Spring Showers Bring May Flowers

Spring showers have brought in the wind and rainstorms that blow the white bits of flowers off the Bradford Pear trees. Puddles of petals everywhere. They cover the property and collect in the ever growing pools of water around the farm.This shot sums up my morning trip out to the greenhouse to water seedlings. Drainage. One of the challenges of farming in Pungo. Maybe I should be growing water lilies!? Well the good news is, frogs certainly don't mind this ponding. The symphony of croaking night life echoes through the woods and has been amplifying in volume every night. Tadpoles on the way... bring on the future bug catchers! Weekends are turning into one big blur of planting. I regret not getting more sweet peas in during the fall. Couldn't resist starting extras though. The ones sprouting up look so healthy wish I had a thousand more! All this seed starting has made me realize I need to get on the perennial bandwagon, before I wear out. Thankful I had planted some last spring that are coming back and will return a little better every year, without any input of labor from me! This trend will continue -Lavender plants are starting to leaf out. Heavenly scent. My goal this year is to grow more flowers with fragrance, an attribute usually lacking from most commercially grown bouquets. Mints, lavenders, sweetpeas, rosemary, and as many varieties of basil as I can find (from lemon - to cinnamon). - and edible to boot!

If you reap what you sow, hope there is alot of fun in store for us this summer!

Wouldn't be a blog post without a picture of Dumpling. He is busy dreaming up the next project on the horizon - a new sign.

Silly me :) I just assumed we would use the existing sign and repaint. Then I find random napkin drawings around the house of the new designs he's got constructed in his head already. "Gotta match the building babe!"

Chocolate and Lemon - The Fresh Smells of Spring!

So cold and wet out, been yucky out all weekend. Down in the 30's at night, windy and barely breaking into the 40's during the day. Blah! I'm up to my muck boots in mud and certainly not hospitable to being outside farming. Made the best of it by hunkering down in the potting shed to start up all the fresh cuttings gathered from the spring herbs leafing up around the farm. I can still smell their scent on my hands as I type! If I can get enough of these growing, they will make great fillers for the bouquets and add a fresh scent as well. Lemon Balm cuttings, placed into organic potting mix and set out in the hoophouse for a month or two until roots form. Yep it's really that easy. Only takes a few minutes to potting up the cuttings. A much welcome break from planting thousands of seeds. Needed to see some of that instant green! Yumm - Chocolate mint!

Here is a shot of an experimental plot we are starting this year - it will not have the perfectly made plastic mulch rows, like in the front of the farmstand. Instead - it will have alittle more of a natural look since we will use the chickens to strategically weed the plots. This is experimental because we will have to learn alot - like how big plants have to be so the chickens don't damage the plants and flowers we are growing. Should be interesting since we have to find plants that the girls won't want to nibble on as they eat the bugs and weeds around them. Chris already tilled it up before the rains started, and another truckload of manure was worked in. Below is a shot of what the idea is: On the right is a green carpet of fresh weeds starting to take over a flower bed. The whole area looked like that, but on the left, is what the girls did in less than 3 days time. Our farm mascots - I think they are up for the job!

Speaking of weather, here is a picture of the sweet peas planted last fall. The seeds made it through the cold and are sprouting through the mud and finally taking off. Sweet peas actually thrive in our wet, cool spring temps. Hope they hurry up and bloom - I am craving their soft flowers on my desk at work - it's fun to watch because no one can resist stopping to sniff a vase full of the pastel petals! - Sweet pea flowers are the most romantic and old-fashioned spring flower there is.

Speaking of blooms - spotted the first blossom of a Shasta Daisy. Hard to believe these babies were nothing more than micro-specks of seed last summer - whole lotta daisies on the horizon. They are lush, healthy and huge and ready to bloom! Countdown to the last frost date here, about 2-3 weeks away.