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Hello Farmgirl Friends!
A few readers reminded me last month that they would really like to hear how our little flower farm is doing and if there is anything new going on! So my post today is all about flowers!
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Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
Such an easy answer: Pansies.
I am totally entranced by those little “faces”. One of my pals recently reminded me that there are OTHER kinds of flowers, but I just smiled at her. Pansies are for ME. Thanks for asking.
I enjoyed the article and your 45-minute sell out story.
I love our Roses
My all time fave is Daisies! My mom used to have them planted along the whole side of our house. My mil has some too. We planted 2 plants this year and although I haven’t cut any to bring inside I look at them daily from inside or going to the mailbox. I wish they lined my house.
I love Columbine flowers, yellow especially. My mother loved, loved flowers. She was born in 1909, on her father’s Box Bar Ranch 37 miles from Globe, AZ. My memories of the flowers and fragrances from that yard are still in my heart today, especially the honeysuckle and columbine flowers. Walking under the arbor the smell was divine. You didn’t ask, but Dahlia’s are 2nd.
Ms
What a fun post Dori!! All your new additions to the flower stand are fantastic !
I’m loving my Farm Fresh T-shirt and have used all but one of my note cards! I have a couple questions, what (if any) pest control do you use? I have tried to grow Zinnias and man do the grasshoppers love the leaves!! And do you strip the leaves off them when you arrange them in your jars?
My favorite summer bloom has to be my roses
Looking forward to your July post!!
Kim
Hi Kim!
We don’t use any pest control on our flowers… we try really hard to practice all organic. Mainly because of the bees we have on our farm. However, you can use Neem Oil; we have in the past when we’ve been desperate! It is considered Organic (but not necessarily bee safe). Mostly we just hope for the best. Every year our biggest pest battle are the Japanese beetles. We literally pick them off and squish them as we pick flowers! Seems to be the best way.
As for picking and arranging. Everything that is going to be in water, you want stripped to the stem. It will turn your water bad in just a few hours if you leave them on. Typically you want to change your water daily anyway; but soggy, wet leaves don’t look pretty in a clear jar! 🙂
~ Dori ~
Hi Dori,
My favorite summertime flower is the Sunflower. I am not sure if that is a summertime flower or not, but it’s my favorite.
I enjoy your posts so much! Thank you for sharing with all of us.
Candy
You brightened my day with just the pictures of flowers, so thanks bunches! They are beautiful.
My favorite summertime flower is Queen Anne’s lace, especially the chocolate Queen Anne’s lace. Mix in a little coreopsis and colorful zinnias, and that’s my favorite of favorites!
I loved seeing the girls in the trough. The flowers are beautiful. Grampy likes the girls to have fun!
And, my favorite summertime flower is Zinna’s!
My all time favorite summer flower is the Gerbera Daisy. I usually put them out in various spots in more than a half dozen pots & urns!! Next in line would be the Zinnias. Love your flower growing business, it’s such a special time for you, your daughter & your two precious, sweet grandgirls❣️
Favorite flower is Stargazer Lily. The fragrance is incredible and I could sit and study the intricacy of the petals all day. And they are long lasting. Hate Japanese beetles but they would make great jewelry. Thanks for the pics.
I love black eyed Susans!
I love this!!! Just charming and so entrepreneurial!! I see how you keep your summertime flowers from wilting by keeping them in mason jars and allowing the customer to transport them that way. However, the spring ones you bought arranged..and wrapped in brown paper..how did the customer keep them from wilting?
Like you, Dori, my favorite summer flower has to be zinnias. This year I have some minis, under 1″ blooms, and State Fair Giants, the bigger the better. So many colors, so cheerful, they look like a PARTY! My daughter and I love to enter them in our County Fair every summer.
Sweet peas!
Poppy’s….so many colors and sizes.
They are “happy” flowers
Poppy’s…so many colors and sizes.
They are “Happy” flowers!
I look forward to your posts. You always seem to make work fun!
Sunflowers and iris are my favorite flowers. How can I get one of your T-shirt’s?
My favorite flower is not just one. I can’t decide which I like best, Heliotrope, forget-me-not or hydrangea.
Favorite Summer Flower is ANY TYPE OF DAISY! Love them all.
Also, you said in this post that you had “weeding & maintaining down to a fine art”, please share! This is my 4th year, I’m doing it alone, and I cannot control the weeds!
Love your flower cart!
Dori, Love the flowers. You have some wonderful ideas!! I typically just plant some Zinnia’s in my garden every year. Who do you purchase your seeds from? I want to order mine this time for next year.
My favorite flowers were my purple petunias. They were beautiful and smelled so nice. But suddenly they dried up. Don’t know what I did wrong. But I loved them.
I love them all! The summer time in the South is a riot of color and fragrance.
My favorite flowers were my purple petunias. They were beautiful and smelled so nice.
Gotta say, my favorite summer flower is the peony.
My favorite summer flowers are the Showy Milkweed. The pretty and smell good
and the hummingbirds love them. They usually are the first to bloom, so i really
hope the Monarchs get here soon! They feed on and need these plants to lay
their eggs.
Gladiolas are my favorite summer flower. My late father always gave my twin sister and me a bouquet for our birthday.
Marilyn
My favorite flower is the “Stella” Day lily…so easy to grow, and it is perennial! I really love the fact that we are so blessed by the beauty of all flowers; they are the simple things in life! Reba
My favorite summer flower is Indian Paintbrush. It grows wild in our fields along with many other wildflowers. It is so pretty and such a bright orange.
Peonies are my very favorite. I don’t think there is a flower that doesn’t make me smile.
Dori, love your darling flower stand and all the flowers. My favorite summer flower has to be love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)
Irises!
Sweet peas! When I lived in California sweet peas were winter/ spring flowers but now we live in Wyoming, so they are summer flowers. Always puts a smile on my face.
It’s too hard to pick one favorite but if I can have one chose it would be the sunflower. I love your flower stand. It makes me happy just looking at it.
Too many choices and they are all beautiful!
Too many choices, they are so beautiful!
Peonies. Just love how full they are and colors.
Peonies. Just love how full they are and colors. How can I buy one of your tshirts
IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ZINNIAS.I LOVE TO PLANT SEEDS AND THEN WAIT IMPATIENTLY TO SEE THE COLORS..
Hi Dori,
I love gardenias!
julie
Daisy’s are my favorite for the pureness they seem to represent, but I love zinnias too, they are my happy flower.
Your post was very much appreciated on this cool rainy Maine morning, thank you.
Congratulations on helping our troubled spirits refresh with your botanical bundles of joy. Though I cannot visit your hearts easing flower stand in person, I delight in visiting via your blog. So wonderful to have this be a multigenerational endeavor. Love those little girl giggles at the end of your post.
Not sure if I could choose just one favorite summer flower. Each reaches the heart in its own way. Annuals especially eager to please without pause. I live among a large community of Amish and eagerly anticipate spring when I can visit as many Amish greenhouses as I have time for to fill my little red RAV4 with amazingly well grown potted plants to fill among the mainstays of my gardens, the perennials. With so much available, I still grow some of my own annuals from seed. My favorite are the the tall variety snapdragons. When my children were small they delighted in gently squeezing the flowers open between chubby finger and thumb to get the “dragon mouths” to open and close. Guess these, along with my memories of them, would be close to the top of my list of summer flowers I wouldn’t want to be without.
Bless you, your girls, and your flowers. thanks
I love the fragrance of peionies, and the long lasting color of rocket larkspur.
Hands down Zinnias !
Sweet Peas. There fragrance is intoxicating!
I love each season’s flowers….especially the ones that are blooming on any given day!
Spring- Iris and Peony. Summer-Roses, Lilies, Larkspur and Zinnias.
Continued success to you!!
I love sunflowers and want to try growing them close to the house to provide shade for a west facing picture window in my living room.
I’ll have to agree with you on the zinnia’s, I just love them. I am growing them along with milkweed, 4 o’clocks a mystery flower that came from my Grandmother’s flower garden. No one seems to know what they are called. I enjoy your flower posts!!
My fav summer flower is Sunflower
Sunflowers are my favorite summer flower.