My Favorite Thing About Summer!

 

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It’s FLOWER SEASON on the farm y’all!  (For the new readers to our Farmgirl Bloggers site, you can read about my flower business here.)  This year we had some early blooming sunflowers so Tuesday, for the first time this summer, we were able to put some bouquets on our honor system stand.   Because most of what we have blooming right now are sunflowers, I walked through the fields on the farm and picked some wild flowers to go with the sunflowers.  As well as cutting some things from my personal flower beds!

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It’s been a great start to the flower season.  We had such warm temperatures early in the spring and just the perfect amount of rain.  My husband started working the soil back in March; adding manure that he had been composting all winter.  (And before you panic, that little grand-girl of ours in the above picture is just sitting with her Gramps while he was taking a short break – the tractor is not in motion!)

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We planted on time (April 15th is always our “safe” time to get seeds in the ground) and the seeds germinated and grew.  And now, 6 weeks later, our garden looks lush and beautiful for the most part.  We plant our flowers in rows about 5-6 feet apart because it works best to leave a lot of room to mow in between the rows.  We also like having things spread out so we have a lot of room for harvesting blooms.  A couple months from now when some of the plants are 6 feet tall, having the wide rows really makes it nice.

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There’s always so much for my daughter and I to do in the way of weeding and mowing, which luckily our husbands do a lot of!  But we always spend hours each week just maintaining the plants.  Cutting back early blooms and snipping plants back in order to encourage better growth later.

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My Farmgirl grand-girls love hanging out and playing in the flower garden while we work.  (Notice the grass between Jillian’s toes!)   This year we gave them a big long row and some seeds to plant in it, so they’ll be harvesting and selling their own flowers too!

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Our covered work area in the garden is one of our favorite things.  This is where we do all the arranging of bouquets before they go on the flower stand.  We always have shelter from the sun and the rain.  And we do often close the curtains when the sun is really bright!

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There’s a lot of prepping that goes on outside of the flower garden during the Spring.  The biggest job probably is trying to round up quart size jars.  We make and sell every single bouquet in a canning jar.  We do ask that our customers return the jar when they come back to buy their next bouquet.  Last year I kept a pretty good journal on how many jars came back and it was about 50%.  So not the greatest, but not the worst either!  We do have customers that are willing to dig through their barns and donate age old, dirty canning jars!  The above jars had probably been in buckets and the bins for 15 years.  But a run through the dishwasher and they were good as new!

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We also re-do all our signs that we hang on the flower stand and this year my grand-girl Jillian was a great help.  As a matter of fact, she did so good that I let her take it over!

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This is the time of the flower season that I get very antsy and very nervous.  And the reason is so silly.  I panic because the Zinnias are trying to bloom too soon and their growth is stunted, I panic because I’m afraid we didn’t plant enough flowers for our first planting, I panic because we didn’t allow enough space for our second planting…. it just goes on and on.  My daughter, on the other hand, doesn’t panic or worry about any of it.  So we are a very good balance!

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So our first day in business for the season was so exciting.  Hearing from our excited customers, getting messages on Facebook and Instagram about our flowers makes us so happy.  Seeing our sweet little flower stand stocked with flowers again is such a joy for us.

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But the thing that really made me just sit back in surprise and thankfulness all over again was the sweet card and case of jars left by a customer.  This happens numerous times every year, but to have it happen on our very first day of business was really special to us.

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If I could share this crazy and wild first bouquet of the season with you my Farmgirl friends, I would.  I hope your summer is off to a joyful start too.

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Oh!  And a big P.S.  For those of you that have sent me emails and comments wondering how quilting camp is going… here is a sneak peak!  These girls are amazing, the class is just so wonderful, and  I promise an update on my blog post next month!  Be sure to watch for it.  There might be a giveaway too!  🙂

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Until our gravel roads cross again… so long.

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Dori