Happy Friday y’all!

It’s been another hot one with the heat index stuck in the 100s for most of the week. We’re trying to get most of the field work done by 1pm and either head to shade and fans, or let folks cut out early after that. It’s just unhealthy to cook yourself daily if you don’t have to.

We’re in the dahlias lately, finishing more weeding, adding netting and support strings, fertigating with nutrients, and adjusting irrigation settings/mitigating problems. Some of the plants are definitely stunted by the heat and other sections that were planted earlier, or got more shade and water, are as lush and healthy as we could ever hope for. Pest pressure seems low now that Japanese beetles are gone and peak thrip pressure is past, so we are getting eager for some real beauties to start filling our buckets. I fixed the faulty walk-in cooler this morning and got it going with its first 3 buckets of pretty blooms.

As I mentioned last week, there’s still too much field heat in them to feel comfortable selling them, but we’ll try and get some blooms to Comer Coffee Co. this Saturday morning for your viewing pleasure.

While some of the dahlias are thriving in the heat, some are being overly taxed in the field and starting to bloom, so we went ahead and cut these dahlias back this week so they can grow healthy and less heat-stressed blooms moving forward. We composted these dahlias to be part of the life cycle of future plants and flowers on the farm.

Our mum sale started today for those on the waitlist, so we're live!  If you are on the list and missed your email, check your spam and promotions folders.  If you aren’t on the list, you can check out a preview of the sale so you know in advance what you want to purchase when the sale goes live to the general public this Sunday at 8am.

PSA: Knowing what you want in advance gives you a competitive edge. Things sell out, so a quicker check out process is to your advantage.

Reminder…holding it in your cart does not secure it as yours. Only checking out secures that it's yours, so if its important to you, don’t keep items in your cart and wander away expecting it to still be available later. If you aren’t picky about the ship date, this won’t be as much of an issue to you. You’ll have more options for later dates if your first choice sells out. If you’ve got your plans dialed tight though…this will be helpful info for you.

What else…? Mandy is generally the only one of us working outside from morning til night. She comes in beet red periodically to hydrate and drop the core temp. 20 minutes later, she’s back out for more. What can I say? She’s built different.

Karmen and Rachel are doing a massive overhaul of our website so our collective new AI overlords will be able to find our site and our info to share with the world and the new way that people access information. A lot is moving fast as you all know. Especially pricing. We’ve worked really hard to keep our price raises at a minimal despite our significant increase in overhead due to tariff impacts on supply chains and now fuel surge premiums as a result of the war. The Covid impact on supply prices was tough enough, but these latest stressors are really hitting us and every small business owner I know incredibly hard. It’s definitely a squeeze over here, but we’re working to be more efficient, produce more product, and reach more customers so we can continue to stay a viable business while shrinking our margins, in an effort to avoid passing on the bulk of those price hikes to y’all. You might see some small increases here and there, but they are the tiniest fraction of what we’re actually paying on the supply side. We’re really trying.

To that end…we are always grateful when our customers share our info with others if they like what we offer and how we conduct our business and steward our land. Word of mouth is super helpful.

Last but not least, Sarah is training Grace to seamlessly take over the role as Mum Manager. She’s been Sarah’s right hand for the last 3 seasons and is the best candidate we could have imagined to continue to grow this project for the coming years. Sarah has a big brain for spreadsheets and systems and is kindly sharing the nuances of the zeros and ones with Grace to round out her already exceptional understanding of all the physical processes each day, week, and month requires. We’re excited for Grace to take this over and excited for Sarah’s next phase. Rumors of potential book(s) are being whispered. We’re grateful for all she’s brought to the farm and wish her success and happiness going forward.

Stay cool out there amigos.  We're looking forward to our weekly dose of Norman Rockwell style coffee time tomorrow morning.  If you're in the area, in addition to the coffee shop, the Comer Farmer’s Market is still going, so is The Comerian and Neat Pieces Antiques, and we’ll be opening the Farm Store again for dahlia season on September 3rd!

Cheers!

Steve