Hey y’all,    We are out in the fields right now getting our workout and our wear out.  It’s dahlia digging time and we’ve got like 9,000 plants (roughly 2 acres) to dig up.  Fortunately the fields are pretty dry, so the earth isn’t fighting as hard to keep its potato bundles as it does during the wet years, but it's still a pretty laborious process.  Mandy and Rachel have been bumping 90’s hip hop and T Swift to smooth out the rough spots.    Here’s the process:  We pull up all the support netting and roll it up.  We pull out all the rebar support stakes and stack them up.  We do a high mow to take plant tops...

       How to address your mums for winter.   For the farmers that are new to mums, I’m reprising a post I made this week last year as we approached an early killing frost.  Those of you further north are likely experiencing “Frostmas” now, or soon, so here’s a few thoughts on how to help your babies:             Though the plants are relatively hardy, the flowers themselves do need frost protection.  Whether that is Reemay, Agribon, a tarp, a greenhouse, or sunroom is up to the grower, but unprotected flowers will get nipped by frost.  It is wise to take the insulative fabric off of the plant as soon as temps become favorable again.  Any...

Hideee ho neighborinos,   It’s more of the same out here.  Busy with lots and lots of dahlias and prep work for spring.  We’re also polishing up the place bit by bit in anticipation of the big dinner we’re hosting for The Plate Sale October 14th.  9 acres gets unruly pretty fast and cleaning up the yard for guests takes on a whole new meaning at that scale.   If you missed the prior announcement and aren’t sure what I’m talking about, check out the link for tickets to Dinner in the Dahlias here!   The first ranunculus and anemone corms are sprouting fresh roots and are ready to be planted…but the tunnels are not ready just yet.  To prep the tunnels,...

We are enjoying the bits of rain we’ve been getting the last few days.  So is the landscape and especially the dahlias.  Native to higher elevations in Mexico, they are a flower that prefers cool temps, especially in the evenings and they love rain.  If you’ve ever seen a field of dahlias in the pacific northwest, you’ve seen them at their happiest.  Down here in the sultry south, it took us 8 years of failure after failure to start to find varieties that were not only  beautiful, but were also tough enough to survive our relentless and punishing summers that seem to last half a year.  We keep trying new ones, but we’ve got our favorites in abundance out in...

Hi all,    Our employees were all excited to take today off as we slow down for summer and Mandy and I saw a slow down as an opportunity to replace some cabinets, but as soon as we pealed back one layer of the onion, we of course decided to tear apart our whole kitchen.  I think I had too much caffeine that day and the mood was high and the momentum was strong.  An exterior wall came down in the process. So, without an exterior wall (there was rot), we are exposed to wildlife, i.e. Biscuit, who keeps sneaking in and meowing all night to our great chagrin.  So I need to finish rebuilding that wall today so we can...

                              Farmy Stuff Happy Friday y’all!    It’ll be brief this week.  Long day’s got me tired (it’s Thursday night) and I’m re-watching “Growing Floret” Season 1, before I watch the new release of Season 2.  Anyone who likes flower farming enough to read this every week, would love her show.  It’s like going from stick figure farm stories to virtual reality.  It’s beautiful, inspiring, and possibly more importantly, very honest.  So much of the project/business based shows you see are almost like a montage in an 80’s hero movie.  Everything goes smoothly, gets done in a week, and looks seamless and beautiful at the end.  It’s mostly b.s.  Life rarely works like that.  It’s so much more compelling to see the...

  Happy almost weekend y’all!  A little rainy lately, but the cooler temps have been delightful.  I for one am happy to work in a light rain in April with temps in the 60’s and 70’s even if it means heavy jeans and soggy socks.  It feels like a gift to have a real shoulder season, unencumbered by immediate and persistent heat and mosquitos.   I’ve been spending part of each morning and evening harvesting the peonies in what is the most gardeny portion of our farm.  You can see a bit of it from the window of our farm store.  This section of the farm slopes down almost in the shape of a bowl, down towards the woods and if you...

We are looking at a potential frost here next week, so it seems like an appropriate time to talk about how to address your mums for winter.      Though the plants are relatively hardy, the flowers themselves do need frost protection.  Whether that is Reemay, Agribon, a tarp, a greenhouse, or sunroom is up to the grower, but unprotected flowers will get nipped by frost.  It is wise to take the insulative fabric off of the plant as soon as temps become favorable again.  Any cover that’s left on too long during a sunny day can cause heat stress and create prime conditions for disease to flourish.   As mentioned, the plants themselves can handle frost, but during a deep freeze, it’s...

                                  We’re back out in the fields, sweat pouring off us, making beds, pulling irrigation, organizing, laying out, digging in, and covering up our dahlias.  We’ve made surprisingly good progress in this heat.  Our team is good and getting better with each passing season.  The umpff we are losing with age, is offset by the wisdom gained from years of iteration.  Less vivacious, but more efficient. Cramping, tired, and sunburnt, we are excited to have thousands of dahlias successfully planted in raised beds.  When all is said and done, we’ll have about 8,000 in the ground.  Definitely our largest dahlia planting to date.     We’ve spent years isolating and multiplying the varieties that we...

  Yesterday we (minus me) began the annual process of digging all of our dahlia tubers.  As much as I love digging up thousands of roots, I got a hall pass because I’m building a hoop house for our poppies that need a home in short order.       I’m happy to say that the ladies made smooth work of it and reported the easiest dahlia dig in our farm’s history, despite having the largest quantity (by a factor of 2 over our previous record) that we’ve ever had.  We owe much of that good fortune to two factors.       The first is a new implement that acts as an under-cutter of sorts.  It’s like a big blade running horizontally that follows behind the tractor...