fast. I have to get them early for perfection and vase life but it does make things a little crazy around here. So crazy in fact, that I am going to train Steve tomorrow on the finer art of harvesting so he can do the 11 and 2 o’clock row walking and harvesting, and I will do the 7am and 5pm row walk and harvesting. Such fun.

The heat of last week has finished off the ranunculus in the greenhouse. It is a shame because they had really just come into their own and were looking really good, but despite my efforts to keep them cool, they will be done by the end of the week. Lucky for us I have a second planting in the tunnel that are starting to come on, so fingers crossed I will have those for another week or two. The forecast looks to be in our favor. Fingers crossed. I will let the ones in the greenhouse begin their dormancy after the harvest is complete, then they will be stored for next year.

The anemones are still going strong and the Icelandic poppies are just starting. Another crop that needs to be harvested multiple times during the day to get them at peak condition. I am also harvesting the stock, what a divine aroma they have, like cloves, and one stem to a bouquet is all that is needed. The Clarkias are all budding up beautifully and they too will joining the offerings soon. Like I said, things are heating up.

Outside of the every other week of sunflower sowings and plantings, everything is in the ground. Oops, I forgot one thing, but that will be in the ground on Tuesday afternoon. The pumpkins and gourds will be sown this week…I have cuttings to take some of the heirloom chrysanthemums, oh, and I have to plant the chrysanthemums, right. Not done yet.

So last week I think I said I would show you drone shots of the flower farm. Here you go.

So the photo on the left is the gardens that you see when you come and pick up your flowers, the flower shed being on the right. The right hand photo is back behind the house and garage which is added growing space, where the tulips are grown in ground, the cool flowers are grown and a handful of veggies.

This photo is the kit and kaboodle. Growing beds, house, back gardens, barn, orchard, and see all those rocks? That is why we are called Flowers at Lottarock. Because I have a LOT of rocks.

I just find these photos so interesting. Even I really had no idea of the scope of this little flower farm. The farm might be small, but I would say we are mighty.

As usual, I like to leave you with a few flower pics to inspire you.

So, until next week, dream flowers. I do, and so should you. Allie