Dahlias: A great way to wind down the growing season
This time of year is always bittersweet – the beginning of the end of the season for the wide array of beautiful flowers in the field. It’s time to start cleaning up: pulling out annuals, lifting up plastic mulch, rolling up support netting, adding leaves and compost to condition the soil, and dividing perennials. But…
The joy of flowers
From the amount of whining and complaining I have done about the scorching heat in Maryland this summer, you’d never know I was raised in Louisiana and tolerated this kind of heat for 8 months a year. But as the summer comes to a close and shorter days and cooler nights give a hint of…
We finally got a hoophouse!
As the growing season goes into nonstop activity — planting, weeding, cutting, post-harvest care, making bouquets and delivering — I realize I haven’t posted anything in a while. Not even to crow about our new hoophouse! I’m so excited to finally have this means of extending my season. I’ll be growing things that many florists…
Singin’ in the Rain
The old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it…” Here in the mid-Atlantic region we had one of the driest Aprils on record, and I watched as my soil cracked and shriveled, hoping and praying for rain. Well, now that May has arrived we’ve got drizzle and downpour every…
SPRING IS FINALLY HERE
I haven’t posted in a while; first I was preoccupied with starting seeds and inventorying supplies, and lately I’ve been planting non-stop since we finally got past the danger of frost. The first photo shows the ugly underbelly of flower farming — laying the black plastic “mulch” that holds moisture and nutrients in the soil,…
