TWO ACRES of hand-planted dahlias??!! Yeesh! - there are times I'm VERY glad my business is so small! How did you lose your zinnias? I must not have read the post you put that in originally.

Today I transplant a few delphiniums, a few monarda, maybe hydrangea and curly-twig willow to my new area; the old one will be abandoned and become pasture. Then it's on to transplanting raspberry offsets. My absolute star performer raspberry is Fall Gold, of which I intend to transplant many, to eat fresh and to freeze, but the color bakes/cooks up really pukey-looking, so I think I need a few reds for baking and jam, but NOT the ones I have (I think they are Heritage), which underperform badly here. Anybody in a cold climate recommend a good red raspberry? Single-crop types that bear fruit on last year's canes perform better than everbearings here, but the later it produces, the better - our late frosts destroy either the flower buds or the fruit of early types. Ideas, anybody? (Just pretend you don't notice me asking raspberry questions on a cut-flower forum).

Time to get moving - it's above freezing outside now, so I can work. Super-early mornings are just too cold this time of year.
Jeanne

Our second Farmer's Market day was rained out yesterday--severe thunderstorms made even our diehard market coordinator say "Uncle". That rain ought to help our glads--we got 550 in the ground Friday, and I hurt all over.

Today is dahlia day--getting the tubers started in the hoophouse. I've also got Asiatic lilies ready to go in crates in the raised beds. Can you tell I'm behind all you guys?

So my husband asked, if lilies can grow in crates, why not glads? Good question--sure would make lifting them easier in the Fall. Anyone ever tried this?

Learning, learning, hurting...

Valerie

Had our last farmers market meeting today, and will be 6-7...which is good for us. Went and visited another flower/veggie grower and they are as far behind as I am, so I don't feel so bad. Wish our market didn't start as early, however (May 27). It is just too cold to have much to offer that early.
I still have 400 lilies to plant either in pots or field, all the glads (sold 200 bulbs and donated 200 to NOFA-NY for yesterday's Earth Fest--the proceeds go toward educational stuff on organics and NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Assoc.)) so only 1450 to plant (HA!). Also need to start thinking about the dahlias...They seem to be a pain...but will try to do some maybe in large pots and maybe in raised beds so they will produce sooner. Lost about 10-15 trays of sunflowers to mice (I think). Zinnias seem fine started directly in 806s. Neon duo, Purple Majesty and Dianthus Sweet Mix doing good. Need to transplant a bunch of perennials into the field for cuts and the rest for pot sales.
Spring has sprung, with tinges of winter still lurking!
It is cool and windy. Was supposed to get below freezing tomorrow, but see they changed the report to 34 degrees. Still cold.
Raspberry (flowers???) hehehe...I get a crop from Taylor, but the berries aren't huge. I planted Prelude and Nova last year, and hope they will produce a decent amount.
I will plow under Heritage (they produce too late and late freezes get them), and also have Fall Gold which have suckered like crazy. I'm moving some to pots to put in the greenhouse for earlier/longer harvest.
Got this strange plant yesterday...don't remember the name...it likes wet areas and has these round leaves like rushes...but they are spiral, like a unicorn...I'm going to cut some of the leaves to see if they hold up in water, to use in cut arrangements...they are weird but neat.
Ann

Hi all - boy weather is certainly dominating the topics these days! We've had light rain and then warm and humid. But, perfect for planting! Over the last 4 days my brother and his roommate and my husband and I planted 1000 glads, 300 solidaster, 200 feverfew, 200 yarrow, 200 physalis, 150 phlox, 50 helenium, 600 stock plugs, 100 veronicastrum, transplanted 100 verbascum, transplanted raspberry starts, 36 rhamnus trees, 2 100' rows of millet (3 varieties) and did some weeding along the way since they were in the beds that needed to be planted!

Now on to the annual plugs and seeds! But, I can tell I need to get the irrigation pump back in and fix some of the broken lines (new puppy broke some of them), since everything is still so dry from our very dry winter.

Our first market is this Sat., but I think I'm only doing the consignment booth for the first month...don't have quite enough flowers to justify the entire day (especially since my subscription customers are wanting flowers early - up to 6 earlybirds!)

Have a great week everyone!
Wendy

Our first market will be this Saturday, but with a grand total of only 2 tulips colored-up at this point, I don't think I'll be going. I won't mind sleeping in one last time until September.

The first few markets, when there aren't many veggies to sell, all the veggie sellers sell plant starts instead. One of the cut flower growers sells potted-up lilies, but they are one bulb per 4-inch pot, so they don't get very big. It works for her, though. We already have 3 nurseries at the market, though, and I couldn't compete with them at plant sales, so now I just don't go to market until I have cut flowers to sell, which should be any week now.

For opening day, our market is putting on something called Gardener's Extravaganza, since all they have to sell now is plant starts anyway. There will be at least one master gardener, a potting station where their just-bought plants can be potted into their just-bought pots, plus the usual worm-castings and -tea seller, and the usual alpaca-poop fertilizer seller. Two of the nurseries and three produce sellers will specialize in veggie plant starts for the first few markets. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

Jeanne

Howdy Folks,
I seeded a raised bed of Pro Cut sunflowers a week ago tomorrow and since then the lo temps have been setting records here. Yesterday at 6:00 AM it was 28F. which broke a record low set 40 years ago. Our temperatures for the past month or so have been running 16 to 20 degrees below normal almost every day. The zinnias I am growing in peat pots in my propagation house are getting funky looking and I will probably just bite the bullet and replant them. Fortunately I had not put them in the ground yet but I had expected them to be outside by April 12.
Received a lily shipment yesterday just as I was laying down for a rare nap so just took them back and started planting. I can't remember my last nap. Sigh.
Where oh where is warm weather? And just to make things more interesting it has been very dry here with almost all rain passing us 60 miles to the South or North. My riding mower was stirring up so much dust that I couldn't see where I was going at times.
One of my daily bright spots is checking in with the momma cardinal who has a nest in one of my climbing roses and is sitting on eggs. I go by and give the old girl a few words of encouragement.
Bob
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

There's a snake in the seedling greenhouse sunbathing on top of a flat of blue salvia seedlings this morning. The battle continues with a mole in the Karma dahlia and lisianthus hoophouse. And, we received a hard freeze last night.
However, the sun is shining this morning!!
It's going to be a lovely day here on the flower farm.

We have a wedding to do Sat and suddenly it seems like we are inbetween all the flowers! I went out to pick and ended up with wild forget-me-not, a handful of intermediate iris, half a bucket of dutch iris, a few Purple sensation alliums and some good foliages. Guess I am going to have to cut my gorgeous Frank Klager lilacs. We did order red and white roses which was the only request from the bride but are supposed to be brightening up a mainly green back yard where the reception will be. I do have tulips in the frdge and guess I need to go rehydrate some for my stand tomorrow. I am impressed by how a limp rag of a tulip rehydrates!

WIth Mother's Day this weekend I think we will use them all and am so glad I did refridgerate them. I think I will do that from now on but need a bigger fridge!

I open my stand Thur through Sunday besides the wedding so that is going to be crazy!

I picked my first 5 roses that were showing good color...1 Black Bacarra, 3 Othellos and 1 Leonidas. Tomorrow I will probably pick some Abe Darby's.

Got another wedding each o f the next two weeks after this one. The next one is just 3 buckets of flowers but the 3rd one is a full blown spacey bride affair! She has changes color schemes on us 3 times, the latest was this week! But ow she is into Sky blue and gold and the gowns and cake are ordered and that works a lot better for us then burgundy and sage! Just hoping the delphies will bloom in time, and think the 'love in a mist' will be along then too. SHould definitely have roses and iris.

These crazy brides would drive a florist working alone nuts but working with my friend it becoems a challenge and lots of laughs and amazing results when we finish. Just realizzed today that we are staging a theator production with each couple and it is all about them, so every wedding is different.

Wow, I am NEVER going to do a wedding, although I have hooked up with a local wedding florist and I *might* work with her, as rumor has it she is easy going and not only th at but she was written up recently in Modern Bride.

So I just got back from my six-day, poorly-timed camping trip. Wow. BAD idea-- I'm so behind now I fear I'll never catch up. I'm working my poor husband to death... but he did great in my absence-- I was worried he'd let my whole hoophouse full of tomato plants freeze... I'm going to market this weekend for the first time with just tomato plants like I did last year... I WOULD go with tulips but once again, my tulips are blooming six inches high. Makes me want to curse but I can't because my 2-year-old is learning to talk. I am pretty sure that SOME of my tulips were squat varieties to start (didn't do my research) so hopefully the others (which aren't yet blooming) are the single lates which will bloom singly, late, and TALL, goshdarnit. Last year, my late ones were definitely taller, but not tall enough. I'm going to have a hard time convincing my husband we need to spend a couple hundred dollars on tulips this fall if they dont' perform a bit here pretty soon.

But all my peonies are coming up-- didn't lose a single one thank goodness-- and with the exception of the sweet peas and the digitalis, my seedlings are all up and growing strong-- just had to bump up my echinops and centaurea macrocephela, I'll wait another week or so before planting out. Next week I've got 500 lilies and 2,000 glads to plant, so the week AFTER that, I'll start transplanting to the field. Although we're having a milder spring than last year -- some of you might remember my lily disaster which killed off near 400 lilies... well this year they're doing great and no sign of the hard-core frosts we got during the first two weeks of May last year. I was surprised I still had a hundred or so come back after getting knocked back that hard last year (NONE of them bloomed last year, not a SINGLE ONE).

Hopefully after the 14th I'll have enough tomatoes cleared out of the greenhosue that I can start planting my beds with amaranth and other greenhouse flowers... right now the space is being used as a transplanting area, and I can't spare it. Boy do we need another hoophouse already. Maybe next year.

Well, better get back to work.

K

This week has been all about amending the beds and planting lilies. After the tulip fiasco, we're working hard to improve the soil quality and drainage. My good husband is pitching mushroom compost and sawdust left and right--literally!

To my horror, the new farmer's market isn't running this Saturday--apparently the town has an annual Springfest happening. Luckily, a local restaurant has signed up for 50 tulip stems for their Sunday Mother's Day brunch. Also, this morning, I wrapped a few stems in pink wrapping paper, tied it up in green Wraphia, and my husband pitched it to a local coffeehouse/cheeseandwine seller. He must be a pretty good salesman--in his "I'm not a salesman at all" fashion, because she bit. For 10% of the take, she'll sell our bouquets this Saturday. It's a one time thing, but if they sell, maybe she'll think it's worth continuing. Of course, I have nothing else ready to cut right now....

A big thank you to Flowerfarmer for your glad source--I'm gonna buy another thousand--I tried to email you but my local ISP was having none of that! I'm on the hunt for cheaper tulip bulbs for next year--I've got some calls in to Dutch suppliers that ship to the US. I really want to cut out the middle man and get that price down, if possible.

Kristen, I haven't yet really tested the cold creek cooler idea yet. My husband, normally a great experimenter, thought it wasn't worth the risk. Instead, he ordered a $30 thermostat from a home beer making supplier, and we hooked it up to our cheapo freezer. It works! We've been able to keep the tulips between 33 and 38 degrees.

Tomorrow is a wash, but Saturday should bring sunshine and more lily planting. I think I'll try some direct seed sowing (newbie, newbie, newbie). Now I'm off to soak pink wrapping paper in water to see if it bleeds...

Happy planting, all!

Valerie

Continuing the wedding story....took the corsages over this morning and checked the bouquets to do last minute tidying on them. Someone had totally rearranged the yard after we left, including our 3 huge 5' tall displays in heavy ceramic bowls. WHile doing so they broke numerous plants, flowers and foliages. The clematis vine draped from the hanging bowl ofthe Martha Washington geraniums had had its water spilled and was withered. I think a battle of strong willed mothers took plance after we left, LOL. We patched up the damage as well as we could and called it a day. (Feel a little sorry for the bride though who is the one who paid for the flowers and told us where she wanted them!

Nw onwards to make it through Mothers Day! Used all the red at the wedding and flowers are few and far between here. My refrigerated tulips I had reconditioned 2 nights ago gave up their final ghost last night. I was able to the stand for today but not sure what we are using tomorrow!