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