Author: Allie

If you hadn’t noticed, the days are getting longer in the evening at least. We can go out and do chores at 5:15 now and not need a flashlight to see what we are doing. Progress!

Did you know that yesterday was International Tulip Day? I didn’t until all the flower growers that I follow on instagram were wishing everyone happy tulip day holding either their tulips from last year or this year’s crop. Very envious of those with this year’s crop already, but next year hopefully I to will have tulips to hold in my arms on International Tulip day, which is held on the third Saturday of January of you were wondering.

If you are really wondering about it, google it. It is sooooo amazing I am hoping to go next year. This years was cancelled because of you know what, Covid, but hopefully by this time next year it will all be a distant memory.

So what has been happening here at the Rock? Learning of course, watching my tulips which is about as good as waiting for a kettle to boil. Pointless, but must be done. Some of the seeds have geminated and I made the critical decision to move the ranuculus and anemones onto the seed starting shelves in the dirty room because they were doing nothing in the bulb room and it was driving me crazy. I also don’t have to put my coat on every two hours to go into the bulb room to see how they were doing, or not as the case. So the dirty room is just getting dirtier and somehow smaller because until the temperatures moderate, the tulip crates will be brought into there for growing on.

So. My plan is… that the tulip crates will have one more week in the bulb room at 48 degrees, then drop the temps to holding and every week I haul out two or three crates of bulbs to force for sale. So, if I get my math sorta correct….The earliest I will have tulips available will be the week of Feb. 21, or from anytime then on. I hope you all love tulips because I will have buckets of them.

So. By the first week of February, if you don’t have a credit from last year’s flower card you might want to think about getting a flower card to be ready. I will always have them ready but I don’t want anyone to miss out. I will let you know when the time is right. So stay tuned. I will keep you all posted, believe me, I am as excited as you all are for some local farm grown, chemical free, long lasting flowers that haven’t been shipped from overseas.

Until next week, I will be dreaming beautiful tulips. Allie

I know this is a week late but I thought I would give you all a break, especially since not tons has been happening, but it is a new year and new happenings.

My most exciting tidbit is that the tulips are a growing. Have a look at this!

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Pretty exciting isn’t it? OK for me it is, but fingers crossed that in another 6 weeks I will have beautiful tulips available for you all.

The next exciting thing is that last week I soaked all 500 of the ranunculus and anemone corms and they are now pre-sprouting in the bulb room. At least I hope they are. This is always the nerve wracking, nail biting part for me because the corms are so prone to rot, can’t have them to dry but certainly not too wet. Soon, I hope to have them planted in the high tunnel and into crates in the greenhouse.

Seeding has begun. Icelandic poppies, and something else, can’t remember. Then will be the perennials and the cool crops. Meanwhile, while I have nothing to do…

I am taking a slew of flower learning courses. This weekend was mad learning. Four talks on Friday that were on the woohoo of growing flowers, eight talks on Saturday all dealing with the technicalities of growing, that was really good, and today on marketing all the flowers. Thank you to Tom and Suzie who let me sit in their cozy room using their internet for some of the talks because our internet is squirrely this weekend. Of all times, really. I will be so happy to have real internet some year.

Now I just have to register for “Flowering in the Northeast” which is sponsored by UMaine and is really good, and then, a tulip forcing refresher for the course I took last year. This time it will be videos in living color and not just the instructors sitting in their offices talking to us. Then before you know it, I will be flat out and flowers hopefully will be available.

I will have to say, that I am totally thankful for the snow that came the other day because it will act as insulation for the perennials and the tulips that are planted in the ground. They and I are thankful for the added insulation for when the polar vortex pours in this week. Brrrrr.

So. Until next week. Stay warm, and think flowers.

I know, I wasn’t going to do a blog this week, but Surprise, here I am. It has been quite a week. The long awaited 5c tulips arrived. Yay!

I emailed the tulip broker on Monday or Tuesday morning and he sent the tracking number on to me to say that they were ready to go. They were supposed to be delivered on Wednesday by the end of the day, but no, three of the four boxes arrived Thursday morning. The driver knew absolutely nothing about a fourth box. The next Fed Ex driver that drove in about an hour later said that he was only express and it wasn’t his problem. I will say that he did say it nicely though. Onwards we go though, so Steve and I and an elf got 1500 tulips planted, watered in, labeled and put in the bulb room which we had hooked up via an extension cord to run the temperature controls. Record time for a bunch of newbies. It took us about 2 hours all up. Once we figured out the learning curve of course.

Friday morning, yes, Christmas Eve day the fourth box arrives and Steve and I get it planted in about an hour and set into its new space. So here we go. Bulbs are now safely in the cooler, temperatures set at 45 degrees for about four weeks of rooting, then, I can bring them out and grow them on, so if all goes to plan, and we know how well those work, I should start having tulips ready for you all before the end of February. I would love to say by Valentines Day but seeing this is year one, I am giving myself a little leeway.

I hope you all had a safe and fun filled holiday, and I will be back again after the new year.

Allie

So I got a puppy. I know, funny heh. But true. I have know idea about the status of my tulip bulbs, so I/we decided to get a puppy instead. Let my introduce you to Jager, the newest member of the flower team here at Lottarock.

What possessed us? GOK. (God only knows). He is the reason that I didn’t get the blog published last night. I didn’t get home from picking him up till after 9:00, then we had a meet and greet with all the animals and that was that. So here we are, adapting to life with a young dog. He is 9 months we adopted him from 2Hands4Paws rescue and so far so good. He has done chores this morning, goats, chickens and donkeys and is learning that routine, had a big dog walk on his first leash dog walk and that went really well so fingers crossed that all continues to go well.

On the tulip front, just waiting. I reached out to the distributer but haven’t hear back so I will just continue on as usual if they don’t come but that would be a real bummer. I will still start the cool seeds and the perennials in the new year, I will still get the ranunculus and anemones going at their usual time, and wait for spring with my usual impatience.

I won’t be doing a post next week because of the Holidays, we here celebrate Boxing Day with all of my family and that is on a Blog Sunday, so my all of you have a wonderful holiday, filled with family, friends near and far, laughter good food and cheer. May we all have a safe and healthy New Year and a flower filled one as well. I thank everyone of you for such a wonderful year.

Cheers, Allie, Steve, Olivia, Sadie, Jager

I feel like I am a kid again waiting for Christmas, except that I am waiting for my tulip delivery. Will it ever get here? Will the delivery person (Santa) find his way? The waiting is killing me. I have been good. Well, for me anyway. I am ready, my crates are all waiting for their delivery of beautiful tulip bulbs. The bulb room is ready, or will be when I need to to be, says Paul….please get here soon. I am besides myself. And we all know that patience is not one of my finer suits.

Besides waiting for my bulb delivery I really don’t have anything exciting to report. My seed order from Johny’s seems to be taking the scenic tour of God knows where. From Maine, it has taken over a week to be delivered, and each time I pull up the delivery schedule, it is delayed. If you guys who are hoping to get Christmas presents delivered before Easter, good luck. It is an especially long flight from Albion Maine, to Hancock NH, via the north pole, the Falkland Islands, Australia, Guam….Argh!!!!

So. Here I am waiting. Tulip bulbs, seeds, spring….but hey, I have a building permit that will expire in 20 days. Yup. Don’t get me going.

Did say that patience is not in my DNA?

I took last Sunday off, if you hadn’t noticed. Thanksgiving and all of its celebrations and recovery were far more important than anything that could have happened at the farm that week, so I gave you all a week off as my gift to you. But. Today I am back with exciting news.

The &*(%!! building inspector has FINALLY signed off on our building permit. Only 11 months from when we had filed it. Don’t get me going on that topic. No we don’t have said permit in hand yet, now we are waiting for the selectboard to put their signatures on the permit, but as far as we are concerned, we are good to go and go we will! We may not be able to park our cars in it until June, but hey, as soon as it is enclosed and safe, the electrician will hook us up and I will have electricity in the bulb room. Meanwhile, an extension cord will have to do.

So here is a funny story. I was talking to a reader about white wedding flowers for early June. I couldn’t remember if I had ordered any white ranunculus and of course I couldn’t find any invoices or packing slips but I had the boxes sitting in the dirty room waiting for planting. What did I find in the first box I looked in? Tulips. Somehow 100 amazing parrot tulips never got planted back in October. Oops! And these tulips are amazing when they flower, so I planted half of them in the high tunnel, and half in a bulb crate to try out the new bulb room. Nothing ventured, nothing gained is my motto. And I do have 100 white ranunculus, as well as pink shades, pastel shades, picotee to plant in January.

The other warm day I started to prefill the bulb crates trying to find a system that will work before the big shipment arrives. I think I have it figured out but then all the best made plans do have a way of tweaking themselves.

If it is sunny and above freezing this will work. The first thing I had to do was get the pro mix thawed, so 4 bales are now in the dirty room and the least frozen got put in the crates. I filled each crate halfway using the bucket of the tractor as my work bench filling 24 crates and once I got going it only took about 2 hrs. The hardest part really was getting the frozen planting mix broken up small enough to use. So I have 23 crates ready to go, stacked in the tool shed and waiting for the big plant. One crate was used for the found tulip bulbs hence 23 remaining crates. This is going to work, I am sure of it.

My other exciting news is that I think most of the seed for the 2022 flower season has now been ordered and are being shipped. Yay! The end of December and January are going to be very busy with tulip planting, ranunculus, anemone and freesia planting, and then soon seeding of the cool flowers perennials and bi-annuals. I better enjoy the down-ish time of the next few weeks I guess. Sure, with Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years all happening too!

Until next week. Allie

Sometimes I feel as though I am going in far too many directions, trying to get everything done on time to get flowers to you on time. Talk about planning. Tulips and other bulbs need to be ordered in May, to be planted in November to be in your happy hands by March. Phew. Seeds need to be ordered and some started by January so you can enjoy them this summer, then I also need to think about the autumn flowers that also need to be ordered like now, so I an have a decent selection so you have a decent selection in the fall. It is like tossing a bunch of balls in the air and keeping them all going. And yes, I do have sleepless nights trying to figure it all out. That is just scheduling, and nothing to do with the vagaries of growing, like weather, which I really have no control over.

I wish I were younger, but since that isn’t going to happen I just need to do it all now. Everything I read is just pick a few crops and do them all well, but I just want to grow everything, within reason. I love growing the odd bits because they are what makes your arrangements so special. I just love seeing what some flowers do and how to grow them. Like pumpkin on a stick. Weird to grow yes, interesting curve to figure out how to use it in an arrangement, but I just might have it figured out. Will I grow them again, yes, just because. It turns out that although they look delicate, they stand up to freezing temps so for your outdoor floral arrangements, they work. Here are two views of pumpkins on a stick.

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So one never knows what will just happen. One just has to try, keep an open mind, and have fun.

Now that the gardens are put to bed for the season, my mind goes like this. Tulips. First 3500 in. Tick. Bulb crates. Tick. Potting mix to plant next 2500 tulips in. Tick. Bulb room for next 2500 tulip bulbs….sorta.

Getting there. The temperature is holding at 40F, all by itself. I will paint it white in the spring, and I will more than likely have to run an extension cord this winter, but…getting there. A big Yay to Paul. Big boo to Tim the building inspector.

Flower seeds for spring…. making lists and checking them twice….finding a market for all my tulips….what was I thinking? Look at the clock by the bed, crap, only 2:00 am….what am I forgetting? But the floor of the greenhouse is done, just have to add the landscape cloth and it is done until the tulips are ready to go in and get ready for you.

Enough of me. I leave you with a little last minute table scape for Thanksgiving. Waterless so when the cats decide they need to play with it water won’t spill all over the table. You can make this as well. Fresh sage from the garden, rosehips, dried grasses and strawflowers. If you find you need some dried flowers and grasses to boost your table scape, email me and I will set some aside for you. Next year I will be more organized. (If we are lucky).

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. And my thanks is to all of you who keep me going with your enthusiam and love of flowers. I couldn’t do this with out you.

Just because the flowers are done for the season it doesn’t mean that the garden is done for the season, or better said, the gardener isn’t done for the season. I have been very busy.

The garden is now completely put to bed. All the beds have had their leaf compost added with the old wood chips full of happy mycelia strewn on top so nothing blows away. The perennials have been cut back, two new rows are in the process of being created. First, the area has been killed with black plastic, which only takes a week or two in the summer, then it is puled back, cardboard is laid on top, then old mulch leaves for a couple of inches, the a very thin layer of the old wood chips. In the spring, the beds can be shaped, and my new project started. Yup. New growing project.

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That project took about two days, then organizing the flower shed. It sadly no longer looks rustically floral, but at the moment it’s a clean storage shed. All the drip hose is put away, the netting is bagged and put away, the flower benches are stored. Tools hung, buckets washed and the flower cans as well.

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Then. Today, Steve and I drove down to a flower farm west of Scranton PA, a mere six hours away, to pick up 45 bulb crates. Was it worth all the hours on the road? Damn straight. At least I have the crates to now grow the forced tulips in when they arrive mid December. That is itself if a huge burden off my mind. Do I have enough? Well, I would never turn down the possibility of another 150, but at the moment what I have, with the input of some very gracious and generous friends, I will get the forced tulip crop going.

I know, you are all busting at the seams to know what is in store for this week. Seed ordering. I wanted to start it last week on the rain day, but I took a mental health day and really did nothing that day, so this week. Seeds. What do I have, what do I need, and what do I want? It has to make some money, but I do like the unusual that really make your flower arrangements sing and lets me be arty farty.

Until next week. Allie

It is so hard to believe that we have already had a full week of November. The temperatures have been relatively mild but boy are we waking up to some mighty white frosty gardens. Good, because I am no longer feeling bad about cutting down the flowers that were still looking decent, but OMG, so glad to see them go. Now I am racing against the weather. Will I get everything done that needs to get done before it is either too cold or to frozen?

You might ask what have I been up to in the last 6 days. Well, the tulips, all 3500 of them are planted. Three beds still have to be mulched, but I think that is pretty darn good. The dahlias have all been transferred into bulb bags are are now down in the basement, hopefully being safe. Now come the weekly checking to make sure they are all fine. I should, I really should have each variety stored in it’s own crate, but don’t have the crates yet, so I must pay particular attention to the tubers to keep them rot and disease free. No easy feat believe me.

Paul has been busy working on the bulb room. Yay! It has been wired, insulated, door and window installed….Hopefully electricity will be installed before I need it, but Paul has worked magic and I am happy. I would have taken a photo to post but I forget that we are back to winter time and it got dark to early. Will try to remember to post a photo next week. I would be happier if I had enough bulb crates for forcing the next 2500 in, but that is another story.

Post it notes are being put in the seed catalogs. Reviewing my notes and poor memory to see what I can delete, add and check the numbers so I have enough seed for each variety that I want to grow this next year. This is where the blog and the photos I post on instagram are important, they are my memory.

Steve has Frankenstiened the end of the high tunnel. It will be interesting to see how the temperatures will change this year having drafty ends. Better than no ends I reckon.

I have no photos to share with you this week, but, I am leaving you with two of last year’s photos so you can see what all the hard work will produce. Hopefully.

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Till next week. Allie

We finally have had a killing frost, or as flower growers call it ‘frostmass’. Even though I had already cut down most of the cutting garden, it is good to have the freeze officially here. As they say, better late than never. The dahlias in the high tunnel are still looking good, but not enough for all of you flower lovers. Just enough for me to enjoy, and believe me I am.

Since my last posting things have still been busy here at the Rock. There is so much to do, sometimes I feel as though I am losing direction but things are getting done. In the gardens, that one row that hasn’t been cut down yet is still standing although not nearly as proudly as it was last week. It is a little black around the edges, so hopefully this week it will be cut down like the rest of the flowers. The dahlias have been cut back, labeled and dug so now if I need anything beyond the first two feet in the tool shed I am out of luck until I get the tubers sorted and stored. That is on my list for this week. At some point, but I have more pressing things to happen first.

The most pressing task happening now is getting the first batch of tulips planted. They have been patiently waiting in their boxes on the screen porch waiting for this moment. Friday, the first few boxes were planted. Don’t ask me how many, I can only tell you that I have only 1200 left to go into the ground this week coming. Two thirds down, one third to go. I got an email from the other bulb supplier the other day, the sad news is that one variety isn’t available due to a crop failure, and I am shorted another variety, so I will only have about 2500 tulips to force when they come in in December. I am sad, but also somewhat relieved because I am having a hell-of-a-time sourcing bulb crates to force them in. If anyone knows of a source of black bulb crates like this snag them for me please! I am desperate!

Meanwhile, I have been getting next year’s seed order together, complete with some interesting things to try. Some that I grew this past year won’t be grown again, which gives me room to try some new cutting varieties this year coming. Spring is coming and I have to be ready for you my flower people.

So. If you have been worried that I would have too much time on my hands now that most of the gardens have been cut down for the season, rest assured, I still have plenty to do to keep me out of mischief.

Until next week. Allie