Hi y’all!  This week has been fun.  We got our old buddy Ty back with us for awhile and Kali is in her second week in the studio and is doing great!   Ty Brooks worked with us for a couple of summers almost a decade ago and went on to get his Master’s in Sustainable Ag and start his own Peach and Pumpkin farm, Lazy Summer Farm, in Athens.  He’s helping us out a few days a week in the fields and tunnels and we’re really excited to have our friend in the fields with us again.   Kali Jones helped run one of our absolute favorite flower shops, Adaptation in Atlanta, and was a customer of ours for 7 years,...

The daffodils are blooming in speckled spots of cream and gold throughout the landscape, their delicate scent inviting you closer and giving you incentive to pause.  Mandy declared that this year, these flowers would be for all of us on the farm crew to enjoy.  They are always the first to bloom and always the first to be cut, but this year they’ll get to spend their whole time blooming exactly where they were born.  Filling our senses with their charms, instead of filling buckets for processing.  It may seem an obvious choice at a glance, but it’s an existential question every small farmer makes.  Do I deserve the fruits of my own labor?  Can I afford the fruits of...

  Hi y’all!  We’ve been hinting at it for awhile now, but today’s the day!  We’re announcing this new seed that we are super excited to be spreading out into the world!  For 5 years Mandy has been working on this project that started with the passing of the woman who married us.  My dear cousin and our amazing friend and life mentor, Marilyn.  She lit up every room she ever entered and raised every spirit in that room.   At her celebration of life, we were gifted a packet of wildflower seeds to plant in her honor. Instead of scattering them in the yard, Mandy planted a dedicated row to really honor her and watch the phases of growth.  In the...

Hey y’all!   So, the new seeds we were going to announce aren’t quite ready to go yet, so we’ll catch ya next week with that, but we do have something that we are excited about that we’d like to share with you.   A big part of our mission in life is to try and do good things in our community and to surround ourselves with people who work towards that same end.  To be in the presence of people whose inner light shines outward with goodwill towards others is so uplifting and energizing and I can’t think of two better examples of this approach to life than Mike and Shyretha Sheats of The Plate Sale.   We first met them and...

Hello out there! I’m gonna be brief today as I’ve got a bunch of broken things to fix and seemingly no time to do so. We’re in the middle of reviewing applications and conducting interviews for a couple of jobs out here and have come across some promising people.  It’s always nice to meet good folks and we’ll keep you abreast of what’s happening and introduce you when we get the team together.  We’re excited for fresh faces and energy! Big news for Hellebore fans.  We will be having a second sale, but it has been pushed back to the end of February, so you folks in the colder planting zones will have less stress in protecting them through the...

Hey hey y’all!   Busy as usual out here.  This week we have cut back the old leaves of thousands of hellebores peppered throughout our two acre woodland, divided thousands of dahlia tubers in stacks of crates in the basement, weeded the peony plants on one of the terraces down below the store, finished painting the cabin, built tons of racks and started making preparations in the propagation house for all the mum cuttings we’ll soon be taking and worked on various other odds and ends in the fields and tunnels.   We’re also running around taking inventory of all the billions of bits and bobs we need in order to be prepared to get through the busy, busy spring.  Of course...

Happy New Year y’all!!  We’re gearing up for a beautiful flower filled 2023 and are looking for a couple of special people to join our team from February through June.  One very organized person to lead our flower bundling/shipping operations and one person to be a Jack/Jill of all trades on the farm.  The first position is largely indoors, while the second is largely outdoors.  Both require great physical health, mental acuity, and a positive and kind attitude.      These are paid positions and not internships.  We are very much looking for people with real work experience and a strong work ethic.  It is a fast paced work environment with tight deadlines, but a completely friendly and supportive atmosphere.  It’s critical...

We’re nearing the end of the year and our employees have all stepped away for a couple weeks to take some much deserved time away with friends and family.  The farm is a wonderful place to spend your days, but a solid chunk of time away from it always refreshes the spirits.    Speaking of refreshing your spirits, we hosted our employees and their families for a year’s end appreciation party and it was a lulu.  Naw Dee Poe and Eh Plaw showed up with about 15 young kids we weren’t expecting and it quickly upped the fun level.  We made them break into teams and put them in either funny wigs, or funny glasses.  The winners of the 1st round...

  When the pandemic initially hit, lockdown happened, and everybody in the world sort of stopped for a bit to try and figure life out in this new paradigm, something beautiful happened out here. All our neighbors, from different walks of life, religions, political views, ethnicities…all started looking out for each other in ways I’d never experienced in this life. For the better part of 2 years, Mandy and I didn’t go to a grocery store. We grew vegetables and fruit and plants for gardens and shared them with our neighbors.   Frequently, different neighbors would bring us 20 lbs or more of sausage and beef, or 4 flats of eggs. Others would bring us gallons of milk. Always, we were checking...

  It’s another rainy day in North Georgia.  When market customers would lament rainy conditions with me, they would often catch themselves and say, “oh, but I guess it’s good for you.  Farmers love rain right?”   I guess that is partly true.  We probably appreciate rain more than the average person, but once the aquifers are replenished and the plants are hydrated, its appeal diminishes significantly.  Too much rain makes it impossible to use a tractor. It also makes working in soil on foot incredibly difficult and messy, and actually compacts the soil which is bad for microorganisms and plant health. With shorter and colder days, fields often don’t dry out during wet winters. If it’s super wet for months at...