Happy Friday y’all!

Still too hot and too dry out! Bless a milk cow, it’s hot. I’m sure your plants are struggling if you’re in the area. Hang in there. We may get down to 90 for a day or two next week (crazy to think that 90 is a reprieve)…then back up again. The sun is getting lower in the sky though. There will be respite in the coming weeks. Won’t there? Please let there be respite.

After a few years of well deserved hiatus, Mandy is getting a bit more active on Instagram again to share info on plant care.  Mostly stories.  If you’re on IG, follow along.  She’s a peach.

If you’re off socials, I’ll give ya some of the deets here.  In addition to singing the praises of Jewels of Opar, she recently gave tips to mum growers for this time of year.

Today she did some scouting in the mum tunnels and as anticipated, found budworm in the plants, so sprayed with Spinosad.  Those little buggers spin a little shelter called a hibernacula in the newest most tender leaves of our mums.  They then commence to munching salad.  Spinosad is an organic option that works well on them, quite quickly.  You can use Bt also, but it's a bacteria that takes a few weeks to work.  Spinosad tends to be preferable on our farm these days due to its immediate effect.  Remember to take a look at our heirloom mum growing guide for tips we've learned from our many years of growing mums.

She also mentioned that the plants went through a significant growth spurt this week as the season is changing. Is it? Yes…it really doesn’t feel like it, but the evening sun is reddening. It’s also getting to the perfect angle to tag our dangling crystal prism and spray rainbows all over our living room. The setting sun is lovely this time of year despite its exhaustingly persistent evening heat.

But I digress, the mum plants are effected by day length, and they are clearly beginning to prepare for flowers. Stems are forming and lengthening, and the earliest varieties are beginning to form buds. We added a second layer of netting this week, because nothing’s worse than a massive 90 degree flower. Even Ikebana can’t do much with that mess.

It’s a lot easier to put the netting up early and let the plants grow through it, then it is to come in later and try and wrestle netting over big bushy plants. If it's your first grow…remember, they can get really big. Hopefully you topped them a bunch like we recommend. Otherwise you’re gonna get one super tall flower. That could be fun though. Just bring a ladder.

This is grasshopper season too. We’ve heard from at least one farmer who got major damage from them in her mums. They aren’t terrible for us, but we do find them munching our mums a little bit. Mandy lets the guinea fowl in the tunnels when we find grasshoppers. They hit their daily protein quota early on those days.

The Farm Store is back open Thursday - Saturday for the fall season!  Our regular hours are Thursdays & Fridays from 10am-3pm and Saturdays from 9am-1pm.  This Saturday, however, our neighbor is hosting their annual dove hunt early in the morning, so we are delaying opening by an hour and will be open from 10a-1p. Due to the heat, we’ll gingerly add dahlias a bit at a time.  If you arrive and they’re sold out, call the number on the door and we’ll bring fresh ones to you.

Our Fall Plant Sale starts Saturday online at 8 a.m.  This is a pre-purchase sale online.  No plants will be at the store.  You select your veggie plants online, select your pickup day/time, and we’ll have the order put together and waiting for you at that time.  We do not ship these plants.  This is for local pickup only.

For folks coming to Comer, Julia at Oasis Market (2 doors down from Comer Coffee) is now preparing sushi Tuesday – Saturday.  Julia is the sweetest.  We can’t wait to try it this Saturday.  Drop in and grab some rolls and tell her Mandy sent ya.

By the way, Mandy’s mom, the amazing potter and all around delight Linda Rovolis, says “bless a milk cow” and a million other colloquialisms that I’ve never heard before. They just fall out of her mouth without effort. I began writing them down 5 or so years ago because they tickle my brain, and after knowing her for 20 years, you’d think I’d have heard 'em all. But I indeed have not.

Some parting Linda-isms for you:

“They’re as heavy as homemade sin.”

“The definition of eternity is two people and one ham.”

“This humidity would take a fish down.”

And the newest one I just heard…”You can’t even go to hell without having to go through Atlanta (in reference to traffic)."

Wishing you all a refreshing weekend at a crystal clear swimming hole. Wishing you’ll also invite me. Wishing there’ll be a blender full of piña coladas as well. Ciao for now!

Steve