Month: August 2023

It is starting to look like September. I know this because the days are getting shorter, the light is changing, the flowers are changing and the gardens are ramping up again.

It is hard to believe that I have been cutting and harvesting flowers now for seven months, and I still have two(?) months to go. That is right, well, maybe a month and a half, but probably closer to two. Some flowers are looking tired and they have already been cut down and a cover crop sown, some are still going strong and will so until the temps and the daylight really starts to wane like the zinnias and the dahlias. The dahlias really don’t like the shorter days and just start to make weak stems, and the zinnias down’t like the chilly damp mornings. But, that being said, some of the flowers are only just now starting to set bud so you can look forward to the peacock orchid, pumpkins on a stick, pumpkins and chrysanthemums. The season of flowers will still rock on!

I/we invested in a battery powered LED light to light up the flower shed on these dark and gloomy days. What a difference a light makes. Now when you come to pick out your flowers you don’t have to take them outside in the dreary light to see what the colors are.

And better yet, I can operated it with my phone. I can turn it on and off, and increase the intensity of the light. Love it!

I know I should be making floral notes all during the season, but that is my goal for this week, after Tuesday. Stand in the garden with my notebook and start figuring out what I am going to grow next year, and more importantly where it is going to go. Most of my thoughts I can remember because I am in the garden daily, but I need to get it all down on paper. Like no lisianthus, one row of sweet peas, what perennials am I going to add and where are they going to go. Where am I going to put the dahlias and the chrysanthemums? You know, all that important stuff. I am going to use September as the planning month, the figure it out month, how am I going to rig up the irrigation in the second garden month, so on and so forth.

I am not going to bore you anymore today, I have a huge harvest that I have to start tonight so it will all be ready for pick up on Tuesday. My biggest order ever. But I will leave you with two photos from last week.

Enjoy, and I will be back next week. Allie

Have you noticed that the summer light is changing? It is no longer light enough to be in the gardens at 5:30, or really 6:00 in the morning unless I am turning on the irrigation. The urgency of being in the garden so early is gone, thankfully, for another year. Oh, believe me there is still plenty to do in the gardens but the urgency is gone. Mind you, it will pick up again before the season is done, planting tulips, getting the dahlias dug and ready for storage, getting the beds all put away, but that isn’t for another month, so now I have just a tich of respite.

Speaking of tulips. i got an email, along with many other recipients from my tulips sales rep, and they have had many tulip crop losses and failure to thrive crops so it could be that my tulip order will be reduced. By what number I have no idea, Nor do the suppliers at the moment, so it could be interesting. I might be a tulip grower, but I’m not a TULIP grower if you know what I mean. On my end it is a wait and see. I will try to have earlier crops like ranunculus and anemone but that will all depend on my skill, timing, and oh yes, the weather.

I still haven’t figured out how to rig up irrigation in garden number two yet. I guess I need more sleepless nights working on that one. I have figured out how to get the sides of the tunnel to go up and down more efficiently. It is done by all greenhouse growers, I am just a bit slow on the uptake. I have ordered the parts I need, Steve and I are trying to understand how to do this, or really Steve is trying to figure out what the heck I am trying to explain. It will all work out. Fingers crossed. Shipping is more expensive than the sum of the parts ordered. Go figure.

I think the flowers are doing quite well despite the summer they have been given. I mean, look at this flower haul from the other day, and this is only part of it.

I love it when I can take a few simple dahlia flowers from this, to this.

A special order going out on Monday morning. Yes, with notice I can create special orders for you as well.

I leave you with lat weeks #windowframethursday. I believe I titled it A burst of color for another gloomy day. It made me happy.

The last of the bells of Ireland, and two rose flowers that I got before the buds that smelt so sweet.

Until next week, may we all get to bury our noses in a bouquet of locally grown flowers. Allie

It is almost the middle of August, and the flowers, despite all the wild and crazy weather we have been having this summer are hitting their stride. The Japanese beetles are having orgies, they seem to pick one plant of each kind and OMG, the piles of beetles piling up on each other is just well, disgusting. So I am grateful that they are just at one plant and not at every plant. I squish as many as I can even when my hands are busy harvesting flowers but they are so thin it is hard to get them all. Tonight I had 20 of them on one Peaches ‘n cream dahlia, but nowhere else in the dahlia patch. Should have taken a believe it or not photo for you to see. Next week.

I decided on my drive back from the lake this afternoon that I am going to invest in a two valve programable timer for the second flower garden, yes, there are two…and the big garden because then they can be programed to come on when we are away and since next year I will be officially retired from gardening for others I can come back to the farm on Monday mornings instead of Sundays. I know, that is a run on sentence for sure. Not very smart of me to think of this when I was redoing the second garden but too late now. I will figure something out before next spring.

Flowers are getting harvested and hung up to dry in the shed. The beginning of the season or really until the last few weeks it has been terrible to dry because of the rain and humidity, but now the flowers are drying so they will be put in the storage bins until I need them in the winter for wreaths and package toppers. Package toppers you say? Yes, we went to a one year birthday party on Saturday, and the gift was wrapped in a paper bag, and topped with this.

In the winter, gifts that are given are wrapped in recycled paper bags, and topped with a little dried flower posy. The posy can be put in a vase for the winter and the wrapping composted, and when the flowers wilt in the summer from the humidity , they too can be safely composted.

Other farm news? The pumpkins are growing, the cup and saucer vine are starting to set flower buds, Yay! Love this vine. The cover crops are not germinating because it decided to stop raining although I would think the morning dew would be strong enough. It certainly gets my feet soaking wet.

In closing, have I told you how much I love flowers? Enjoy this beautiful August weather, flowers are abundant, flower farmers are tired and flowers are lively. Hope to see you soon at the Rock. Allie

Here it is August 6th. How did this happen? It feels like August. Today anyway. The gardens look like August with all of the typical August flowers blooming. The zinnias, rudbeckias, celosia, ageratum, dahlias, cosmos and so much more are all going gangbusters and the flower farmer looks as though it is August, tired and achey. The flowers make up for the gardener though and that is a wonderful thing.

I have the most amazing crop of self sown amaranth and celosia this summer. the celosia is all varieties with some of their own breeding and it is all over the place. And it is blooming just about the same time as the ones I so carefully germinated and planted out. They are smaller because they aren’t near the irrigation, and they haven’t been fed because I didn’t plant them but it is pretty amazing to see them. The amaranth is as statuesque as ever.

I love this plant. The foliage is great in arrangements, the flower spikes are great in arrangements and if I don’t harvest it soon enough the finches are all over it, (it is also a great grain) which is probably why it and its buddy celosia are all over the garden. Speaking of foliage and fillers, I have been adding interest to your bouquets with scented geraniums, basils, mountain mint that all have a beautiful scent, and color comes from the dusty miller, amaranth and mahogany splendor.

Now that the weather is drier than the last two months, I am beginning to get the flowers drying for this year.

The drying season has begun, and this will only be added to as the drier season hopefully continues.

Flowers that are on deck in the next weeks? The annual asters are showing beautiful buds, more zinnias and celosia, more rudbeckia and the peacock orchid. Further along on deck are

Pumpkins on a Stick and the big pumpkins I grew a few years ago. Fingers crossed on that one. they aren’t looking very big, nor promising at this point.

Remember, change the water on your summer flowers daily, or at least every other day and add a couple of drops of bleach to the water to keep the skank away. You can safely compost your flowers when they are spent. No chemicals or preservatives have been used in their post harvest, or their growing for that matter, unlike the imported flowers that come from most grocery stores. Those I would never compost. Not good.

I leave you with last week’s instagram post. I like this one. It is the cool colors in celebration of the cooler weather we had for a few days last week. Enjoy.

Until next week. Happy August. Allie