Hi, I am Allie Kerwin and I simply love flowers. After thirty plus years of professional gardening in other peoples' gardens, I have decided to return to my first love and grow farm fresh flowers for sale.
Many, many, many years ago when I was a little girl, I was entranced with flowers. They surrounded my home, they filled the fields across the street, and they were inside our home as well.
Now I get to play with flowers all over again and they make me just as happy as when I was a kid. Thankfully, I don’t have to get all dressed up to enjoy them.
PS. This was posted by Steve, a.k.a. the cheeky bugger
Here we are at March first. The day might be full of bright sunshine but the temperature has not gotten above freezing. Nor has it for the last three days, nor tomorrow. Hopefully by Wednesday we will be above freezing. Fingers crossed. I have found some daffodils up against the house foundation, facing south. Looks as though we have a ways to go yet.
Meanwhile, inside, the third batch of ranunculus have been soaked and are sprouting. Look closely and you will see little bits of green
baby ranuncs
These will stay inside for another day or two then will be planted out into the low tunnel that will be inside the high tunnel. Even though they need to be grown cool, our nights are still too cold so I am going to play it safe. This will also be our first adventure on constructing a low tunnel. This will be interesting. Stay tuned.
We are fine tuning our bouquet subscription and farm gate sales details and hope to have the details out by mid March. Oh all of this is just so exciting. ‘Til next time.
It is hard to believe that looking at the above image that this space will be undergoing a huge transformation. Rocks will hopefully be moved, stumps removed, and the surrounding shrubs will be replanted into a new garden space. All timing is dependent on getting the machinery in as soon as the roads are no longer posted for heavyweight trucks. Then between the red flags, flowers will be planted. Yay! I can hardly wait. I must be pacing the areas about three times a day planning, planning, planning.
And here is a bit of free form ice art in the donkey pasture.
Here it is February 16, slightly more than half way through the month, and halfway to spring. But who is counting the days to the spring equinox? Two sure sign of spring here at the farm is the Witch Hazel in full bloom, despite wicked cold evening temperatures, and the baby ranunculus that are being coddled in the little greenhouse. My first trial, can I grow them here with little effort? They are looking good, but time will tell.
Well, we are currently being inundated by some of the sloppiest weather possible with rain, sleet, and sometimes snow so what is there to do for our gardens? Sitting by the warm wood stove and dream, of course.
We have met with our friendly heavy equipment guy, Garth, and have some really mind-blowing ideas of how to improve our garden space. In a nutshell, come May we hope to essentially double what flower garden beds we have and erect a new hoop house right next to the gardens. This will require massive boulder moving and fence relocation along with site work. On the plus side, we have a pond close by for irrigation and we’ve already cleared out trees so there is plenty of light. Fingers crossed.
As we are in the depths of winter, there is nothing going on in the flower garden. That being said, we have done a fair bit of preparation last year and we plan on doing some garden bed extension once the season permits. It has been a long time in coming and the flower bed layout still needs fine tuning.
Still, seeds have been purchased and I am so excited to make this all happen!
A wonderful adventure is in store for both you and me. After nearly forty years in gardening, from working at Woodman’s in the 1970s to semi-formally retiring last year, I have begun a new chapter in my life. I have now returned to my first love in horticulture, flowers!
Now this is Year One in my new business, Flowers at Lottarock, and I am sure there is going to be starts, stops, stumbles and bumbles. I ask for your patience as I get this whole shebang up and running. Fingers crossed, here we go!