insider journal: happenings at the farm in january
How are we holding up post holidays, insiders??
I am WIPED. Ready for a reset, personally! So totally and completely ready for a new month and year. Christmas always kind of wipes me out by itself but this year I did some workshops and event florals that took it to another level. But even though that was busy, those were happy things - what really did me in was running an at-home pediatric clinic for the Beck children: my kids had some sort of cold virus, pink eye and strep all WITHIN ONE WEEK. I have had about enough of winter already.
Our little farm/flower biz has EXPLODED over the last month which is so great and so exciting, but also so overwhelming for me. I feel like I can grow flowers just fine, but the business and social media side of all this is a major stretch for me! I know nothing about social media marketing or growing a business and am literally just learning all of those parts along the way. I am a one woman show and am learning a lot about how to manage my time and all my responsibilities and making all the mistakes. If we aren’t stretching, we aren’t growing, right? That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. It’s been a huge month of stretching, that’s for sure. Lots of balls are being dropped in the laundry and cleaning departments at home. All good things, but just time for me to figure out how to scale as fast as this little farm is chugging along. I love that you insiders are all here along for the ride from the beginning of this whole journey as we grow. Back to actual farming:
I am now doing a hard pivot into cool weather flower seed starting over the next couple of weeks. Which makes me SO happy.
While it’s a lot to do, the rhythmic and quiet work of sowing seeds is kind of grounding to me and is something that makes me really happy. There is something awe inspiring about looking at each tiny seed I pick up and envision its full potential in just a few short months. So much hope for the future!
I sow seeds in soil blocks. They’re little 3/4 in cubes that allow more airflow and better root development than standard seed trays. They also can fit so many more seeds in a small space. You don’t need a greenhouse to even start seeds for a cut flower farm sized grow space - my first year I started them all inside in my guest room in my basement under grow lights on wire shelving! Thousands of seeds, all thanks to soil blocking. I still start a few this way just because it’s such an easy environment to control.
The tiniest seeds I am starting this season are about the exact same size as the dots on these i’s on your screen. I have to pick them up with a damp toothpick tip and then just gently rest them on a soil block. They’re too tiny to bury. They are snapdragon seeds! I’ll keep them moist and warm while and under grow lights while germinating, then grow on in the greenhouse until they’re about 3 inches tall or so and have some true leaves, and then I’ll harden them off to the still - cold outdoor March weather over the course of a week or two, then they go in the ground with some floating frost cover above them. They start out THAT small (the dot on this i) and then grow to be 3-4 feet tall towering, beautiful flowers. That is a miracle of life I will never, ever get over! Lisianthus seeds are about this size, too.
Why would I plant flowers out in March when there is still likely slow and below freezing temps?
There are some specific flower varieties that not only tolerate some cold, but some require it to bloom (we call this cold-stratification). These flower varieties are called cold-hardy or cool-weather annuals and are very different from the warm season sunflowers and dahlias we plant later this year that can tolerate absolutely zero cold. We like to plant both so that we have as many flowers as possible for as many months as possible!
Some cold-hardy varieties that I am seeding are:
stock
snapdragons
poppies
larkspur
sweet peas
ranunculus
bells of ireland
feverfew
and some perennials or semi perennials (come back each year), like:
delphinium
peonies (hundreds of these plants are going in!!!!)
and foxglove
Some flowers that are already in the ground because they need a full winter of cold (planted in late autumn) are tulips and daffodils.
Fun fact! A lot of people think that tulips come back every year. This is true if they’re used just as landscape flowers in your yard, not as cut flowers. As soon as you cut the flower and foliage off in the spring, that bulb will not regrow another flower the next year. It needs its flower and leaves to photosynthesize and “charge up” the bulb to create a new bloom the following year, and as a cut flower farmer, we of course harvest the bloom and stem. So we actually pull the entire stem and bulb out when harvesting, and just snip off the bulb into compost. This also gives us another few inches of stem length for cut flowers which we always want! We buy new bulbs each year for cut flower production. Wild, huh? Did you see the varieties we have in the ground this year? They’re double-petaled pasted AMAZINGNESS.
***Of note!!! Ya’ll SOLD OUT these spring bouquet subscriptions in 48 HOURS. Which is CRAZY for our first ever subscription sale. Crazy!!!! I may have cried. I was in shock. I am only doing 25 spots this first subscription year while I get my bearings and will probably do more spots for the summer subscription - we’ll see. I feel so bad so many of you asked if I could open up more spots and felt like you missed out. I just don’t want to sell more than I know I can grow effectively! I did decide to just open up one more spot should anyone really want to snag it here! I wish I could open more!! Next year I will!! ***
There are TWO warm season annuals that I am actually starting from seed in my greenhouse right now with my cool season ones, but that won’t go in the ground until after frost (mid-May, like other warm season annuals) because they take SO long to grow. They are eucalyptus and lisianthus (below). Lisianthus is such a highly-prized, well-loved cut flower. Its vase life often exceeds TWO WEEKS and it has multiple blooms on one stem. It’s a workhouse in the cut flower garden and blooms in late summer when started from seed in early January. So it’s a major labor of love and time and has such a huge grow period before we see any blooms! When the flowers finally do come it’s SO exciting after all the care we’ve provided for them all year indoors. Like Christmas in summer!
Below is ‘voyage apricot’ lisianthus and you bet we have several hundred of these babies going.
January is such a refreshing time of new beginnings as it is, but as a cut flower farmer it REALLY and literally is. So much rebirth, new beginnings and fresh starts. I love January so much for that. So much hope- not expectations- just hope and optimism for the good that can be in the future.
I hope you can find something to hope for and look to this year that makes you happy and fulfilled. And if you’re still looking for it, maybe look to flowers… they’re the best teachers on the subject.
x
Kailin
