We had such a long wet spring and now it has turned hot all of a sudden - I am having to water everything now.

My perennial plugs are doing great - but some (achillea, veronica and shasta daisy) are trying to bloom on such short stalks - possibly they are affected by the day length? I am wondering if I should pinch off the blooms and let them grow some more. Some of the Penstemon 'Husker Red' is just about to bloom too. I have never grown this variety - can't wait to see what the flowers looks like. My lavender premier buds are just about to open. Some of the hypericum is blooming and one of my achillea paprika is just turning color - I have never grown that color before and it looks like it will be a winner. I can't wait to dry some to see if it keep its color well.

Finally got the electric to my little shop and have been decorating and filling the shelves with some of the botanical treasures I have collected over the years. Been having fun making dried flower arrangements. I had some tall grass growing in some variegated vinca and when I weeded it the seeds heads were so nice I decided to dry them - they look like they will be great in dried arrangements.

My roses are spectacular this year - except two tea roses planted last year have put on lots of buds but the buds droop over and don't open - at first I thought it was gophers - but now I think it is some type of soil born fungus? I am hoping they recover.

My two year old large clary sage wilted and never recovered - I do have volunteers - I said months ago I don't get any volunteers here - but I guess I spoke too soon - because I have clary sage, hollyhocks and some oreganos that have re-seeded themselves in my herb garden and they are helping to fill out the gaps.

I planted one gallon abelia last year and they have grown huge. I will have to plant some more of them. My westringa has been blooming for almost three months now - another great growing shrub for foliage here.

Bye,
Linda

I have been too busy to actually write a about it much. Graduating my daughter from college took out a lot of time as did my two weeks sick with that coughing virus that still occasionally sets me off.

However, my nicest Mother's Day gift is that my DH rototilled my new English rose garden last night! Not easy as I did not really leave enough space for the tiller to turn but I have it about as good as I can get it and my spading fork will help me get the rest. I also planted lilies around each rose bush and have more to set out so can do that when I finish th weeding.

We have had an ideal spring here, cool and sunny with occasional rain. My tulips were fabulous this year and I just used or threw out the last of them for my Mother'sDay bouquets. The new garden space give me much needed room but goodness, how fast it fills up! Onee row for tulips, one for Daffs, one for early planted ones like larkspur and nigella, bells of ireland, and agrostemma. Then there were all my snapdragons that I could use...mostly madam butterfly as I just used up an old pack of costas and hope to plant more of them later. I set out 44 dahlias from my old dahlia garden but have about 85 more to find spaces for. I can probably get 60 in the old dahlia garden but may be building new beds in the sunniest spots! Haven't planted zinnias and suns here yet but the temp is still hitting high 30's at night. Yesterday I set out lots of dianthus; oeschburg, sweet white, sweet and electron. I have a lot more of sweet if I can figure out a place for it, also, a lot more electron plants. I should have given more seedlings to the land trust sale but hadnt gotten that far yet!

The peonies I planted 3 years ago are budding up nicely! Looks like I will be inundated with them shortly! :-) Thats what happens when we get obsessed!

My Mothers day bouquets had the last of the tulips with white or purple lilac, or white wisteria, dutch iris and other fillers as I could find them. Used the first 3 roses and the first 2 peonies.

So guess I better get to work if I am going to, having done church and Mothers Day lunch. BOne tired today but I know I will feel better when I get out to work.

Goshawk, thanks for starting the May chat and also thanks for the seeds you sent me! Haven't gotten as far as getting them in the ground yet but hope to this week.

I started the journals last year, Steve, for the same reason you stated. I really enjoy reading what you other growers have been up to. I'm glad you started this one for May. And, I always love reading about your native plants.

Our weather has been pretty much as you described. Warm, dry April. Cold, rainy last few days in May. So, here is an example of why we don't continue to grow lilies in the field:
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We had two night of 27-28 degrees, and a hard freeze the last week in April. Many fruit farmers lost crops. Asparagus growers will have a cutting later; but, nothing like their first cuttings would have been. These are usually bread and butter crops for many Michigan market farmers.

We purchased a new piece of equipment this season called a Middle Buster to dig the trenches for our dahlia tubers. No more "two men and a shovel." We started planting the tubers the last week in April. It took about a week to plant 15,000. We started with short rows going north to south shown in the photo. All of the other rows are 300 to 500 feet, and planted east to west. There are, of course, aisleways to break up the rows. Otherwise, it would be a long way to carry those buckets of dahlias.
{{gwi:621715}}

And, if you understand what I just wrote, good for you because I have this feeling that I am babbling.

Tomorrow we hope to start moving the annual plugs to the field. They are ready. We are ready. We've bumped them up to larger pots and cell flats until we just can't do much more. The celosia isn't supposed to get cold; and, it isn't supposed to dry out in the trays otherwise they get stunted. Well, they've experienced both. And, they're still going to the field.

I threw away 18 flats of Oklahoma zinnias planted in #72 trays. Sometimes they just get so nasty when started in the seedling greenhouse. One minute they are fine; and, the next they are cranky, diseased plants. Zinnias are just best direct seeded in the field.

We started 10,000 Sunbright Supreme in the greenhouse. And, the mice decided to have a party. They ate about 5 or 6 flats of seed that were near an outside wall at one end of the greenhouse. Good that we didn't have all the trays together. And, good that we discovered their little party plans and covered the other trays. We don't usually start the sunflowers in the greenhouse. Direct seeding has always worked for us. Our new neighbor has ALOT of birdfeeders; and, part of the field where we plant sunflowers runs behind their property. I was never concerned about the birds before. This year I add the concern about birds to my list of irrational fears.

You see I concern myself with the birds; and, then I don't have to think about the fact that we have no help. That is until the grandkids start arriving the first of June. At the moment, we are two people attempting to do the work of four. Every season has it's challenges. This one is no exception to the rule.

The flowering shrubs have been beautiful and abundant this year. Everything else seems to be pretty much on track. However, I think the Karma dahlias are 2 to 3 weeks ahead of last year.

I was going to post a picture of the minature glad, Nanus, we're growing in bulb crates. But, I guess one has to actually take the picture first before being able to post said picture.

We've also planted thousands of bulbs in 48" beds in the field. Acidanthera being one of the varieties, and one of my favorites. So, I guess we really have been more productive than we might think. Our bodies certainly say we have. And, we seem to be reaching for the bottle of Advil alot these days.

I'll be checking in from time to time during the next couple weeks. Time is going to be very precious.

Enjoy your moments in the sun.

Trish

Howdy all,

An update huh....

Well last year I lost 60% of my cherries to a frost. But I did ok with the lilacs. This year looks like a bumper crop with the cherries but only did so with the lilacs. What happen was it was so cold for so long that when it did warm up bam... everyone came online at once and market was flooded.

All the florist I had contact in the winter and stop by and talk to from time to time backed out. I only got a couple of good acc. Oh well.

Steve, I have not had alot of luck with sensation. Everyone loves the look but there is no smell to it. Everyone wants the smell. What I might have to do next year is sell at farmers markets. I can stand the though of this. I rather spend the day with my kids. If I wanted to work all day then I could just work an OT at work. But I want to sell flowers to florst etc and not have to spend all day at a market. Oh well...

As for the lavender it looks like a bumper crop, BUT NOW I HAVE TO SELL IT ALL LOL...

Lots more to write but I'm super busy. I will try to check the stie more often.

Also check out my new web site...

www.gatherafruitfulharvest.com

Still got more to do on it..

Take care and of course God bless,
Tim

Hi everyone! Steve - thanks for starting this. Lizalily...hope you're feeling better! Crazy here too...my daughter's in drama and last week was play week...plus dress rehearsals, etc. She had two shows on Sat. - my first market day...and the week prior I had to be out of town again...so am way behind...story of my life!

I am concerned about the other flower vendor at market...they brought around 15 buckets full of beautiful, uniform, tall dutch iris! Hummm...and a few fillers and early lilies. I suspect resellers...but people love the bunches, but I know with the flowers that "open" they won't last very long. I'm going to push locally grown and sustainable grown seasonal flowers...and I definitely don't arrange the way they do!

But, we're slowly planting! I have the specialty echinacea, campanula, and caryopteris from Terra Nova planted, need to get the euphorbia in. Planted 200 foxgloves tonight, planting half of the 1200 glads this week and will wait for 3 wks to do the other half. I too am expanding the woodies...but not on Steve's scale! But did add heather, more lilacs, viburnum, wiegela, and a few forsythia. I also decided to do lilies in crates...and have them coming every 3 weeks...I'm putting the crates over the spring bulb beds...with weed cloth over the beds...so hopefully will keep weeds down and get double use for the space!

It was 32 on Friday when I went to bed and last night it stayed at 65! It was almost 90 today...very unusual for us. Maybe it will warm up and I'll be able to direct seed some things! Usually mid-May is ok...but its been too cold at nights lately. Last year for Mother's Day, I had all sorts of flowers, this year I was struggling! Luckily the tulips I'd stored did great...and I cut buckets of crabapple blossoms from our former orchard, and added purple sensation alliums and a few early lilacs, so it was pretty.

Flowerfarmer...do you know if you can rent middle busters? Its worth bringing the tractor back from our orchard! I have 4 flats of Karma dahlias coming, plus the ones from last year and about 100 more I purchased earlier!

Steve - the asclepia seeds are up and so are the rattlesnake master...I have a friend starting the baptisia...so that will be later!

As my husband, the former fruit farmer, now part-time flower farmer says...that's farming! Take care everyone!

Wendy

15,000 Dahlias? 2 people? Your backs are in better shape than ours. We used a middle-buster plow in the vineyards in the fall to 'plough-on' the vines for winter protection, to bury berry moth eggs and for drainage to aid early spring cultivation. New ideas have eliminated the plough. The vines have tap roots and also surface roots, the ripening roots, which suffered annual plow damage. Now chemical spray is used to control weeds beneath the vines before the buds open, and insecticide for the bugs. The grass between the rows is kept mowed and acts as mulch. Flowerfarmer is located in a grape growing area and possibly has access to used equipment.
Doug

Tim, your website is great, the pictures of your family and flowers are wonderful. Congratulations on a job well done.

Some of the numbers of plants/bulbs everyone is talking about is staggering to me - I have all I can keep up with on my small plot. All of the backs must be stronger than mine.

I forgot to mention, I use a battery operated grass clipper/shear to harvest my lavender stems - not sure it will work for my other flowers but I might try it. I have one by American Gardener and one by Black and Decker. I clean the blades after each use and put a small amount of vegetable oil on the blades to lubricate them after cleaning.

Linda

Tx Input - work work work work work work. Looking forward to my first ASCFG regional mtg this weekend. I'm on the look out for a part-time employee, I can no longer do this all by myself. Had great spring crops but major Thrip problems, little buggers. Must put more time into IPM. Always learning and growing something new. Am very impressed with the Belladonna 'Oriental Blue' Delphiniums, what a performer and producer, will grow twice or three times amount next year. In process of having a 30' x 50' metal bldg built. I get about a quarter of it to wall in and be my work, storage area, will be building a much needed walk-in cooler probably 10x8 or so. Can't wait, can't keep flowers without it, fridge's aren't big enough. Anyways gotta get back to work work work work work work work work work. Hope everyone has a good season.
Cheers Kim
Billabong Fresh Flower Farm

Follow-up on the middle buster plough. It made its debut with the tractor in the vineyards replacing the horse. It took several years to realise that a horse would stop if the plough hit a root.
We agree with work work work. Seems like Belle and I divide our time taking pills, resting, and giving our plans TLC. We cut up milk jugs for markers, found that indelible pencil doesn't stick to plastic. We'll recognise them when they bloom. Following Trisha's advice all the biannuals are growing. It has rained for a week, too muddy to 'till and plant, we're only 8 feet above normal Lake Erie water level so it'll take a while to drain. We buried sunflower seeds wherever there was a dry spot, a couple here and there. We got Dahlias planted on the S.side of the house, one caged tomato plant so we'll have a few early. We have everything moved from plugs into newspaper planters, except basil, the place looks like a lending library. We moved some plants outside to harden off now they're forecasting possible frost tonight. Crazy! Have to tell the weather man our last frost date is Mothers Day, two weeks later than the mainland.
Our sweet peas are hoping to get out of jail. I planted too many in a flat, had to cut them in chunks like cutting a cake, they were so root bound. Got them in 4' pots, a tangled group. Waiting for my energetic son to drive in some 10 foot posts. He's a Captain on N.W. Airlines, he'll have to drive the posts at night to preserve his dignity.
My Ky. daughter visited this weekend, brought 50 gladiola bulbs, sprouting. Talked to mom, husband mowed the lawn with my riding mower. I'm more adept to riding my mower than planting 50 bulbs. Waiting for my energetic son, maybe!
Thank you Trisha and Jeanne.
Doug

Well, I sorted through my 80 gallon pots of dahlias and sorted out which I was planting with which. I decided to make my first double row the biggest ones, so got that 20 planted. Also planted hydrangeas at the back where it is too shady and rooty for dahlias and hope they like it better. I started these hydrangeas off of cuttings last fall of ones I already had that I thought would be good for cutting. One is pink and white and the other two are blue.

So I got my 20 Bigest dahlias into the ground. No power tools here. I have the next 20 sorted into my garden cart so that is tomorrow afternoons jobs. The dahlias are looking good and most have about 1" of plant above soil line. Couldn't beleive how hard and dry the ground was! I think they will get a bit of mulch around them as soon as the ground is well warmed.

We did up a wedding on Sat. IT turned out so pretty! The brides color was lavender. (Always seem to have a lavender wedding to do in May!) We used iris in shades of blue thru purple with deep purple lilacs and alliums and front and center on each alter bouquet was a purple tree peony flower with a deep dark center! T bride wanted a bouquet lilke we did last year for someone with lavender callas and purple tulips. We thought we were fine because our lavender callas had produced so many flowers last year. How naive! We eneded up spending $100 of our profit on callas. Do you know how much those babies sell for?! Then I had a pot of Garnet glow that opened at the last minute and was the same color! SO I walked around with my 8 lavender calla's going, "THese are worth over $24! Anyhow, the callas were utterly charming with white liliy of the valley, and the double lavender tulips and pale blue ribbons! This was in our church and we decided that the entry hall needed something so my Garden Partner brought an heirloom crystal bowl and we floated double tulips and lilac petals in it. It was quite charming and oh so easy!
Many compliments on the flowers today!

I ordered 200 dutch iris bulbs in yellow from one of our suppliers in Holland. IT is always amusing to find how they interpret out orders. These were yellow in bud, then opened out to white on ntop and golden yellow below, and now the top is blushed with blue and I think it is "Oreintal Beauty." And I have about 300 (yes, I swear they multiplied!)of them left! The alliums are blooming with them (Purple sensation and Gladiator) so we are selling them as fast as we can, and all of our subscription customers get these along with the first roses tomorrow.

Weather has been quite nice so I can't complain when seeing what the rest of the country is having. I got rained on when picking this afternoon but that was rather a novelty.

I have been putting off my update because it grieves me so...

We are still not in our house, for all the various and sundry reasons that always make renovations go overschedule. But one of the reasons was that our well pump went out, and we weren't able to get it repaired until last week.

So what that all means is that I have no flowers growing in my prepared field. My 32 flats (which is a lot to me!) of seedlings are blooming in miniature on the back porch. Doing beautifully, considering that they're rootbound. And I am learning from watching them, as I have learned from each step of the process this year.

I don't think that we will be in the house for another month at this point (another long story...), and the renovations are taking up too much of my time for me to direct-seed anything before then. So, I am trying to see this year as a soil-building and learning, learning, learning year. I am continuing to read everyone's posts and learning. Sigh.... this has been so hard for me to let go of for this year. Even though I know it means I will just be better prepared for next year. And I know it's most important to finish the house, so it's the right decision -- I just have to grieve a little over it.

Everyone's seasons sound so interesting! I will surely learn a lot as I continue to read throughout the summer. Even if I don't post, know I am reading...

April

May is almost gone, and here I just noticed this thread! Oh well, better late than never.

Just came back from a 4-day trip of nursery-visiting with LizaLily. Oh my, what fun! We saw (and drooled over) Heirloom Roses and Schreiner's fields of iris and Adelman's peonies and Sebring's hoophouses of hostas and lots of miscellaneous stuff. I was proud of only buying one rose, two peonies, and a few smaller misc. things, but will probably order lots of iris and peonies. We got rained on everywhere we went, but didn't care.

In the garden, the bearded iris are about to start blooming, with the peonies maybe a couple of weeks behind them. My Russell's lupines are throwing a party - there are some on the kitchen island and the dining room table. My Cherry Rose sunflowers are opening in the greenhouse. They're new, from Pinetree, and superfast. They are a good two weeks ahead of Premier Light Yellow, the fastest sunflower I've grown up until now. They are small, but the plants have lots of nice long branches, so maybe they will be worth the greenhouse space. The Oriental Blue delphs (I agree with Kim, they're GREAT!) should open in a few days, along with the very first blooms from my Baptisia australis. I got Sweet and Amazon dianthus and Opopeo and LLB amaranths and Bells of Ireland and statice and helipterum and strawflowers (helichrysum or bracteata, depending on where you read it) and a bunch of sunflowers planted out last week, just before leaving for the nurseries trip. It was rainy and cool while I was gone, so my husband didn't have too hard a time keeping things watered; all he had to worry about was the greenhouse, and that's easy with the drip and sprinkler systems in there. So I came home to a lot of happy plants, and the first lupines and sunflowers to cut.

My veggies are doing better than anticipated (I'm growing most of them for the first time this year), but I won't bore a bunch of flower growers with veggies! Suffice it to say that I'm learning how to plant just a few radishes and lettuces at a time - very few. The chickens are getting LOTS of radishes and lettuce.

Jeanne

Hello...as we end the month!
This weekend was a 4-day planting weekend! Planted delphiniums, tithonia, and ageratum plugs, the Karma dahlia flats, and 7 60 x 4' rows of "regular" dahlhias! I'd say I'm about 1/2 done...but, the rest are plugs or seeds, no heavy digging!

My russell lupins have been fabulous too Jeanne...I love them, some were over 4' tall...and my one hotel customer bought 80 stems! It sure helped my late spring sales and buoquets as well. They went great w/purple sensation alliums, siberian iris, lilacs, perennial scabiosa, knautia, and whatever greenery I had!

I'm just cutting peonies and bearded iris each night, and the oddball dutch iris. Then planting what I can.

I have pics to post tonight of the peonies and dahlia spot...but that's later!

Have a great June everyone!
Wendy