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...

Howdy folks,   Frostmas has come and the dahlia plants are melting in the fields.  The butterfly filled fields are filled no more.  The tunnel alarms kept us awake from 4 a.m. on this morning as the inevitable annual kinks need to be worked out of the system.  In fact, one alarm is going off right now as I write this Thursday evening.  I’ll be off shortly to try and sort it out.    We are about to get ready for an overhaul in our propagation house, but have been waiting out the unfolding of nature. Some Passionflower vine took hold in our propagation house and we let it run wild to serve as a host plant for Gulf fritillary...

Hi folks!   Beautiful fall lately, but it’s about to get weird around here.  Heading back up into the mid 80’s for a bit, before finally falling down into a likely killing frost next Wednesday.  So, I guess you should grab your swim suits and head to the pool or the mucky Georgia pond you like to swim in with the snakes.  Or gators.  Depending on how south you are.  Mandy grew up with the occasional gator in her swimming pool down in Richmond hill.  Marsh girl.  Maybe just run through the sprinklers or cut off your sleeves.  Then grab a jacket.   Anyways, the store is open, but we are closing up Thursday and Friday at 4:00 now since...

Hey y’all!  Happy Friday! For those of you who came out to support The Plate Sale at last Saturday’s dinner in the dahlias….Thank you!  What an amazing evening!  Beautiful weather, beautiful flowers, beautiful smiles, and amazing food.  Thanks so much for being a part of it.  Keep an eye out for more events they are putting together.  I hear whispers of another special evening a bit further south coming soon. We also wanna thank Daniel Dent for accepting a last minute request to share his talent and expertise with us and photograph the whole evening.  We can’t wait to see the photos! My older brother and his lovely family just showed up late last night and the kids have never...

       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...

Monarchs are back!  Didn’t see many this spring, but they seem to love our dahlias, so they are here on their way back down south for the peak of dahlia season and I couldn’t be more pleased about it.  They really seem to love the singles the most.  If that doesn’t make sense to you, flowers are often categorized as singles or doubles.  Singles are flowers with a single layer of petals, whereas doubles have two or more layers of petals around and covering the reproductive parts (Stamen, stigma, etc).   Most dahlias you’re familiar with are a form of doubles.  We do grow a fair amount of singles though, but we rarely sell them.  Cute as they are, they...

Happy Friday once again!    The days and weeks just keep slipping by so rapidly I feel like I’m in a montage without the soundtrack.  Sunrise is later, sunset is earlier and deadlines fast approach.      Some spring flowers have already been planted!  Tunnel 3 is full of ranunculus and tunnel 1 is half planted with them too.  This is the earliest we’ve ever planted.  We’ve found that ranunculus, anemones, and butterfly ranunculus are all more successful when pre-sprouted before planting and this year’s attempt at doing so was ever-so successful that we’re weeks ahead of schedule and they demanded to be put in the ground immediately.   Wasn’t the plan, but plans schmans.    Speaking of which, we just barely got...

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...

Buongiorno a tutti! Two big items to share today.    1st: The Farm Store is back open and it is beautiful!  Just last week the store was a bare bones shed with literally nothing in it.  Then, I lost sight of my wife for four full days and nights and all of a sudden, it’s the most charming cozy nook I’ve ever seen!  I don’t know how she does it, but it’s just so damned captivating in there.  Every square inch has something unique and charming and is beautifully arranged on tables, in shelves, or dangling in space.  I just don’t have the vision to bring something like that together.  I get more and more aware of the depth of forethought...