Monthly Musings - March 2023

It's  April already! Honestly, the month of March went by so quickly.  Before I sat down to write about the goings on at the farm I actually had to pull out my planner and look at what I actually have been doing!  I know I have been really busy but with what!

Once I looked at my planner I realized why I have been so busy.  The month started with my dahlia tuber sale.  The preparation for that is enormous.  Not only do we spend several weeks dividing the dahlia tubers but then there is the preparation of the website, making sure that you have good photographs and descriptions to include with each variety and as I had 117 varieties for sale this year that is another time consuming project.  I am so happy the way the dahlia tuber sale went.  No problems with the website crashing or any scary disasters like that and the majority of the tuber varieties sold out, so I consider that a big success.

All of my sweet peas are now in the ground surrounded by fencing this year to protect them from the bunny parties that seem to go on after dark on our property.  Never have we experienced bunnies before.  The dogs love to chase them so this is a highly encouraged activity for them!

Seed sowing kicked up into high gear this month.  I start everything from seed in my greenhouse, nothing is directly sown into the field as the weed pressure is too high.  The greenhouse is now full to bursting with little seedlings growing away nicely.  It is a big shuffling act.  I only have room for so many tables with heat mats, so as soon as a tray of seeds has germinated the tray needs to be taken off the heat mat and onto a shelf and another tray of seeds goes onto the heat mats.  One of my favorite times of day is to go to the greenhouse for morning watering to see what has germinated in the past 24 hours. I never fail to get excited when I see little specks of green peaking through the soil, and I am now of an age where reading glasses are a must for such inspection! 

It is good to have some creativity each month to keep a nice balance. I learnt from Bex from Botanical Tales how to make a “Living Wreath”. Using moss, exquisite violas and grape hyacinths with some foliage and dried seed heads. I was so happy with the results. Learning new skills all the time is important for personal growth, no matter what your field of joy or your age.

Looking into April, we have the packaging and shipping of all our dahlia tubers in the first week - yes, I have said it before and I will say it again, they are a labor of love!!  Then the field prep will begin, I still can not believe that the season is really under way.  By the time I write to you next month if the weather continues to cooperate I will have the first flowers in the ground.

Enjoy the spring, step outside and take deep breaths wherever you may be and above all else keep moving forward.

Monthly Musings - February 2023

I sit here curled up by our glorious fire, which makes winters definitely more bearable thinking about February.  It is always a hard month.  The fun of the holidays is way behind us and we are now in a holding pattern, desperate for some warmer weather to arrive.

A large part of February was spent underground like a little mole.  We started the mammoth task of dividing dahlia tubers.  I now have 150 different varieties of dahlia tubers.  Each one stored in its own container - so as you can imagine our basement where they are tucked away each winter is getting pretty full.  My intrepid crew sat with me each day with mugs full of tea and BBC radio playing in the background  for almost three weeks dividing dahlia tubers.  Honestly, we actually quite enjoy it now.  Lots of chat and laughter made the days go quickly and we were finished a week ahead of schedule which was a huge bonus.

Then came the next mammoth task - honestly any project that involves dahlias is not small.  They are definitely a labor of love!  Deciding which dahlia tubers I am going to sell, which will go back into the field and then finally updating my website - farming is the easy part for me, dealing with websites is a whole other beast but job complete, and by the time you read this musing the tuber sale will be in full swing with hopefully no technical glitches!

Above ground in the greenhouse the sweet peas are growing nicely, they will be put outside hopefully in the next couple of weeks...I want the weather to be a tad warmer at night than it is at the moment.  I also have to build some sort of structure to protect them from the birds which like to nibble on them, so another job on the never ending list.

We also started the first batch of seeds - these are for the more hardy plants.  They are on heat mats in the greenhouse with dome lids on them plus at night I have to literally tuck them in for the night as it is so cold.  I have long lengths of bubble wrap that I put over them at night to keep in the heat as the greenhouse is unheated.  Quite the palaver but worth the effort.

Amongst all these other projects this month I have received several custom dried wreath orders.  This is part of my business that I am trying to expand so it makes me really happy that orders are starting to come for some custom wreaths.  It makes a lovely change to be creative like this especially in the depth of winter.

The new drying room progress is creeping along.  I do my very best to try and not nag!  I am so excited about it so I have to just be patient and be very grateful that my husband is doing this on the weekends - he is a third grade teacher and those little kids can be just a little exhausting at times!

The new drying room progress is creeping along.  I do my very best to try and not nag!  I am so excited about it so I have to just be patient and be very grateful that my husband is doing this on the weekends - he is a third grade teacher and those little kids can be just a little exhausting at times!

Now that we are into March the narcissus daffodils are starting to peek out of the ground and everytime I walk through the property there are new signs of life everywhere.  I don’t think that I could anywhere where there are not four seasons.  Working on a farm you are so aware of how quietly they keep moving forward.

I hope that your March is a good one and that the weather is kind to you wherever you may be.

Thank you for taking the time to read my musings from my little farm.

Monthly Musings - January 2023

Good morning friends,

I am never one for making New Year's resolutions as such but I make little lists of things that I would like to accomplish in the year.  One of the items on my list is to send out monthly musings of the happenings on the farm.  This is pushing me well outside my comfort zone, I looked on my website the other day and saw that the last blog post that I did was in 2019….the only consistency there is that I just did not write a blog post…the other thing that has pushed me to  start this is my increasing frustration with social media….the singing dancing reels are just not me…I can put together video clips but they are time consuming and honestly I would much rather look at a beautiful still photograph, that a bunch of reels flashing in front of my eyes with some rubbish music hurting your ears, do you feel the same?

So what happened on the farm in January I hear you say (or maybe you didn’t but I am going to tell you any!)…..I returned from a much needed break in England & Spain over Christmas with my family.  I always try to leave the farm at the end of December so that I can recharge, take a break and come back ready to go again.  January is usually filled with slower jobs, usually in The Potting Shed - for those of you that don’t know, a few years ago we converted our Potting Shed into a studio/office and I still refer to it as The Potting Shed.  What I like about this time of year is  that you don’t feel that you have to do everything at breakneck speed.

This month I have met with several lovely brides to discuss their wedding florals.  I am so grateful that all my brides want gorgeous, colorful bouquets using seasonal flowers from my field…..that was always my goal for the weddings that I worked on and it makes my heart so happy that it has turned out that way.  Along with wedding quotes I have been working on the dreaded taxes….owning a small business you wear so many different hats, and this hat is the most uncomfortable for me to wear, so I usually toss it in the corner and ignore it for most of the year….and then regret it come January.  

Last season I started drying flowers in large quantities for the first time.  I used our old goat shed for that…..however, it is not insulated….I knew I was dicing with devil using this, the plan was to insulate it this month…however I discovered that some of my flowers are starting to mold….so we have come up with a plan…..it was going to cost too much to run the correct power out to the shed and insulated it. Plan B is to build a small room inside my husband’s workshop…I can not believe that writing this…my husband does have a big shop, bigger than our house…it is his pride and joy and I am so very grateful that he is giving up a corner of it for me… and building it out so I can have a warm dry room to dry my flowers…over the next few months I will update you with the progress.

The last exciting piece of news is that for my wedding anniversary this month my husband gave me a “new  to us”  Kubota Utility vehicle, who says  romance is dead!  This will help me so much, hauling stuff around, going to and from the field.  I think he has scored big points this month!