Happy Friday Y’all!

Exciting news for us!  Mandy and Rachel have been working with the good folks at Brown Parcel Press for almost a year now to really elevate and beautify our seed packages, and they are finally ready to share!

Introducing our new seed packet designs!

We never really intended to be a seed company, but so many things changed for us during the pandemic, due to significant family medical issues that kept us from returning to markets. When we shifted away from farmer’s markets, we stopped growing tons of beautiful varieties of flowers that don’t ship well. Most of them were grown by seed, so we had a ton of seed sitting around at the same time that supply chains were broken and other growers were desperately looking for seeds. There was a general panic happening at that time, and we got lots of DM’s and emails from other growers asking if we had any extra seeds or knew where to get some. So we started packaging up our seeds and selling them to other growers.

What started as a solution to an unforeseen set of complications, became another way to get our favorite varieties of flowers out into the world, while providing more climate controlled work for our field crew. Our seed packing is all done by hand, and we love to use it as a way to keep our field crew employed and comfortable during extreme temps. When it’s freezing out, we fire up the heaters, bring the crew inside and keep them warm, dry, and chatty around a seed table. When it is jungle hot outside, we bring the team into the a/c and have them process and pack seeds in the cool air. It’s also something they can do during the seasons when our field work is slow and we can pad their hours that way. So as the demand for our seeds has increased, we’ve found a wonderful opportunity for it to benefit our crew in multiple ways.

We love to share our favorite flowers for others to grow!

Since it began as an afterthought, we never really leveled up our beautification or branding of the seed packaging. In general, we always focus on function and sustainability first. As this endeavor has grown though, Mandy’s been itching to make our seed packs something that will give folks that little inner twinkle you feel when you get something beautiful in the mail.

I think they nailed it. They are pretty adorable.

If you didn’t know we sold seeds, we do, but just the flower varieties we love the most. We aren’t selling veggie seeds. We sell all the varieties that we found to be the very best cut flowers in our decade of selling flowers at markets, decorating restaurants, and doing weddings and events.

‘Ms. Marilyn’ Forget-Me-Not seeds are bred by 3 Porch Farm!

We did develop a very special variety of ‘Ms. Marilyn’ forget-me-nots and we produce and harvest our own lunaria, jewels of opar, and formosa lily seeds, as well as a few more. The rest of the seeds we offer are produced by other seed farmers that focus on specialty varieties.  If you’ve considered growing a few flowers in the yard, go ahead and check them out.  You might find something beautiful you’d like to share space with and be inspired by.

Fall Dahlia Subscriptions are ready – a great Mother's Day gift!

Mother’s Day is around the corner and though we may not have a ton of flowers by that point (see last week’s discussion on weather/climate), we are opening our pre-sales for our Fall Dahlia Subscriptions today!  That’s four weeks of stunning boxes of dahlias beginning in early September and going into October.  

If a subscription is not your thing, we will likely have a modest amount of flowers for Mother’s Day, but won’t be overflowing with bounty like we’ve had in years past.  There will be some peony offerings and possibly some campanula, but the lion’s share of everything else has finished early this year and what we do have will probably sell out really quickly.  Wish it were different and we could provide enough for everyone, but we are very much subject to the whims of nature.

The exquisite layers of a peony bloom!

Today marks the end of the last of our spring subscriptions, so we are gonna thank our crew for all their hard work with a little fiesta the whole afternoon. Food, drinks, music, bocce ball, and general merriment. So if you come by the store and hear hootin’ and hollerin’ its probably just Naw Dee Poe and Marry kicking our butts at bocce once again.

A bit of rain here tonight, but the rest of the weekend looks lovely. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Steve