Monthly Archives: May 2016

The farm has been buzzing with activity over the past two weeks. Last Thursday we finished planting close to 5,000 dahlias, dug a 100 ft trench for a new waterline, plus cleaned and organized our tractor shed and propagation house. We have been implementing a number of ideas we learned from reading The Lean Farm and are doing our best to purge the clutter and really hone in on what we do best. The busy season is bearing down on us fast and furious and we’re rushing to get as much done as we possibly can. Our field and hoophouses are already brimming with color and we’ve harvested buckets of pretty parrot tulips, ranunculus, narcissus, anemones and giant Iceland poppies in luscious sherbet shades (check out my Instagram feed for a few fun shots). Gardeners and farmers across the country are busy prepping fields, starting seeds and even harvesting early blooms. Here are just a few images tagged with #floretseeds or #growfloret that caught my eye. Winners: please send your mailing

I have a pretty laid back approach to most things, but there are a few hard and fast rules the team and I abide by when it comes to the tools we use for day-to-day operations.  One of them revolves around the importance of using the right tool for the job, especially when it comes to sharp objects and anything used to cut, chop, snip or lop.

I learned it the hard way.  In the early years, I was pretty sloppy with our tools.  I would grab whatever was closest to harvest flowers, trim stems, and snip wires. I ruined a lot of expensive clippers in the process.  And I also almost ruined my hands.  I was young and felt invincible, but after hours of repetitive work, day in and day out, carpel tunnel slowly started to creep in.  The pain was a real wake up call and I knew I had to make some serious changes in how I operated.

The experience definitely made me appreciate the fact that my hands are one of the most important tools

For the last several days, I’ve been racing around getting the farm all gussied up for the kickoff of the Floret workshop season. Everyone here is filled with nervous excitement. Tomorrow morning bright and early, we’ll be welcoming a small group of folks from across the U.S. and Canada to our Flower Farming Intensive, a three-day workshop where we’ll be sharing some of our very best growing tricks, design techniques and tips for building a flower-based business. Among the many tips I’ll be sharing, is the emphasis on good photography to document and share the beauty you are growing and designing. A few years ago, Chris and I took the Eyes Open Creative Photography E-Course and it was a real game-changer. As I’ve shared previously, completing the e-course is what enabled us to hone our photography skills and really take Floret’s blog, website and social media posts to the next level. Erin Little is the talented photographer and blogger, who created the course. She has a great

As I've mentioned already, I'm perpetually behind on my weeding. Really behind. I decided I'd share my techniques with all of you, in case you find yourself up against a flower bed that's really been let go too long. Make sure the bed is moist, either from recent rainfall or from supplemental irrigation. There is a sweet little flower (Polygala paucifolia) that blooms in our woods about the same time as the trilliums. It is called Fringed Polygala, which doesn't do justice to the plant, but also Gaywings, which captures the essence of the flowers better. You could almost call them funny; they look like little hot pink

It wasn’t until I read A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden by Wayne Winterrowd and Joe Eck that I made the connection between the greening of the grass and the frost finally being out of the ground. Grass doesn’t grow in frozen soil, and neither does rain percolate down into the frozen earth. Consequently, when you see the lawn greening up, as it did earlier this week, it is the end of mud season and the true beginning of spring. And yesterday the lawn was mowed for the first time.