Happy Friday y’all!

I’ve been wearing a sweatshirt this week. I feel like I’m somewhere else or somewhen else. A chilly May in Georgia is more welcome than it is common. I’ll keep my beanie and my hoodie close at hand and be grateful for cooler temps as long as we get 'em.

Maxine's peonies after 7 days in the vase with her smart refrigerator trick!

We got an email from a customer yesterday with 3 photos showing how beautiful her peonies looked 7 days after receiving them. Now, peonies are inarguably some of the most beautiful flowers in the world, but they aren’t known to last forever. In her case, she was tickled with the fact that hers still looked only 2 days old due to a clever tactic she employed. Whenever she slept or left for work, she’d put them in the fridge, thereby all but suspending their progress and making sure she got to witness all of their beauty as it unfolded during her present and waking hours. Some flowers are ethylene sensitive and might be adversely affected by fruits and veggies in the fridge, but peonies are not, so this technique could quite possibly stretch the vase life of peonies for weeks. I’m super curious to know how long she gets them to stay beautiful. Thanks for sharing Maxine!

Inspiring stories and floral-filled pages in “the Flower Farmers”

A lovely book we are featured in is now on bookshelves and available for purchase!  It’s called “the Flower Farmers” by Debra Prinzing & Robin Avni. It is filled with gorgeous photos of a specialty flower from each farm as well as tips for how to grow, or where to buy, that flower.  Additionally, it puts a spotlight on flower farmers and their operations from all over the country, so you may find an amazing new flower resource in your neck of the woods.  Ever the evangelist for beauty and goodness, Debra founded the Slow Flowers movement, inspired by the Slow Food movement, to bring increased sustainability, appreciation, and attention to domestically grown flowers and the amazing diversity of blooms that can be grown locally but can’t be found through conventional wholesalers.  Her mission is beautiful, and this book she composed with Robin is a gorgeous testament to her years of hard work.  The photos of 3 Porch Farm were taken by the talented Daniel Dent, out of Athens.

Cover crops providing organic matter AND telling us about the soil!

On the farm, tunnels are being changed out from spring crops to cover crop. In addition to adding organic matter, which is great for plants, cover crops help us see how healthy the soil already is. We can examine growth patterns to spot nutrient deficiencies, see issues with compost, and on more than one occasion, identify allelopathy in our flower beds.

Allelopathy is a phenomenon in which one plant will excrete chemicals from its roots (or leaves) into the soil to prevent other plants from growing. It is a competitive advantage that allows the plant to utilize all the surrounding nutrients without having to share with other plants. Cover crops like buckwheat have helped us determine where underlying tree roots were excreting these very chemicals and inhibiting successful growth of our flowering crops. On such occasions, we had previously noticed issues with our flowers, but the trends were much faster and clearer with a cover crop. It not only confirmed our suspicions but showed us quite clearly where the offending roots were growing.

Eleagnus is here, just in time for spring weddings & events!

Eleagnus is back on the menu for all you wedding designers looking for a hardy leafy green vine to drape off your chandeliers and arbors.  It holds out of water no problem for days, so it is perfect for weddings and events.  It was our secret weapon for years when we did weddings.  We dripped it off of everything….tables, tents, church pews, even a classic old car for a magazine shoot.

The Farm Store is open and stocked with fresh flowers and fantastic gifts!

The Farm Store will be open this weekend with a ton of perfect gifts for Mother's Day.  We’ve also got some Mother’s Day bouquets in the Farm Store.  We have a limited amount and if they sell out, they sell out, so don’t dilly dally if that is your main goal.  Vase shoppers – to answer a question we get a lot – if there are decorative flowers in the vase you buy, you get to keep the flowers too!

Fall Dahlia Subscriptions and Heirloom Mum plants – great for Mother's Day!

For you remote shoppers looking for last minute gifts for mom, we already shipped our last flowers for the week, but we have a handful of dahlia subscriptions left, gift cards for the mom who likes to make her own choices, and mums for the consummate gardener.

We’ll likely have a bit of campanula coming in for the next two weeks and aside from a bit of lavender in 3 or 4 weeks, that’ll be all for flowers until dahlias in late August.  We still have to plant those, so we have a lot of work ahead of us.  Mandy’s already done a lot out in the fields, but the fields need to digest that shredded cover crop a bit more before we can make beds.  And after we make beds, we have to let the weed seeds germinate, so we can hit them with the flame weeder before we plant the dahlia tubers.  Dahlias aren’t allelopathic, so we have to help remove some of their competition.

Keep an eye out for more campanula bunches on our website soon!

Looks like we’re getting a bit of rain here for a few days. It’ll be good to replenish the aquifers, accelerate the fields’ digestion, water the neighbors’ crops, and knock the dust off the solar panels.

If you come to Comer this weekend to shop for mom, there’s a brunch place that just opened up called Southern Drawl.  It’s right next to our little farmers market.  We haven’t made it yet, but I hear they serve bloody marys, so I might have to swing by after my weekly mocha at Comer Coffee.  A morning of mochas and marys. Sounds alright with biscuits and gravy.  On a rainy Saturday, I might just have to follow it up with a lil’ nap.  A lil pisolino as the say in the old country.

That’s it for me. I hope you all have a nice weekend!

Steve